Have you considered offering subscription to the magazine content through the website? I’d be interested in reading the full articles and cartoons online going back as far as you’ve digitized.

I live overseas in a small apartment and have no space to store magazines.

I know it’s been considered, but one of the stumbling blocks is that legally, making an archive available counts as “re-publishing” – and in countless libel cases going back 50 years, the Eye was forced to promise not to do that with various stories. It would involve an awful lot of “redacting”, which wouldn’t really make anyone happy…

What about the older cartoons, the older strips (who has the copyright on those?), the older books, the posters, the advertisments and the in-house printed matter (announcements, invitations etc.)? – is there any chance of seeing them online rather than occasional exhibitions (as at the V & A now)?

The cartoonists keep the copyright, Stephen – at least I hope so…

@Andrew Birch
Really? how quaint – I thought almost all publications these days, even the most right-on (eg The Guardian), insist on virtually complete control on material once it’s published.

Just because the Guardian do – and were the first and fiercest in doing so – doesn’t mean the Eye has to. Cartoonists keep their copyright, absolutely.

“I think the whole tone of the Eye demands that you’re a bit better than the people you write about.” – Ian Hislop, quoted in Private Eye, the First 50 Years…

Good to hear that there’s yet another thing that sets the Eye apart from The Grauniad (as you point out a *copyrighted* website – copyrighted by The Guardian, that is)

Did you manage to track down every Eye catoonist/cartoonist’s estate afterwards – are there any still “whereabouts unknown”?

When I worked for the Guardian, I was sent an enormous contract to sign – one clause of which forbids you from making disrespectful comments about the paper or any of its employees – that’s how right-on they are…