Sea Hunt merchandising copyright?

[Fibonacci]

I have some Sea Hunt merchandising ideas, mainly T shirts at this stage based on some iconic comic frames.

Sea Hunt's production company Ziv was purchased by United Artists in 1960.
Today, most of the rights to Ziv's TV shows are distributed by MGM Television, SFM Entertainment, and the Peter Rodgers Organization; some of them have fallen into the public domain.
Checking each of the above three links draws a blank for Sea Hunt...

Does anyone know who currently holds copyright on the original Dell Four Color comic books?
Even uber collector Alec Peirce doesn't seem to know... and I want to do the right thing legally.

From what I can determine, Dell Comics ceased publication in 1974 with a few of its former titles moving to Gold Key Comics... but these did not include Sea Hunt.

 

[KenGordon]

Leave them alone.

I have worked on stuff in the past that people regard as fair game to pirate now. Life is to short too go after them but it is annoying to see some parasites making money off your work.

Edited - please don’t take this as an attack. I see you say you want to do the right thing, my point is that just because YOU can’t find the owners doesn’t mean the stuff is free to take. In particular the IP has a potential future value you can’t evaluate and the right to exploit that value belongs to the owners of the IP. What appears to be old and unloved may be waiting for an appropriate exploration opportunity.