Eclipse Comics was an American comics company founded in 1977 by brothers Jan and Dean Mullaney, and was noteable for being one of the first US comics companies to offer creators royalties and ownership of rights. Under the oversight of editor Catherine "cat" Yronwode (who was married to Dean Mullaney from 1987-1993) the company expanded in the 1980s and, along with producing a lot of original material (including the crossover series Total Eclipse and new adventures of the British newspaper strip star Axa), also produced several reprint series' of British material which had originally seen print in Warrior magazine, including The Spiral Path, Axel Presbutton and Miracleman (that last was a retitling of Alan Moore's revived Marvelman series, and once the reprints ran out, Eclipse hired first Moore and then Neil Gaiman to continue the story; they also continued the Pressbutton saga in Laser Eraser and Presbutton Vol 1). Unfortunately, the company eventually ran into financial troubles when Mullaney and Yronwode's marriage broke down and most of the company's back issue stock was destroyed in a flood; unable to pay creators for work they had done, the company ceased trading in 1994 and filed for bankruptcy in 1995. The company's intellectual property rights were later acquired by Todd McFarlane, resulting amongst other things in a lengthy legal battle between McFarlane and Neil Gaiman over the ownership of the rights to Miracleman.
