Public Domain Expansion continues.

This is a follow up to a post I made in January of last year, make sure to read it first.

https://mithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2024/01/popeye-and-betty-boop-should-be-next.html

Popeye is in the Public Domain now, but many aspects of his lore are not yet, most notable some key supporting characters like Bluto.

Some have made a thing out of the Spinach connection technically being added years later, but that lame Horror movie felt safe including it.  Since Spinach itself is a real vegetable that can't be Copyrighted there's a good chance including it in ways other then as a Power Up is probably fine.

Poopdeck Pappy will be one of the last major Popeye characters to enter the PD.  But on some level now that Popeye's in the PD can you really copyright the idea of having a character who looks like him but older and saying that's his Dad?  It's really just a matter of specific names, and 2000s Nolan style Popey adaptation wouldn't have included a name like that anyway.  (For years my ideal fan casting for Popeye's dad has been Michael Hogan most known for playing Colonel Tight in BSG 2004, but due to his recent Medical Concerns he may not be acting again in the future.)

Maybe you can try to argue the same thing about Bluto?  A Character who's at his core just Bigger Badder Popeye?  But I think that'd be a harder case to argue, and that no fans of the character would be happy with a version changed and renamed to avoid Copyright.

I want to return to the topic of the biggest next year entrant, Betty Boop.  I've recently learned she was originally an Anthropomorphic Dog and that the Character Design we usually think of when we hear the name isn't introduced till 1932.   Now I wouldn't be opposed to Mahou Shoujo Betty Boop also being a Dog Girl Furry.   But still what people really want to see won't be available till 2028.

Popeye and Betty Boop are among the next icons to enter the Public Domain

I think it ironically shows the victory of Copyright Holders that the characters we keep talking about looking forward to entering the Public Domain soon every January are the ones who are currently being constantly milked by their IP holders.

Popeye The Sailor and Buck Rogers from 1929 should enter the Public Domain next year (though some of their core supporting cast will take a few more years with Bluto not appearing till 1932), and then in 2026 Betty Boop and Bimbo from 1930 as well as Pulp Hero The Shadow, and then in 2027 Dick Tracey from 1931.  

These are characters who are just as important to the Early History of Comics and Animation as any Disney and WB owned characters and at the time just a much household names.  But because the owners of their Copyrights have been for various reasons unable or unwilling to do much of anything with them for several decades their Stars have diminished.

Popeye, Betty Boop and Bimbo should be important to Otaku like me because they were the initial main stars of Fleischer Studios.  Anime as I've said before has it's origins in various ways in how Japan was westernized during the Early to Mid 20th Centuries.  And part of what set dominant animation trends in Japan apart from what could have been was how people like Osamu Tezuka were more inspired by the work of Fliescher Studios then Disney or Warner.  If Tezuka is the Grandfather of Anime then they are Great Grandparents.

Anime is a diverse industry with countless distinct styles within it.  But when you break down the timeline and observe how indeed most of the dominant ones evolved at least in part from the style of Osamu Tezuka, you can also go back further and equally see his debt to the Flieschers, and see how in a lot of ways Betty Boop is the first Anime Girl (even an Idol given how she's often specifically a musical entertainer) and Popeye the first Battle Shonen.

Once the ability to use these characters is no longer limited I would really like to see Anime Fans and Creators on both sides of the Pacific take advantage of the opportunity.  I want to see a Mahou Shoujo Betty Boop with Bimbo as her animal mascot.  And I wanna see Popeye entered into some Tournament Arcs.

Thing is the falling into obscurity caused by what I've talked about above causes a lack of awareness that prevents their Public Domain Status from being taken advantage of as rapidly and speedily as we saw these last few weeks with Steamboat Willy.  Another character Fliescher Studios used a lot was Koko The Clown from 1919 and I haven't seen anything done with him yet.

Likewise Charlie Chan from 1925 should be in the Public Domain now.  Charlie Chan is a prominent example on the "Mexicans love Speedy Gonzales" TVTropes page making him a complicated relic of 20as and 30s American Pop Culture.  But in my view he could easily be fully reclaimed if it was Asian Americans themselves who reimagined the character for the 21st Century.  I would also hope there is an Asian Trans Woman among them to help prevent them from repeating the common Transphobic mistakes of the Detective Genre.

So let's start thinking about these important yet semi-obscure characters more when we think about taking advantage of the Public Domain.

I want some English Translations of Nobuko Yoshiya's work

Every piece of Japanese Prose literature labeled  "Light Novel" gets an English translation.  Even if they are often unlicensed Fan-Made Translations.  (I can't have beef with those, much of Paul Feval's work is in English only because of 19th Century piracy.)

Some Fan Translation communities exist specifically for Yuri, Fan Subbing Anime, and Scantalations of Manga, official and Doujins, and Yuri Light Novels.

But there is still no way to read the works of the woman who arguably invented the Yuri/Girls Love/GL/Shoujo Ai genre.  Nobuko Yoshiya.

And the irony is for many of her works there is no legal obstacle to making your own translation in America. Because much of it was Pre 1923 and thus automatically Public Domain in the US, including the single most important one, Yaneura no nishojo ( 屋根裏の二處女 "Two Virgins in the Attic", 1919).

Doesn't matter if it's not Public Domain in the country of origin.  Peter Pan and the KJV are not PD in the UK, but they are in America and how they're used reflects that.  The KJV is the Bible you can find in Dollar Stores, none of the Copyrighted ones are ever sold that cheap.

So, Yanerura no nishojo, Chi no hate made, and most of Hanna monogatari could be translated and reprinted in America by anyone with no worry of legal red tape.

Post Script:  I am going to read some books I've been meaning to read, and so will be taking a brief break from watching Anime.  Once I've read them I will make Reviews of them on Amazon and possibly share them here.

Update January 4th 2024: Since I wrote this Public Domain Day has become a thing and so even more of her work is PD now.  All of Hanna monogatari, and her Kuroshobi Magazine.

John Devil Expanded Universe

I want to talk here a bit about my personal plans for expanding on the John Devil universe in future writings.  

Many Golden Age Superheroes fell into the Public Domain.

Particularly those that were neither DC or Marvel.

This website chronicles them.
http://pdsh.wikia.com/wiki/Public_Domain_Super_Heroes
Golden Age Comic Book Superheros aren't all it chronicles, but that was it's initial premise.

Some characters' names are under Trademark (sometimes only because of similarity to a different character's names).  But that only hinders the ability to put their name in the title or on the cover of the work.

So basically there are plenty of Comic Book Superheroes out there you don't have to be either Warner Bros, Disney, Sony or Fox to make a movie out of.  But unless a character is as Super Iconic as Sherlock Holmes or Dracula, major Studios would rather use characters they can have complete control over.

What I mainly want to talk about right now however is how many Female Superheroes the Golden Age had.  They may have been handled in ways unsatisfactory to a modern Feminists, but this myth that Female Characters are inherently less likely to sell does not really seem to have been as much of a problem back then.

Characters like Miss Masque, Miss America and Miss Victory.

One thing I've often noted in my mind is about Kid Sidekicks.  Most sidekicks are the same gender as their mentor, however there are many female sidekicks to Male Heroes.  But I couldn't think of any examples of a Superheroine with a male Sidekick, like society can't handle the idea of a woman being the mentor to a young man.

That was until this website made me aware of the Black Cat and Black Kitten.  So there is one known example of at least one Female Hero and Male Sidekick team.

There was an Australian bat themed Superheroine in the late 1940s called Vampire.

Legacy of The Masque is a web-series that uses PD Superheroes.  Here is it's Facebook page.  I'd very much like to see more people try similar projects.

Many Charleton and Fawcett characters fell into the Public Domain.  In fact it seems even many of their characters DC regularly uses are PD in their original forms, but you just can't use any post Golden Age elaborations of their lore (and they're Trademarked).  Even Captain Marvel is listed on this site.  (Black Adam isn't).  On the Superheroine subject that includes Mary Marvel, (but not Isis, she was a 70s creation).

Another character DC owns the later history of but is none the less in the Public Domain technically is Phantom Lady.  It is in the case of this character that we know DC may try to sue even if they don't have a case.  So it's definitely something to be careful about.

A lot of the Golden Age characters of Timely Comics (later Marvel Comics) fell into the Public Domain.  But not their big three, Captain America, Human Torch or Sub Mariner, and their major supporting characters.

One such character is Miss Fury.

One ongoing plotline was Marla's adoption of Darron, the abandoned son of Erica Von Kampf and Gary Hale(Marla's former fiancé). Marla was unaware of the toddler's parentage but, she rescued him in Brazil from the brutal guardianship of Diman Saraf, who planned to use him in a deadly experiment. She was initially denied custody of the boy because she was a single woman, which broke her heart but, her courage and heroism in the rescue eventually won over the authorities. Marla was then, for the duration of the series, an unmarried woman with a child: a rather progressive scenario for a 1940s adventure strip

But the most interesting Timely character to me is The Blonde Phantom.

This was a post war character introduced in 1947, and her involvement in some Espionage related story-lines makes me feel it would have been very logical to include her in Agent Carter.  I suspect Marvel Studios and Disney don't want to make the PD Superheroes of the Marvel Universe part of the insanely popular MCU because they want all the movie stars they make to be ones they can completely control.

Sometimes I suspect the Blonde Phantom's look may have been inspired by The Domino Lady, but that's probably just me.

Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficer choose to change the name of the Arsene Lupin supporting character The Blonde Lady (La Dame Blonde in French) to The Blonde Phantom for their translation, Arsene Lupin Vs Sherlock Holmes: The Blonde Phantom.  I haven't gotten to read the book yet so I don't know the significance of that decision, but I do know that they are aware of the Timely character's existence.  The story is set in 1904, so it's not possible to imagine it as exactly the same character, but they are fans of the Wold Newton Universe concept.  The original French Novel and it's oldest English translation are both pre-1923 so totally PD, but the Lofficer translation is not PD, it is published by Black Coat Press.