So, how did you like Bonelli?
Bonehammer
I wonder what's the general opinion about the Italian comics Dark Horse
released. I like them a lot, expecially Nathan Never, but, of course,
being a "wop" I have the whole series to judge from.
Masterpieces? Crap? Too classic? Too new? Too little color?
Too long? Too small?
Let me know!
--
"No se Pol"
Coffee Genetist from Viva La' e Po' Bon City
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
mikal
> As from subject...
>I wonder what's the general opinion about the Italian
comics Dark Horse
>released. I like them a lot, expecially Nathan Never, but,
of course,
>being a "wop" I have the whole series to judge from.
>Masterpieces? Crap? Too classic? Too new? Too little color?
>Too long? Too small?
>Let me know!
>
I happened to go on a trip to Rome last year and first saw
these books. I even picked up a couple. So when Dark Horse
announced they were going to come out with translated
versions of these, I really looked forward to them.
After reading them, I find that I like Martin Mystery and
Dylan Dog the most. Nathan Never was ok. The format they
used was identical to the original Italian editions (digest
sized and black/white). I would really, really like to see
more of these characters.
So the format/size/style of the books are just fine with me.
I want more of Martin Mystery & Dylan Dog.
Michael R. Brown
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
Christopher J. Sypal
<emb021N...@email.mot.com> wrote:
>In article <7pbq2u$7b$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Bonehammer
><g500...@uts.univ.trieste.it> wrote:
>> As from subject...
>>I wonder what's the general opinion about the Italian
>comics Dark Horse
>>released. I like them a lot, expecially Nathan Never, but,
>of course,
>>being a "wop" I have the whole series to judge from.
>>Masterpieces? Crap? Too classic? Too new? Too little color?
>>Too long? Too small?
>>Let me know!
I thought they were fantastic. Well worth the price. It's great buying a
semi-thick book and getting a complete story out of it.
None of the stories were anything profound or deserved a major award,
however they all had a good, solid, entertaining story.
All in all, it is a great format that I would like to see more of, wether
imported or not.
>After reading them, I find that I like Martin Mystery and
>Dylan Dog the most. Nathan Never was ok. The format they
>used was identical to the original Italian editions (digest
>sized and black/white). I would really, really like to see
>more of these characters.
Actually I tended to like Martin Mystery best. Mainly because of the art.
However they were ALL very well done. I just wish Dark Horse would do
more.
-Chris Sypal-
{Christopher J. Sypal -- csy...@radiks.net}
[ The Domestic Anime CD Guide ]
[ http://www.radiks.net/csypal/cds/ ]
Duke Harrington
Bonehammer wrote in message <7pbq2u$7b$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> As from subject...
>I wonder what's the general opinion about the Italian comics Dark Horse
>released. I like them a lot, expecially Nathan Never, but, of course,
>being a "wop" I have the whole series to judge from.
>Masterpieces? Crap? Too classic? Too new? Too little color?
>Too long? Too small?
>Let me know!
>
I loved the Bonelli Comics, esp. Martin Mystery. Although I might have
preferred color and a slightly larger size, what I really liked was getting
one story complete under one cover and the price: entertainment value ratio.
I would very much like to see Dark Horse continue the Bonelli line, and or
see a major domestic publisher ape the format.
BTW, any thoughts on Felix in Dylan Dog? Was he really supposed to be that
annoying, or were his puns more clever in the original Italian?
-----------== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ==----------
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Mad Brandon 20/20
> As from subject...
>I wonder what's the general opinion about the Italian comics Dark Horse
>released. I like them a lot, expecially Nathan Never, but, of course,
>being a "wop" I have the whole series to judge from.
>Masterpieces? Crap? Too classic? Too new? Too little color?
>Too long? Too small?
>Let me know!
They're great. A complete story that takes a while to read, that is
solidly entertaining with good art. Why can't more American comics be
like this?
--
-Brandon Blatcher
Duncan
Bonehammer <g500...@uts.univ.trieste.it> wrote in message
news:7pbq2u$7b$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> As from subject...
> I wonder what's the general opinion about the Italian comics Dark Horse
> released. I like them a lot, expecially Nathan Never, but, of course,
> being a "wop" I have the whole series to judge from.
Automatically compared them with other Eurocomix like Moebius, Corto
Maltese, Serpieri, Manara etc. etc. etc. against which they didn't look so
hot.
> Masterpieces?
No.
Crap?
No.
Too classic?
I liked them, generally. Nathan Never especially. Dylan Dog wasn't funny but
thought it was. Martin Mystery took allthat new age crap too seriously (as
it was obliged to, I suppose). But pretty good, mostly.
Too new?
No.
Too little color?
None at all, was there?
> Too long?
Just right. (US comics are way too short)
Too small?
Just right.
> Let me know!
>
OK
Pierce Askegren
<du...@exploremaine.com> writes:
>
>...any thoughts on Felix in Dylan Dog? Was he really supposed to be
that
>annoying, or were his puns more clever in the original Italian?
In the original Italian, he's not Felix -- he's Groucho. They even
deleted his moustache for US publication.
I've enjoyed all of the Bonelli reprints, though Dylan Dog (for which I
had the highest hopes) strikes me as the least of them.
I think they're all undercut by slightly clunky translations.
Pierce
Duncan
Pierce Askegren <j...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:7pgscg$o...@dfw-ixnews15.ix.netcom.com...
> In <37bb...@news.newsfeeds.com> "Duke Harrington"
> <du...@exploremaine.com> writes:
> >
> >...any thoughts on Felix in Dylan Dog? Was he really supposed to be
> that
> >annoying, or were his puns more clever in the original Italian?
>
>
> In the original Italian, he's not Felix -- he's Groucho. They even
> deleted his moustache for US publication.
Think about it. If they'd left him as Groucho, looking like Groucho, it
would have worked. It would have made the guy seem slightly bonkers. This is
a case of Dark Horse under-estimting and thus patronising its readership.
>
> I've enjoyed all of the Bonelli reprints, though Dylan Dog (for which I
> had the highest hopes) strikes me as the least of them.
>
> I think they're all undercut by slightly clunky translations.
>
The art reproduction hasn't been exactly wonderful either.
Nat Gertler
>
> Pierce Askegren <j...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
> news:7pgscg$o...@dfw-ixnews15.ix.netcom.com...
> > In <37bb...@news.newsfeeds.com> "Duke Harrington"
> > <du...@exploremaine.com> writes:
> > >
> > >...any thoughts on Felix in Dylan Dog? Was he really supposed to be
> > that annoying, or were his puns more clever in the original Italian?
> >
> > In the original Italian, he's not Felix -- he's Groucho. They even
> > deleted his moustache for US publication.
>
> Think about it. If they'd left him as Groucho, looking like Groucho, it
> would have worked. It would have made the guy seem slightly bonkers. This is
> a case of Dark Horse under-estimting and thus patronising its readership.
Or trying to avoid a lawsuit, which seems far more likely.
Duncan
Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote in message
news:37BC1182...@gertler.com...
Heh. 's funny. I think I have a habit of skipping over those little legal
problems - just as if they don't really exist. Copyright? Forget about it.
What's the harm in just looking at or hearing something? Libel? So what. I
wanna say what I wanna say.
[sigh] I guess I just want us all to live together in peace and happiness,
sharing in each others artistic endeavours with no hangups about
infringement, slander and all the rest of Big Brother's jive talk. Some of
that there free love wouldn't go amiss, either.
The first half of my statement stands, anyway.
NB My lawyer has instructed me to say that I, heretofor referred to as 'the
client', will take grave exception to any further disagreement from Mr
Gertler or indeed, anyone else, and that he will sue with utmost prejudice
the arse off the lot of yiz. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!
Louis Bright-Raven (Bert L. Reinke)
Nathan Never and Dylan Dog the most, myself (nothing wrong with Martin
Mystery, for that matter). I would like to see American comics in general
published more in this format of self-contained story, as opposed to
miniseries or ongoing monthlies. The European and Japanese markets thrive on
such format, and obviously they have a wider base than we have in the U.S.
One would hope that the industry would learn from this, and I think Dark
Horse had this in mind when they went to this format (not to mention
Bonellis are apparently in this format in Italy, so the plates may have been
ready to run, making printing cheaper).
Sadly, some retailers complained about the digest format, claiming they
didn't know where to put them in their stores, since they didn't fit the
standard comics size. This may have contributed to low sales figures, as I
got the impression from the Dark Horse Internet Representative (Mike
something, I forgot his name) that such was the case. I don't know if a
significant number of complaints (via communication or simple lack of
orders) came through, but if it did, it would be doubtful that Dark Horse
would continue, despite these books being among the best stuff they've
published in recent memory.
This would be a shame, but not entirely unexpected, since our industry,
despite some strides towards positive growth, is still stagnate in its
mindset. But I believe there is hope, as I saw a lot more open-mindedness
from publishers this past San Diego Con. So keep your chins up, Bonelli
fans! Try to get others to buy back orders of these fine products, if you
can. Maybe we'll start to see even more change as the new millennium
approaches...
Louis Bright-Raven
bolducny
> I wonder what's the general opinion about the Italian comics Dark Horse
> released. I like them a lot, expecially Nathan Never, but, of course,
> being a "wop" I have the whole series to judge from.
> Too long? Too small?
> Let me know!
>
Personally, I found the Nathan Never books to be the weakest of the three
series. They weren't bad, but seemed to steal/borrow (which ever you feel
most comfortable with) from much better prose novels and/or movies.
On the other hand, i really enjoyed the Dylan Dog books and would like to see
both DD and the Martin Mystery books continue.
Steve C.
--
"Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."
H. Melville
bolducny
j...@ix.netcom.com(Pierce Askegren) wrote:
> In <37bb...@news.newsfeeds.com> "Duke Harrington"
> <du...@exploremaine.com> writes:
> >
> >...any thoughts on Felix in Dylan Dog? Was he really supposed to be
> that
> >annoying, or were his puns more clever in the original Italian?
>
> In the original Italian, he's not Felix -- he's Groucho. They even
> deleted his moustache for US publication.
>
I was wondering about this, since it seemed odd that he would not have the
mustace, when you consider he was otherwise a ringer for the Marx brother.
Wonder why DH felt this was necessary?
> I've enjoyed all of the Bonelli reprints, though Dylan Dog (for which I
> had the highest hopes) strikes me as the least of them.
I find it interesting that so far many of us disagree on which series was the
most successful.
>
> I think they're all undercut by slightly clunky translations.
>
Since I read Italian as well as i read Japanese, I can't tell a good
translation from a bad one. I did wonder about the house surrounded by trees
on St. Marks Place in one issue of Martin Mystery, since I think any photo
used for reference would have given lie to that immediately. A minor quibble
for sure.
Steve C.
--
"Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian." Melville
iMute
>Duncan wrote:
>>
>> Pierce Askegren <j...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
>> news:7pgscg$o...@dfw-ixnews15.ix.netcom.com...
>> > In <37bb...@news.newsfeeds.com> "Duke Harrington"
>> > <du...@exploremaine.com> writes:
>> > >
>> > >...any thoughts on Felix in Dylan Dog? Was he really supposed to be
>> > that annoying, or were his puns more clever in the original Italian?
>> >
>> > In the original Italian, he's not Felix -- he's Groucho. They even
>> > deleted his moustache for US publication.
>>
>> Think about it. If they'd left him as Groucho, looking like Groucho, it
>> would have worked. It would have made the guy seem slightly bonkers. This is
>> a case of Dark Horse under-estimting and thus patronising its readership.
>Or trying to avoid a lawsuit, which seems far more likely.
Because Dave Sim has had so much legal trouble...
I haven't bought any of the books despite my interest for the exact
reason that Dark Horse are patronising me and altering the creators'
intent.
-Mute.
______________________
"Satan worshippers are a sorry bunch of goat fuckers sometimes..."
Nat Gertler
>
> Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> hammered on a keyboard thus:
>
> >Duncan wrote:
> >>
> >> Pierce Askegren <j...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
> >> news:7pgscg$o...@dfw-ixnews15.ix.netcom.com...
> >> > In <37bb...@news.newsfeeds.com> "Duke Harrington"
> >> > <du...@exploremaine.com> writes:
> >> > >
> >> > >...any thoughts on Felix in Dylan Dog? Was he really supposed to be
> >> > that annoying, or were his puns more clever in the original Italian?
> >> >
> >> > In the original Italian, he's not Felix -- he's Groucho. They even
> >> > deleted his moustache for US publication.
> >>
> >> Think about it. If they'd left him as Groucho, looking like Groucho, it
> >> would have worked. It would have made the guy seem slightly bonkers. This is
> >> a case of Dark Horse under-estimting and thus patronising its readership.
>
> >Or trying to avoid a lawsuit, which seems far more likely.
>
> Because Dave Sim has had so much legal trouble...
Dave Sim has not produced a comic that I know of with a character
named Groucho, a name which trade is done under. Dave Sim is also
not the high-profile/relatively deep pocket target that Dark Horse
is.
> I haven't bought any of the books despite my interest for the exact
> reason that Dark Horse are patronising me and altering the creators'
> intent.
Yeah. The creator's intent was for the comic to be in Italian.
Bonehammer
> >...any thoughts on Felix in Dylan Dog? Was he really supposed to be
> >that
> >annoying, or were his puns more clever in the original Italian?
His puns are just as terrible as they were in the translation. It's a
case of love it or leave it, I like them when I'm in the right mood.
Adding a joke at the wrong time, however, takes most of the horror out
of a splatter scene and suspends the "suspension of disbelief". I think
DD would have had much more troubles with censorship in Italy hadn't it
been for the funny stuff here and there.
>
> I think they're all undercut by slightly clunky translations.
I had that impression as well, yet I only read one page from NN - the
story quoting Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". In the original, the
character speaking was a feverish, delirious man,yet trying to
concentrate on reality and make sense of all the horror that was
happening around him. In the English translation, he sounded like he
was giving a lesson in high school.
At least the rate of single bolded words in the middle of the speak -
which I h a t e - was well below the expected ;-)
>
> Pierce
>
--
"No se Pol"
Coffee Genetist from Viva La' e Po' Bon City
Bonehammer
mu...@tpg.com.au (iMute) wrote:
> I haven't bought any of the books despite my interest for the exact
> reason that Dark Horse are patronising me and altering the creators'
> intent.
How?
> -Mute.
> ______________________
> "Satan worshippers are a sorry bunch of goat fuckers sometimes..."
>
> -----------== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News
==----------
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World!
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Servers ==-----
>
--
iMute
>In article <37bf...@dnews.tpgi.com.au>,
> mu...@tpg.com.au (iMute) wrote:
>> I haven't bought any of the books despite my interest for the exact
>> reason that Dark Horse are patronising me and altering the creators'
>> intent.
> How?
By changing the Groucho character.
-Mute.
______________________
whose news server has turned to poo again
iMute
>> >Or trying to avoid a lawsuit, which seems far more likely.
>>
>> Because Dave Sim has had so much legal trouble...
>Dave Sim has not produced a comic that I know of with a character
>named Groucho, a name which trade is done under.
Still done under? I've read several unauthorised books on Groucho
which use his name in the title... and Sim uses Groucho's real name
instead. Is that really a legally watertight defense?
>> I haven't bought any of the books despite my interest for the exact
>> reason that Dark Horse are patronising me and altering the creators'
>> intent.
>Yeah. The creator's intent was for the comic to be in Italian.
Heh. Point. But still.
Nat Gertler
>
> Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> hammered on a keyboard thus:
>
> >> >Or trying to avoid a lawsuit, which seems far more likely.
> >>
> >> Because Dave Sim has had so much legal trouble...
>
> >Dave Sim has not produced a comic that I know of with a character
> >named Groucho, a name which trade is done under.
>
> Still done under? I've read several unauthorised books on Groucho
> which use his name in the title... and Sim uses Groucho's real name
> instead. Is that really a legally watertight defense?
There is still trade done using that name and that likeness. I
don't know whether they've claimed it as a trademark, but there
are laws in this country regarding the use of name and likeness
of a famous person who marketed using that name and likeness in their
lifetime. Since the name Julius was not used in any trade that
I know of, that is a somewhat different case. Does Sim have a legally
watertight defense? With a good lawyer on the other side, little
is watertight.
Duncan
iMute <mu...@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:37c2a00c$1...@dnews.tpgi.com.au...
> Bonehammer <g500...@uts.univ.trieste.it> hammered on a keyboard thus:
>
> >In article <37bf...@dnews.tpgi.com.au>,
> > mu...@tpg.com.au (iMute) wrote:
>
> >> reason that Dark Horse are patronising me and altering the creators'
> >> intent.
>
>
> By changing the Groucho character.
>
person in the US is a lawyer: they couldn't make him a real Groucho-wannabe
because that would be - I don't know, slander or libel, or something. So
they had to change it and thus destroy the point. This is the real
censorship, of course. But do you ever see one of Frank Miller's drivelling
editorials on the subject? Hell, no.
iMute
>iMute wrote:
>>
>> Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> hammered on a keyboard thus:
>>
>> >> >Or trying to avoid a lawsuit, which seems far more likely.
>> >>
>> >> Because Dave Sim has had so much legal trouble...
>>
>> >Dave Sim has not produced a comic that I know of with a character
>> >named Groucho, a name which trade is done under.
>>
>> Still done under? I've read several unauthorised books on Groucho
>> which use his name in the title... and Sim uses Groucho's real name
>> instead. Is that really a legally watertight defense?
>There is still trade done using that name and that likeness. I
>don't know whether they've claimed it as a trademark, but there
>are laws in this country regarding the use of name and likeness
>of a famous person who marketed using that name and likeness in their
>lifetime.
So, Sim will be in trouble if Cerebus is ever published in the USA?
Nat Gertler
> >don't know whether they've claimed it as a trademark, but there
> >are laws in this country regarding the use of name and likeness
> >of a famous person who marketed using that name and likeness in their
> >lifetime.
>
> So, Sim will be in trouble if Cerebus is ever published in the USA?
Sim *may* have trouble whenever the appropriate people team with
the appropriate lawyers to make trouble for him.... but he seems less
likely to have trouble because he's not using the trade name.
Meanwhile, the Bonelli comic, coming from a larger publisher and
serving as the base for a movie, while using the Groucho name,
would seem to be a much larger target.
A bunch of Canadian cartoonists put out something called...
umm, I think it was "You're Short, Bald, and Ugly Charlie Brown",
featuring a bunch of reworked Charles Schulz strips. This had
relatively small distribution, and as far as I know (which is
not that far in this case) never ran into legal trouble... but
if DC, with its bigger distribution and deeper pockets, were
to put out the same book, I suspect the story would be quite
different. (BTW, if anyone has a copy of this volume they'd be
willing to part with... generally, I don't want infringing
materials, but as I seem to have fallen into being a bit of a
Peanuts historian on a semipro basis, I think it may serve
academic interest.)
kar...@my-deja.com
actually to defend your trademark, you have to go after all offenders you
become aware of. it is more likely that either or both that schulz was
unaware of being ripped off and/or international rules may apply. and the
fact thay parodies are allowed.
personally, i find the choice of changing the name to be a small issue to
take with the comic. i can't see it changing my enjoyment of the character
any more or less since he still acts and looks like groucho. much less
affecting my enjoyment of the book as a whole.
Duncan
> Regarding Groucho--
> iMute wrote:
> >
> > Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> hammered on a keyboard thus:
> >
> > >There is still trade done using that name and that likeness. I
> > >don't know whether they've claimed it as a trademark, but there
> > >are laws in this country regarding the use of name and likeness
> > >of a famous person who marketed using that name and likeness in their
> > >lifetime.
> >
> > So, Sim will be in trouble if Cerebus is ever published in the USA?
>
> Sim *may* have trouble whenever the appropriate people team with
> the appropriate lawyers to make trouble for him.... but he seems less
> likely to have trouble because he's not using the trade name.
> Meanwhile, the Bonelli comic, coming from a larger publisher and
> serving as the base for a movie, while using the Groucho name,
> would seem to be a much larger target.
That sounds like another way of saying Dark Horse wimped out.
>
> A bunch of Canadian cartoonists put out something called...
> umm, I think it was "You're Short, Bald, and Ugly Charlie Brown",
> featuring a bunch of reworked Charles Schulz strips. This had
> relatively small distribution, and as far as I know (which is
> not that far in this case) never ran into legal trouble... but
> if DC, with its bigger distribution and deeper pockets, were
> to put out the same book, I suspect the story would be quite
> different. (BTW, if anyone has a copy of this volume they'd be
> willing to part with... generally, I don't want infringing
> materials, but as I seem to have fallen into being a bit of a
> Peanuts historian on a semipro basis, I think it may serve
> academic interest.)
You read Rick Veitch's parody (in Bedlam, I think) right?
Duncan
<kar...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:7q16t3$27k$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > iMute wrote:
> > >
> > > Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> hammered on a keyboard thus:
> > >
> > > >There is still trade done using that name and that likeness. I
> > > >don't know whether they've claimed it as a trademark, but there
> > > >are laws in this country regarding the use of name and likeness
> > > >of a famous person who marketed using that name and likeness in their
> > > >lifetime.
> > >
> > > So, Sim will be in trouble if Cerebus is ever published in the USA?
> >
> > Sim *may* have trouble whenever the appropriate people team with
> > the appropriate lawyers to make trouble for him.... but he seems less
> > likely to have trouble because he's not using the trade name.
> > Meanwhile, the Bonelli comic, coming from a larger publisher and
> > serving as the base for a movie, while using the Groucho name,
> > would seem to be a much larger target.
> >
> > umm, I think it was "You're Short, Bald, and Ugly Charlie Brown",
> > featuring a bunch of reworked Charles Schulz strips. This had
> > relatively small distribution, and as far as I know (which is
> > not that far in this case) never ran into legal trouble... but
> > if DC, with its bigger distribution and deeper pockets, were
> > to put out the same book, I suspect the story would be quite
> > different. (BTW, if anyone has a copy of this volume they'd be
> > willing to part with... generally, I don't want infringing
> > materials, but as I seem to have fallen into being a bit of a
> > Peanuts historian on a semipro basis, I think it may serve
> > academic interest.)
> >
>
> become aware of. it is more likely that either or both that schulz was
> unaware of being ripped off and/or international rules may apply. and the
> fact thay parodies are allowed.
>
> personally, i find the choice of changing the name to be a small issue to
> take with the comic. i can't see it changing my enjoyment of the character
> any more or less since he still acts and looks like groucho. much less
> affecting my enjoyment of the book as a whole.
>
think the character deliberately makes himself look and speak like Groucho -
but calls himself something else you assume he's just stupid, therefore not
funny. When you realise his name IS Groucho, that he possibly thinks he is
the guy, his true personality becomes clearer - he's not being stupid, he's
possibly genuinely deranged - which makes his relationship with DD
different; which makes DD's own personality different (you'd think
differently about a friend who lives with a person who acts dumb than you
would of one who lives with a genuine nut - in the second case you might
think your friend was being altruistic; in the first you'd just think s/he's
stupid too) and so on and so forth. Changes the comic. Not much, but enough
to irritate and cause anyting up to nine postings on rac.misc...
Duncan
kar...@my-deja.com
"Duncan" <dun...@airstream.co.uk> wrote:
>
> <kar...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:7q16t3$27k$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > personally, i find the choice of changing the name to be a small issue to
> > take with the comic. i can't see it changing my enjoyment of the character
> > any more or less since he still acts and looks like groucho. much less
> > affecting my enjoyment of the book as a whole.
> >
> You can only say that with hindsight, knowing the change was made. if you
> think the character deliberately makes himself look and speak like Groucho -
> but calls himself something else you assume he's just stupid, therefore not
> funny. When you realise his name IS Groucho, that he possibly thinks he is
> the guy, his true personality becomes clearer - he's not being stupid, he's
> possibly genuinely deranged - which makes his relationship with DD
> different; which makes DD's own personality different (you'd think
> differently about a friend who lives with a person who acts dumb than you
> would of one who lives with a genuine nut - in the second case you might
> think your friend was being altruistic; in the first you'd just think s/he's
> stupid too) and so on and so forth. Changes the comic. Not much, but enough
> to irritate and cause anyting up to nine postings on rac.misc...
>
hmmm, you have given felix more thought than i have. when reading i never
made a judgment call as to the whys and wherefores he'd be calling himself
groucho. i just accepted it at face value as part of the joke and charm of
the character and the series just as the fact dylan falls madly in love in
each issue only to never refer to the girl again. if the story started
dealing with the issues you bring up, yes it could be a problem. however, the
series never does...felix/oscar and his relationship with dylan are presented
matter-of-factly so i see no reason to delve deeper into those possible
ramifications anymore than i should wonder about the true sexual nature of
the relationship (two grown men living together, one professes to fall deeply
in love but never commits and, metatextually, bears a physical resemblance to
a gay actor who actually played a role based on the character).
Nat Gertler
>
> In article <37C401CC...@gertler.com>,
> Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote:
> > Regarding Groucho--
> > umm, I think it was "You're Short, Bald, and Ugly Charlie Brown",
> > featuring a bunch of reworked Charles Schulz strips. This had
> > relatively small distribution, and as far as I know (which is
> > not that far in this case) never ran into legal trouble... but
> > if DC, with its bigger distribution and deeper pockets, were
> > to put out the same book, I suspect the story would be quite
> > different. (BTW, if anyone has a copy of this volume they'd be
> > willing to part with... generally, I don't want infringing
> > materials, but as I seem to have fallen into being a bit of a
> > Peanuts historian on a semipro basis, I think it may serve
> > academic interest.)
> >
>
> actually to defend your trademark, you have to go after all offenders you
> become aware of.
Which is part of being a less visible target.
Nat Gertler
>
> Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote in message
> news:37C401CC...@gertler.com...
> > Regarding Groucho--
> > the appropriate lawyers to make trouble for him.... but he seems less
> > likely to have trouble because he's not using the trade name.
> > Meanwhile, the Bonelli comic, coming from a larger publisher and
> > serving as the base for a movie, while using the Groucho name,
> > would seem to be a much larger target.
>
I don't see not violating someone's legal rights as
"wimping out".
> > A bunch of Canadian cartoonists put out something called...
> > umm, I think it was "You're Short, Bald, and Ugly Charlie Brown",
> > featuring a bunch of reworked Charles Schulz strips. This had
> > relatively small distribution, and as far as I know (which is
> > not that far in this case) never ran into legal trouble... but
> > if DC, with its bigger distribution and deeper pockets, were
> > to put out the same book, I suspect the story would be quite
> > different. (BTW, if anyone has a copy of this volume they'd be
> > willing to part with... generally, I don't want infringing
> > materials, but as I seem to have fallen into being a bit of a
> > Peanuts historian on a semipro basis, I think it may serve
> > academic interest.)
>
> You read Rick Veitch's parody (in Bedlam, I think) right?
Not that I recall.
Duncan
> Duncan wrote:
> >
> > Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote in message
> > news:37C401CC...@gertler.com...
> > > Regarding Groucho--
> > > Sim *may* have trouble whenever the appropriate people team with
> > > the appropriate lawyers to make trouble for him.... but he seems less
> > > likely to have trouble because he's not using the trade name.
> > > Meanwhile, the Bonelli comic, coming from a larger publisher and
> > > serving as the base for a movie, while using the Groucho name,
> > > would seem to be a much larger target.
> >
> > That sounds like another way of saying Dark Horse wimped out.
>
> I don't see not violating someone's legal rights as
> "wimping out".
Ohmigod, let's not start that one again. 'violating legal rights' has such a
moral tone to it to me. Makes it sound like rape or something when it's
nothing of the sort. It's not even a crime. But let's not...
I understood you to mean Dark Horse could have risked not changing the
character's name but didn't. Let's say they played it safe. But don't forget
there are times when playing safe is inappropriate.
>
> > > A bunch of Canadian cartoonists put out something called...
> > > umm, I think it was "You're Short, Bald, and Ugly Charlie Brown",
> > > featuring a bunch of reworked Charles Schulz strips. This had
> > > relatively small distribution, and as far as I know (which is
> > > not that far in this case) never ran into legal trouble... but
> > > if DC, with its bigger distribution and deeper pockets, were
> > > to put out the same book, I suspect the story would be quite
> > > different. (BTW, if anyone has a copy of this volume they'd be
> > > willing to part with... generally, I don't want infringing
> > > materials, but as I seem to have fallen into being a bit of a
> > > Peanuts historian on a semipro basis, I think it may serve
> > > academic interest.)
> >
> > You read Rick Veitch's parody (in Bedlam, I think) right?
>
> Not that I recall.
OK, check it out. His version of where Peanuts are now (ie in the mid-70s -
Charlie Brown ends up shot up in Vietnam, Pigpen ends up a Hell's Angel,
Lucy a trailer trash mother etc. etc.) There is another, similar parody out
there somewhere but I can't remember what... Bedlam was published by
Eclipse, btw. Two issues, mostly Steve Bissette stuff.
Nat Gertler
>
> Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote in message
> news:37C558A3...@gertler.com...
> > Duncan wrote:
> > >
> > > Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote in message
> > > news:37C401CC...@gertler.com...
> > > > Regarding Groucho--
> > > > Sim *may* have trouble whenever the appropriate people team with
> > > > the appropriate lawyers to make trouble for him.... but he seems less
> > > > likely to have trouble because he's not using the trade name.
> > > > Meanwhile, the Bonelli comic, coming from a larger publisher and
> > > > serving as the base for a movie, while using the Groucho name,
> > > > would seem to be a much larger target.
> > >
> > > That sounds like another way of saying Dark Horse wimped out.
> >
> > I don't see not violating someone's legal rights as
> > "wimping out".
>
> Ohmigod, let's not start that one again.
Yes, let's not let the truth stand in the way here.
> 'violating legal rights' has such a
> moral tone to it to me. Makes it sound like rape or something when it's
> nothing of the sort. It's not even a crime. But let's not...
>
> I understood you to mean Dark Horse could have risked not changing the
> character's name but didn't. Let's say they played it safe. But don't forget
> there are times when playing safe is inappropriate.
And there are times when using someone's name and likeness is
inappropriate. And illegal.
> > > You read Rick Veitch's parody (in Bedlam, I think) right?
> >
> > Not that I recall.
>
> OK, check it out. His version of where Peanuts are now (ie in the mid-70s -
> Charlie Brown ends up shot up in Vietnam, Pigpen ends up a Hell's Angel,
> Lucy a trailer trash mother etc. etc.) There is another, similar parody out
> there somewhere but I can't remember what... Bedlam was published by
> Eclipse, btw. Two issues, mostly Steve Bissette stuff.
I actually have at least one issue of Bedlam, but I don't recall
any of the contents. And your description of it doesn't exactly
draw me to it; it sounds like the same old tired "throw big ugly
real world problems at the Peanuts characters" parody that has
been done seemingly endlessly.
kar...@my-deja.com
Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote:
> kar...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> > In article <37C401CC...@gertler.com>,
> > Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote:
> > > Regarding Groucho--
> > > umm, I think it was "You're Short, Bald, and Ugly Charlie Brown",
> > > featuring a bunch of reworked Charles Schulz strips. This had
> > > relatively small distribution, and as far as I know (which is
> > > not that far in this case) never ran into legal trouble... but
> > > if DC, with its bigger distribution and deeper pockets, were
> > > to put out the same book, I suspect the story would be quite
> > > different. (BTW, if anyone has a copy of this volume they'd be
> > > willing to part with... generally, I don't want infringing
> > > materials, but as I seem to have fallen into being a bit of a
> > > Peanuts historian on a semipro basis, I think it may serve
> > > academic interest.)
> > >
> >
> > become aware of.
>
> Which is part of being a less visible target.
which i touched upon further in my post that was snipped. the comment of dc
having "deeper pockets" implies that you can pick and choose the offenders
you go after based on their worth and their distribution range. i've seen
this attitude among fans of other media as well; that being smalltime somehow
justifies their copyright and trademark violating.
i think there are some exception cases for parodies and satires also.
Nat Gertler
>
> In article <37C55844...@gertler.com>,
> Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote:
> > kar...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > >
> > > actually to defend your trademark, you have to go after all offenders you
> > > become aware of.
> >
> > Which is part of being a less visible target.
>
> which i touched upon further in my post that was snipped. the comment of dc
> having "deeper pockets" implies that you can pick and choose the offenders
> you go after based on their worth and their distribution range.
People certainly can and do choose how *heavily* to go after them,
whether to send an easily-ignored letter or file a
potentially-profitable
lawsuit.
Duncan
> Duncan wrote:
> >
> > Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote in message
> > news:37C558A3...@gertler.com...
> > > Duncan wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote in message
> > > > news:37C401CC...@gertler.com...
> > > > > Regarding Groucho--
> > > > > Sim *may* have trouble whenever the appropriate people team with
> > > > > the appropriate lawyers to make trouble for him.... but he seems
less
> > > > > likely to have trouble because he's not using the trade name.
> > > > > Meanwhile, the Bonelli comic, coming from a larger publisher and
> > > > > serving as the base for a movie, while using the Groucho name,
> > > > > would seem to be a much larger target.
> > > >
> > > > That sounds like another way of saying Dark Horse wimped out.
> > >
> > > I don't see not violating someone's legal rights as
> > > "wimping out".
> >
> > Ohmigod, let's not start that one again.
>
> Yes, let's not let the truth stand in the way here.
Huh? I mean, let's not re-run the 'argument' (you'd call it something else,
I guess) I had with you and Todd about copyright and the morality of
breaking thereof vis-a-vis Barry Smith's old material.
What's 'truth' got to do with it? What is this 'truth' you earthlings speak
of anyway?
>
> > 'violating legal rights' has such a
> > moral tone to it to me. Makes it sound like rape or something when it's
> > nothing of the sort. It's not even a crime.
Whooops! See what I say? Althgough in this case it hasn't been established
whether it's a crime or not since it never went to court, er... right?
> But let's not...
> >
> > I understood you to mean Dark Horse could have risked not changing the
> > character's name but didn't. Let's say they played it safe. But don't
forget
> > there are times when playing safe is inappropriate.
>
> And there are times when using someone's name and likeness is
> inappropriate. And illegal.
Granted. Is this example (ie Groucho/Dylan Dog) one of them? No to the
first, imo; don't know to the second, since... we don't know.
Faced with a particular situation you might want to know what the legal
course of action is; you might also need to work out for yourself what the
right course of action is. These are (usually?/often?/sometimes?) different
activities.
>
> > > > You read Rick Veitch's parody (in Bedlam, I think) right?
> > >
> > > Not that I recall.
> >
> > OK, check it out. His version of where Peanuts are now (ie in the
mid-70s -
> > Charlie Brown ends up shot up in Vietnam, Pigpen ends up a Hell's Angel,
> > Lucy a trailer trash mother etc. etc.) There is another, similar parody
out
> > there somewhere but I can't remember what... Bedlam was published by
> > Eclipse, btw. Two issues, mostly Steve Bissette stuff.
>
> I actually have at least one issue of Bedlam, but I don't recall
> any of the contents.
Hmmmm. Pretty sure it's there.
> And your description of it doesn't exactly
> draw me to it; it sounds like the same old tired "throw big ugly
> real world problems at the Peanuts characters" parody that has
> been done seemingly endlessly.
Oh, christ yeah. I never said it was an original idea. I thought you were
collecting any and all Peanuts ...stuff. I'd've thought most parodies of any
established cartoon strip, especially a 'family-oriented' one like Peanuts,
would involve attempts to degrade the characters (although I'm only vaguely
aware of one other taking the piss out of Schultz). I think Veitch had a
semi-serious point to make but it's definitely juvenilia (all of Bedlam is
juvenilia, of course).
Having said that, I did think the Little Red Haired Girl telling Charlie
Brown (after he discovers her at a drug-fuelled orgy with Pigpen's biker
friends) to fuck off was quite funny. But then I guess I'm probably a
moron...
The Mute That Time Forgot
>personally, i find the choice of changing the name to be a small issue to
>take with the comic. i can't see it changing my enjoyment of the character
>any more or less since he still acts and looks like groucho. much less
>affecting my enjoyment of the book as a whole.
Changing the name, fine. Changing the art, bad.
kar...@my-deja.com
you ignore that "easily-ignored letter" and you are liable to find yourself
on the end of a lawsuit whether it is potentially profitable to the suing
company or not. i've seen the big companies pursue many small-time copyright
infringers who weren't making a dime on their infringing. unless a monetary
sum is involved, the letter is sent and the culprit complies to the letter
such as the superboy fan-site that dc went after, or will murray pulling the
unpublished doc savage excerpts off his site. if someone is making money off
an infringed copyright, then a suit has to be filed to not only get them to
cease and desist but also because the money in some degree does belong to the
company. the money itself is liable to be a drop in the bucket to the big
company itself. when the hard rock cafe chain went after the struggling local
hard back cafe in chapel hill, it wasn't because they saw a lot of potential
profit in suing one struggling resturant.
Duncan
The Mute That Time Forgot <mu...@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:37c9...@dnews.tpgi.com.au...
> kar...@my-deja.com hammered on a keyboard thus:
>
>
> >personally, i find the choice of changing the name to be a small issue to
> >take with the comic. i can't see it changing my enjoyment of the
character
> >any more or less since he still acts and looks like groucho. much less
> >affecting my enjoyment of the book as a whole.
>
> Changing the name, fine. Changing the art, bad.
>
>
intended. If it's done for 'legal' purposes (for which read 'fear of
lawyers') anyone with an interest in comics, or any other aret form for that
matter, should at least be suspicious.
In this case, the Groucho/Bonelli thing, there is no way on earth any
sensible person would believe that the memory of Groucho Marx would be
sullied by the use of the original words and images in Dylan Dog. If Dark
Horse felt threatned by a possible law suit by whatever bunch of ambulance
chasers are trying to scam money out of the memory of the Marx Bros. it
would be nice to think they would have taken them on; but if they couldn't
afford to lose, fair enough. For any of us, us readers, to take the side of
the goddamn lawyers over this is plain peverse.
Duncan
<kar...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:7qdvod$ks6$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Now the next stage is for some of you guys to recognise this for what it is.
It is not fair operation in an free market (there's no such thing); it's
censorship.
kar...@my-deja.com
"Duncan" <dun...@airstream.co.uk> wrote:
>
> <kar...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:7qdvod$ks6$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> >
it's protecting a vested interest. groucho worked his whole life to create
and maintain that persona. for someone else to make money off of it without
paying a dime, that's a crime.
Duncan
<kar...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:7qgm97$jvi$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <7qg7s7$2ump$1...@grind.server.pavilion.net>,
> "Duncan" <dun...@airstream.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > <kar...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:7qdvod$ks6$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
>
> > >
> > >
> > Well, exactly.
> >
> > Now the next stage is for some of you guys to recognise this for what it
is.
> > It is not fair operation in an free market (there's no such thing); it's
> > censorship.
> >
>
> it's protecting a vested interest. groucho worked his whole life to create
> and maintain that persona. for someone else to make money off of it
without
> paying a dime, that's a crime.
>
comics, novels, whatever, watch messed-around-with movies, TV programmes
etc. just because someone-or-other's great-great-niece might possibly think
they've been offended by a picture of some distant ancestor? Or that some
company of non-creative accountants, bag-carriers and focus groupies think
that their precious 'product' might be damaged?
That way madness lies, my friend.
It's no good trying to develop law from some grand principle: look at the
specific cases. The version of 'Groucho' (ie that of the character who has
adopted his identity) in Dylan Dog is not in any way supposed to be
insulting to Groucho's memory - if anything, it's affectionate. Any member
of Gropucho's family who pretended to take offenec at that would be so
obviously trying to scam money out of the publisher that any case they
brought in front of any ordinary human judge or jury would be thrown out
immediately. On that basis, it would have been nice to think Dark Horse
would have seen it that way and gone ahead and ublished.
And for anyone who thinks it doesn't matter, that it hardly makes any
difference to the story, well, it changes the meaning of one of the central
character's 'problem' - pretty fundamental to the characterisation I'd've
thought, if not the plots. But the point is, where do you stop? There's an
old Mario Hernandez story about US Coca-Colonisation in Central America. In
this, the soft drink which everyone sees as symbolic of American imperialism
is called 'Blick'. Now, it's true, this is one of his Marzipan stories (ie
taking place in a made-up country called Marzipan. Something Groucho
might've used, btw) and he may not have wanted to use the real name, Coke,
but what if he had? Would that constitute slander? Should Coca-Cola have
been able to prevent publication of a comic book because characters in it
identify their product as evil (even though people all over the world do
just that)? Should Paul Chadwick be forced to amend The World Below because
the 'bad guy' ompany in it happens to be called Microsoft? Or if this
paranoia about upsetting people only applies to family members of the
'upsettee' for how many generations should we take their 2nd, 3rd, 4th-hand
hurt feelings into account?
It's all bollocks. It's a scam. It's a way for people who have no creative
input into an artform, who cannot even claim an interest as that artform's
'consumers', to skim money from it.
I know I don't need to tell anyone that the law as regards to copyright is
frankly irrelevent to determining one's moral stance - the law has never
been much of a guide to anything except passing fashion (let's shit on
blacks this decade; next time round we'll start on the queers. I notice some
bunch of freaks in Kansas have recently made their State a worldwide
laughing stock by replacing the teaching of science to their children with
the vague superstitions of an ancient and obscure Mediteranean tribe, as
misread and mistranslated through four languages and thousands of years.
That's now presumably a law of sorts: is it one we should follow?)
Copyright exists to protect the creative and pecuniary interests of the
artist, balanced with the interests of the consumers of that art. When i was
arguing with Todd about the rights and wrongs of uploading Barry Smith
artwork, I did say that copyright as it applies to hard copy and while the
artist is living is probably too unsuportive of the artist (example: guy
davies said in TCJ that he has no rights to his redesign of the Golden Age
Sandman and so gets no return
from the sales of the character's plastic models. That's wrong.) However, I
also think that the internet changes things. A bootleg version of Opus would
lead to a loss of earnings for BWS and I wouldn't support its publication;
it's less clear, however, that a website devoted to BWS would have any
financial effect on the guy: therefore the interests of his fans must weigh
heavier (in determining what's 'right or wrong, that is. I'm taking for
granted that the law is probably wrong, certainly inadequate.)
In the case of the Groucho Bonelli, *nobody* has any financial interests. We
have the interests of the artist/writer, who wants an honest and accurate
translation of his work - his first in English, I think - and that of the
readers who don't want - most of them - the material they read to be
filtered through a panel of censors, whatever their assumed justification.
Against that we have - possibly, since it never actually went to court - the
'hurt feelings' of a member of the Marx family or the fear of a damaged
product of the moneymen now running (I assume) the Marx estate. To the
first: grow up. Look at the specific case; yes, if Groucho were still alive,
he ought to be bunged a ercentage of Dylan Dog's (ho ho) profits. He's not;
get over it. To the second:[my middle finger is pointing straight up]
swivel.
kar...@my-deja.com
"Duncan" <dun...@airstream.co.uk> wrote:
>
> <kar...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:7qgm97$jvi$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > In article <7qg7s7$2ump$1...@grind.server.pavilion.net>,
> > "Duncan" <dun...@airstream.co.uk> wrote:
> > >
> > > <kar...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
> news:7qdvod$ks6$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> >
> > > >
> [SNIP]> > >
> > > >
> > > Well, exactly.
> > >
> > > Now the next stage is for some of you guys to recognise this for what it
> is.
> > > It is not fair operation in an free market (there's no such thing); it's
> > > censorship.
> > >
> >
> > it's protecting a vested interest. groucho worked his whole life to create
> > and maintain that persona. for someone else to make money off of it
> without
> > paying a dime, that's a crime.
> >
> I-Yi-Yi! The guy's dead, for Chrissakes. What, we have to read doctored
> comics, novels, whatever, watch messed-around-with movies, TV programmes
> etc. just because someone-or-other's great-great-niece might possibly think
> they've been offended by a picture of some distant ancestor? Or that some
> company of non-creative accountants, bag-carriers and focus groupies think
> that their precious 'product' might be damaged?
> That way madness lies, my friend.
>
> It's no good trying to develop law from some grand principle: look at the
> specific cases. The version of 'Groucho' (ie that of the character who has
> adopted his identity) in Dylan Dog is not in any way supposed to be
> insulting to Groucho's memory - if anything, it's affectionate. Any member
> of Gropucho's family who pretended to take offenec at that would be so
> obviously trying to scam money out of the publisher that any case they
> brought in front of any ordinary human judge or jury would be thrown out
> immediately. On that basis, it would have been nice to think Dark Horse
> would have seen it that way and gone ahead and ublished.
>
and you keep getting further afield. this doesn't really matter to my point.
the point i was making is not based on slander rulings but copyrights and
trademarks. to make money by using the likeness and reputation of someone
else's hardwork is wrong. even if you are an artist. there are some fair use
laws and such but making him into a regular recurring character goes beyond
that and borders on laziness as well.
as far as groucho's descendents being insulted...being cast in a very
gruesome and dark comic, i could see where it would offend some
sensibilities. if it is such a loving tribute, then you think people could
bother to check with his descendents.
> And for anyone who thinks it doesn't matter, that it hardly makes any
> difference to the story, well, it changes the meaning of one of the central
> character's 'problem' - pretty fundamental to the characterisation I'd've
> thought, if not the plots. But the point is, where do you stop? There's an
> old Mario Hernandez story about US Coca-Colonisation in Central America. In
> this, the soft drink which everyone sees as symbolic of American imperialism
> is called 'Blick'. Now, it's true, this is one of his Marzipan stories (ie
> taking place in a made-up country called Marzipan. Something Groucho
> might've used, btw) and he may not have wanted to use the real name, Coke,
> but what if he had? Would that constitute slander? Should Coca-Cola have
> been able to prevent publication of a comic book because characters in it
> identify their product as evil (even though people all over the world do
> just that)? Should Paul Chadwick be forced to amend The World Below because
> the 'bad guy' ompany in it happens to be called Microsoft? Or if this
> paranoia about upsetting people only applies to family members of the
> 'upsettee' for how many generations should we take their 2nd, 3rd, 4th-hand
> hurt feelings into account?
>
should i be allowed to publish bad and unproven things about you? or your
grandfather? believe it or not, the rules protect the public and corporate
alike. there are allowances for journalistic purposes and public figures and
satire and parody. but, you can't just say anything about anybody willy
nilly.
> It's all bollocks. It's a scam. It's a way for people who have no creative
> input into an artform, who cannot even claim an interest as that artform's
> 'consumers', to skim money from it.
i see that as applying to those who violate the copyright laws because they
are too lazy to give credit where it's due and seek to make money off of
other people's work and investments instead of creating something new
themselves.
so you think that once a person dies, all their works should be public
domain? so disney didn't need to get permission from the burroughs estate to
do the tarzan movie. or share in any of the profits.
and you assume that the "dylan dog" is uncensored? how many comics do you
think contain the pure artistic vision of the creator? not to mention, from
what i've seen and read, the bonelli comics are like ours, and not a product
of a single artistic vision. the use of groucho/felix may not even be a
decision by the current "artistic" team on the book but is mandated now by
editorial because he's been there all along. and the fact we only get 6
issues out of god knows how many is a form of censorship as well. when you
are talking about the corporate publishing world, censorship exists all
around in every step of the process. and bonelli is just as much a company as
dark horse is.
Nat Gertler
>
> I-Yi-Yi! The guy's dead, for Chrissakes.
And so are the guys who created Superman, but the character they
created still has legal protection.
> What, we have to read doctored
> comics, novels, whatever, watch messed-around-with movies, TV programmes
> etc. just because someone-or-other's great-great-niece might possibly think
> they've been offended by a picture of some distant ancestor? Or that some
> company of non-creative accountants, bag-carriers and focus groupies think
> that their precious 'product' might be damaged?
> That way madness lies, my friend.
Yeah! Let's throw any intellectual rights out the window, and
piss on every artistic creator out there, because they're standing in
the
way of artistic creation.
> It's no good trying to develop law from some grand principle: look at the
> specific cases. The version of 'Groucho' (ie that of the character who has
> adopted his identity) in Dylan Dog is not in any way supposed to be
> insulting to Groucho's memory
Despite the fact that he is being depicted as an idiot and an
ass.... gee, nothing insulting there at all.
> - if anything, it's affectionate. Any member
> of Gropucho's family who pretended to take offenec at that would be so
> obviously trying to scam money out of the publisher that any case they
> brought in front of any ordinary human judge or jury would be thrown out
> immediately.
"Let's ignore the law. Let's support instead the publisher and
creator who are trying to scam money out of the character created
by Julius Marx!"
> On that basis, it would have been nice to think Dark Horse
> would have seen it that way and gone ahead and ublished.
"Yeah, let's put ourselves in the path of a lawsuit to defend
the 'rights' of the artist to exploit someone else's characters!"
> And for anyone who thinks it doesn't matter, that it hardly makes any
> difference to the story, well, it changes the meaning of one of the central
> character's 'problem' - pretty fundamental to the characterisation I'd've
> thought, if not the plots.
Yeah, and if I start writing Batman stories as Batman stories
and publish them myself, they might not stand up if DC sues me
over the rights to Batman.
> It's all bollocks. It's a scam. It's a way for people who have no creative
> input into an artform, who cannot even claim an interest as that artform's
> 'consumers', to skim money from it.
After all, heaven forbid anyone have any rights but Duncan.
> Copyright exists to protect the creative and pecuniary interests of the
> artist, balanced with the interests of the consumers of that art. When i was
> arguing with Todd about the rights and wrongs of uploading Barry Smith
> artwork, I did say that copyright as it applies to hard copy and while the
> artist is living is probably too unsuportive of the artist (example: guy
> davies said in TCJ that he has no rights to his redesign of the Golden Age
> Sandman and so gets no return
> from the sales of the character's plastic models. That's wrong.)
Gee, it's wrong for DC not to pay for character rights that have been
contractually assigned to them.... but it would be right for
Dark Horse not to pay for the character created by Julius Marx,
rights which have never been assigned to them. Oh, real consistant
there, Duncan.
> In the case of the Groucho Bonelli, *nobody* has any financial interests. We
> have the interests of the artist/writer, who wants an honest and accurate
> translation of his work
The writer has no financial interests? And it's amazing how you know
just what the writer is thinking... or has he been speaking to you
about it?
> and that of the
> readers who don't want - most of them - the material they read to be
> filtered through a panel of censors, whatever their assumed justification.
Which reader's poll was this?
> Against that we have - possibly, since it never actually went to court - the
> 'hurt feelings' of a member of the Marx family or the fear of a damaged
> product of the moneymen now running (I assume) the Marx estate. To the
> first: grow up. Look at the specific case; yes, if Groucho were still alive,
> he ought to be bunged a ercentage of Dylan Dog's (ho ho) profits. He's not;
> get over it.
Because the dead have no right to leave anything to their heirs, eh?
> To the second:[my middle finger is pointing straight up]
> swivel.
Says the person who is trying to tell others to "grow up".
Duncan
> Duncan wrote:
> >
> > I-Yi-Yi! The guy's dead, for Chrissakes.
>
> created still has legal protection.
Yup. And I don't think anyone has suggested that Siegel & Schuster got a
good deal out of that. Since we're talking about a proper arrangement for
copyright (ie what is morally right, as opposed to a strictly legal
definition), the rights afforded to a company which has, one way or another,
purchased a copyright from the creator, to a creator's immediate family, and
to the creator him/herself, should be different.
>
> > What, we have to read doctored
> > comics, novels, whatever, watch messed-around-with movies, TV programmes
> > etc. just because someone-or-other's great-great-niece might possibly
think
> > they've been offended by a picture of some distant ancestor? Or that
some
> > company of non-creative accountants, bag-carriers and focus groupies
think
> > that their precious 'product' might be damaged?
> > That way madness lies, my friend.
>
> Yeah! Let's throw any intellectual rights out the window, and
> piss on every artistic creator out there, because they're standing in
> the
> way of artistic creation.
Yeah, well you *know* I'm not saying that Nat. In fact, I can't see how you
can even reach a conclusion like that from what I've said, however badly
I've put it.
>
> > It's no good trying to develop law from some grand principle: look at
the
> > specific cases. The version of 'Groucho' (ie that of the character who
has
> > adopted his identity) in Dylan Dog is not in any way supposed to be
> > insulting to Groucho's memory
>
> Despite the fact that he is being depicted as an idiot and an
> ass.... gee, nothing insulting there at all.
Blimey. For the first time I've been on rac. I can actually say to someone
they've misread a comic. That's usually the response *I* get. You've got to
remember, Nat, Groucho is, or was (and the Bonelli books were originally
published some time ago), terrifically poular in Italy - in Europe
generally. I think it's in the post you're responding to here I said
something about how Coca-Cola is a symbol of American exploitation; well,
Groucho is one of those symbols of everything that makes America popular: of
American popular culture, in fact. The use of the Groucho persona in DD is
meant entirely in the most affectionate terms. It's a tribute, for God's
sake, and the character pretending to be him isn't an idiot: he's slightly
cracked, sure, slightly mad, but his madness is only explicable if we
recognise the person he's meant to be and what that person represents (ie
the signifier). It's supposed to show the guy has a particular relationship
to American culture, as signified by a particular American cultural icon.
It's difficult to explain but to understand it it might help to imagine
yourself as a non-American. It's something not a million miles away from
what Jodorowsky was doing with El Topo - or Sergio lenoe's spaghetti
westerns for that matter. Certainly not an insult which is why I get so
pissed off with the allowances that have to be made by creators for the
wilfull misunderstanding made by the so-caled protectors of Groucho's
reputation. They're not even about to bother working out the meaning of the
thing (or so Dark Horse was assuming, I guess), they just want the money.
The insult goes in the opposite direction.
>
> > - if anything, it's affectionate. Any member
> > of Gropucho's family who pretended to take offenec at that would be so
> > obviously trying to scam money out of the publisher that any case they
> > brought in front of any ordinary human judge or jury would be thrown out
> > immediately.
>
> "Let's ignore the law.
Yeah, sometimes. Can't you think of a law you ignore? Just saying something
is 'the law' is meaningless. So what? Laws are arbitary; they exist one day,
are abolished the next. This isn't an argument about the 'law' it's about
what's right or wrong.
> Let's support instead the publisher and
> creator who are trying to scam money out of the character created
> by Julius Marx!"
Nat, I'm not saying that! I'm saying let's support the creators of Dylan
Dog. Let's support their right to say or depict what they feel they need to
say or depict. In other circumstances I feel sure you'd support me on that.
>
> > On that basis, it would have been nice to think Dark Horse
> > would have seen it that way and gone ahead and ublished.
>
> "Yeah, let's put ourselves in the path of a lawsuit to defend
> the 'rights' of the artist to exploit someone else's characters!"
It's not exploitation, for God's sake, it's free speach and artistic
integrity and - yeah, it would have been nice if dark horse had stood up for
it but I don't blam them for not doing so. i'm absolutely gobsmacked that
you're taking this line, Nat. If your opinion is representative it's pretty
clear why DH didn't bother.
>
> > And for anyone who thinks it doesn't matter, that it hardly makes any
> > difference to the story, well, it changes the meaning of one of the
central
> > character's 'problem' - pretty fundamental to the characterisation
I'd've
> > thought, if not the plots.
>
> Yeah, and if I start writing Batman stories as Batman stories
> and publish them myself, they might not stand up if DC sues me
> over the rights to Batman.
Back to the law again... As I was saying before, there's an old Liberatore
story about Superman having sex with Lex Luthor. Liberatore is using Soops
as a symbol of that old fashioned kind of US superhero which was undermined
by Frank Miller etc. in the 80s - the square-jawed, home-town white
conservative who fights for truth, bullshit - sorry, beauty - and the
American way. Should Liberatore have been stopped? Should his book
(collected in Video Clips on Catalan, btw) have been banned? Should he have
changed Superman's name and costume (as Moebius did when he did a similar
sort of thing for Batman later on in Penthouse Comix)? I don't think so.
>
> > It's all bollocks. It's a scam. It's a way for people who have no
creative
> > input into an artform, who cannot even claim an interest as that
artform's
> > 'consumers', to skim money from it.
>
> After all, heaven forbid anyone have any rights but Duncan.
Heh, heh. Now normally I'd be getting bored round now anyway and so I'd go
into one about how you all must obey my commands - but I won't, I think this
is actually an important subject. Obviously, Nat, I'm not defending my
'rights' - other than as a consumer of what, I hope, is material that is as
close to what its creator intended as possible; that is, which hasn't been
censored - because I'm not a creator. And it's the creators' rights I'm
sticking up for.
>
> > Copyright exists to protect the creative and pecuniary interests of the
> > artist, balanced with the interests of the consumers of that art. When i
was
> > arguing with Todd about the rights and wrongs of uploading Barry Smith
> > artwork, I did say that copyright as it applies to hard copy and while
the
> > artist is living is probably too unsuportive of the artist (example: guy
> > davies said in TCJ that he has no rights to his redesign of the Golden
Age
> > Sandman and so gets no return
> > from the sales of the character's plastic models. That's wrong.)
>
> Gee, it's wrong for DC not to pay for character rights that have been
> contractually assigned to them.... but it would be right for
> Dark Horse not to pay for the character created by Julius Marx,
> rights which have never been assigned to them. Oh, real consistant
> there, Duncan.
What do you mean by 'wrong'? Do you as defined by what is legal? I'm saying
that ideally, the law on copyright should apply differently when the owner
of the copyright or the medium in which the copyright law is applied,
changes. So, ideally, Davies would get something for the Sandman designs he
did from the sales of Sandman toys - he didn't sign those rights away, they
don't apply in the first place. There's an article about it in this month's
TCJ. He's not legally entitled to anything so... tough. But *ideally*...
Likewise, if Groucho were still alive I think it would be fair for him to
take a cut of profits of a comic which uses his image, the image he
invented. He might have a say in preventing publication of said comic if it
libelled him in any way (he could sue, that is), but it doesn't, so that
doesn't come into it. It doesn't even slander him. Ideally, Groucho would
still be alive. He isn't.
Should the guardians of his estate be afforded the same rights? Ideally, no.
That way, publishers won't feel the need to doctor their creator's work to
appease them.
Should publication on the net be treated differenly to hard copy publishing?
Ideally, yes. Partly because there are enormous differences in financial
return between the two; partly because that would help to keep the net free.
>
> > In the case of the Groucho Bonelli, *nobody* has any financial
interests. We
> > have the interests of the artist/writer, who wants an honest and
accurate
> > translation of his work
>
> The writer has no financial interests? And it's amazing how you know
> just what the writer is thinking... or has he been speaking to you
> about it?
I could ask you the same question, Nat. Everything you've just said is based
on your understanding of the meaning of that particular comic strip.
>
> > and that of the
> > readers who don't want - most of them - the material they read to be
> > filtered through a panel of censors, whatever their assumed
justification.
>
> Which reader's poll was this?
Heh. I'll do it now.
Question:
Do you want to read censored material?
Answer 'Yes':
Answer 'No':
>
> > Against that we have - possibly, since it never actually went to court -
the
> > 'hurt feelings' of a member of the Marx family or the fear of a damaged
> > product of the moneymen now running (I assume) the Marx estate. To the
> > first: grow up. Look at the specific case; yes, if Groucho were still
alive,
> > he ought to be bunged a ercentage of Dylan Dog's (ho ho) profits. He's
not;
> > get over it.
>
> Because the dead have no right to leave anything to their heirs, eh?
Hmmmm. well, valid question. Do their heirs have a right to live off their
parents' creations? I think they do but I think their rights should
diminish. I don't think they should pass on to the next generation, either.
(But then, i don't have a family).
>
> > To the second:[my middle finger is pointing straight up]
> > swivel.
>
> Says the person who is trying to tell others to "grow up".
Do as I say, not as I do. Pretty good motto, that. As long as it's me who's
mottoing. :-)
Duncan
<kar...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:7qhdd3$6lr$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <7qh2un$301f$1...@grind.server.pavilion.net>,
> "Duncan" <dun...@airstream.co.uk> wrote:
> >
>
> > It's no good trying to develop law from some grand principle: look at
the
> > specific cases. The version of 'Groucho' (ie that of the character who
has
> > adopted his identity) in Dylan Dog is not in any way supposed to be
> > insulting to Groucho's memory - if anything, it's affectionate. Any
member
> > of Gropucho's family who pretended to take offenec at that would be so
> > obviously trying to scam money out of the publisher that any case they
> > brought in front of any ordinary human judge or jury would be thrown out
> > immediately. On that basis, it would have been nice to think Dark Horse
> > would have seen it that way and gone ahead and ublished.
> >
>
> and you keep getting further afield. this doesn't really matter to my
point.
> the point i was making is not based on slander rulings but copyrights and
> trademarks. to make money by using the likeness and reputation of someone
> else's hardwork is wrong. even if you are an artist. there are some fair
use
> laws and such but making him into a regular recurring character goes
beyond
> that and borders on laziness as well.
Like Nat, you seem to be misunderstanding the point of having the guy
pretend to be Groucho. Groucho has a symbolic meaning outside the US, you
know. Yes, he invented it but someone somewhere invented the skull and cross
bones, or the indian headress, or the image of Marilyn Monroe having her
dress blown up over a subway grating or whatever - should we be denied the
use of those images too? Their use would be allowed under an expanded fair
use clause.
>
> as far as groucho's descendents being insulted...being cast in a very
> gruesome and dark comic, i could see where it would offend some
> sensibilities. if it is such a loving tribute, then you think people could
> bother to check with his descendents.
Quite. Someone like the publisher, dark horse. In effect, that's just what I
wish they'd done.
If they are part of a story, a fiction. If it's integral to your plot that
you have someone who doesn't like me - just pick someone off this NG - then
yes, of course.
> or your
> grandfather? believe it or not, the rules protect the public and corporate
> alike. there are allowances for journalistic purposes and public figures
and
> satire and parody. but, you can't just say anything about anybody willy
> nilly.
No, a specific libel is a different matter. And I'm not saying that anything
should be published willy nilly anyway, excluding libel. The situation
here - with Dylan Dog - is that a comic which was published in Europe with
no problem has had to be doctored when it is published in the US. Doesn't
that bother you?
Actually, I say that... it's been doctored but we're assuming the reason,
based on what Nat said earlier.
>
> > It's all bollocks. It's a scam. It's a way for people who have no
creative
> > input into an artform, who cannot even claim an interest as that
artform's
> > 'consumers', to skim money from it.
>
> i see that as applying to those who violate the copyright laws because
they
> are too lazy to give credit where it's due and seek to make money off of
> other people's work and investments instead of creating something new
> themselves.
[sigh] you're missing the point. It *has* to be Groucho because... it does.
That's who the creator's character thinks he is. Who are you to second-guess
the writer?
FWIW, I think the law should apply differently as the owner of copyright
changes.
> so disney didn't need to get permission from the burroughs estate to
> do the tarzan movie. or share in any of the profits.
No. That's not what I'm saying at all. It's intertesting that the examples
you come up with involve companies or executors (often the same thing). They
are what the current copyright laws are designed to protect, not the
creators. And their money is, I suspect, what is preventing change.
>
> and you assume that the "dylan dog" is uncensored? how many comics do you
> think contain the pure artistic vision of the creator?
That's no argument. You're right, but it's no argument. You have to start
somewhere.
> not to mention, from
> what i've seen and read, the bonelli comics are like ours, and not a
product
> of a single artistic vision.
Writer and artist, far as I know.
Incidentally, one of the other Bonelli books used characters from Dracula.
Should Bra toker's estate have had a veto? Another pinched set-ups and
scenes from Night of the Living Dead. Should Romero have been notified?
NOTLD itself stole from Great Expectations. So do we call up David Lean's
family? What about Dicken's great-great-great etc. grandwhatevers?
> the use of groucho/felix may not even be a
> decision by the current "artistic" team on the book but is mandated now by
> editorial because he's been there all along. and the fact we only get 6
> issues out of god knows how many is a form of censorship as well. when you
> are talking about the corporate publishing world, censorship exists all
> around in every step of the process. and bonelli is just as much a company
as
> dark horse is.
>
All true and somehow saddening but I'm ot sure whatn you're point is...
Nat Gertler
> > piss on every artistic creator out there, because they're standing in
> > the
> > way of artistic creation.
>
> Yeah, well you *know* I'm not saying that Nat.
No, I don't know you're not saying that, Duncan. I've seen you
repeatedly treat respect for intellectual property rights as
censorship, and painting the person who would create an infringing
work as the victim.
> The use of the Groucho persona in DD is
> meant entirely in the most affectionate terms.
"Is meant"? Who are you psychically channeling now?
> It's a tribute, for God's
> sake, and the character pretending to be him isn't an idiot: he's slightly
> cracked, sure, slightly mad, but his madness is only explicable if we
> recognise the person he's meant to be and what that person represents (ie
> the signifier).
> It's supposed to show the guy has a particular relationship
> to American culture, as signified by a particular American cultural icon.
Let me note that if that truly were to be the creator's goal, one
could not expect it to work the same in the US anyway.
> > Let's support instead the publisher and
> > creator who are trying to scam money out of the character created
> > by Julius Marx!"
>
> Nat, I'm not saying that! I'm saying let's support the creators of Dylan
> Dog.
The folks who are trying to exploit the character created by J. Marx.
> Let's support their right to say or depict what they feel they need to
> say or depict. In other circumstances I feel sure you'd support me on that.
In circumstances where they were not ripping someone off or
unfairly maligning someone and where they had a publisher
who desired to publish the material, yes.
> > > On that basis, it would have been nice to think Dark Horse
> > > would have seen it that way and gone ahead and ublished.
> >
> > "Yeah, let's put ourselves in the path of a lawsuit to defend
> > the 'rights' of the artist to exploit someone else's characters!"
>
> It's not exploitation, for God's sake, it's free speach and artistic
> integrity and - yeah, it would have been nice if dark horse had stood up for
> it but I don't blam them for not doing so. i'm absolutely gobsmacked that
> you're taking this line, Nat.
O, horrors, is someone who makes his living off of his intellectual
property being concerned about the intellectual property of others?
> Back to the law again... As I was saying before, there's an old Liberatore
> story about Superman having sex with Lex Luthor. Liberatore is using Soops
> as a symbol of that old fashioned kind of US superhero which was undermined
> by Frank Miller etc. in the 80s - the square-jawed, home-town white
> conservative who fights for truth, bullshit - sorry, beauty - and the
> American way. Should Liberatore have been stopped? Should his book
> (collected in Video Clips on Catalan, btw) have been banned? Should he have
> changed Superman's name and costume (as Moebius did when he did a similar
> sort of thing for Batman later on in Penthouse Comix)? I don't think so.
A single commentary story might *arguably* be fair use. Dylan Dog
uses the Groucho name and license on an on-going basis.
> >
> > > It's all bollocks. It's a scam. It's a way for people who have no
> creative
> > > input into an artform, who cannot even claim an interest as that
> artform's
> > > 'consumers', to skim money from it.
> >
> > After all, heaven forbid anyone have any rights but Duncan.
>
> Heh, heh. Now normally I'd be getting bored round now anyway and so I'd go
> into one about how you all must obey my commands - but I won't, I think this
> is actually an important subject. Obviously, Nat, I'm not defending my
> 'rights' - other than as a consumer of what, I hope, is material that is as
> close to what its creator intended as possible;
Yup. The right to get it as you want it.
> And it's the creators' rights I'm
> sticking up for.
You're sticking up for J. Marx's rights? Sure doesn't look that way.
Oh, wait, you don't mean the *creator* of Groucho, you mean the guy
who is exploiting someone else's creation.
> > > Copyright exists to protect the creative and pecuniary interests of the
> > > artist, balanced with the interests of the consumers of that art. When i
> was
> > > arguing with Todd about the rights and wrongs of uploading Barry Smith
> > > artwork, I did say that copyright as it applies to hard copy and while
> the
> > > artist is living is probably too unsuportive of the artist (example: guy
> > > davies said in TCJ that he has no rights to his redesign of the Golden
> Age
> > > Sandman and so gets no return
> > > from the sales of the character's plastic models. That's wrong.)
> >
> > Gee, it's wrong for DC not to pay for character rights that have been
> > contractually assigned to them.... but it would be right for
> > Dark Horse not to pay for the character created by Julius Marx,
> > rights which have never been assigned to them. Oh, real consistant
> > there, Duncan.
>
> What do you mean by 'wrong'?
You're the one who introduced the term.
> Should the guardians of his estate be afforded the same rights? Ideally, no.
> That way, publishers won't feel the need to doctor their creator's work to
> appease them.
Let's screw with the wishes of the man involving his inheritence,
because somewhere, some artist may wish to make money off of him!
> Should publication on the net be treated differenly to hard copy publishing?
> Ideally, yes. Partly because there are enormous differences in financial
> return between the two; partly because that would help to keep the net free.
Ah, the screw-the-creator-and-his-rights attitude.
> > The writer has no financial interests? And it's amazing how you know
> > just what the writer is thinking... or has he been speaking to you
> > about it?
>
> I could ask you the same question, Nat. Everything you've just said is based
> on your understanding of the meaning of that particular comic strip.
Mope. And certainly none of it has indicated what the writer/artist of
Dylan Dog intended.
Duncan
> Duncan wrote:
> >
> > > Yeah! Let's throw any intellectual rights out the window, and
> > > piss on every artistic creator out there, because they're standing in
> > > the
> > > way of artistic creation.
> >
> > Yeah, well you *know* I'm not saying that Nat.
>
> No, I don't know you're not saying that, Duncan. I've seen you
> repeatedly treat respect for intellectual property rights as
> censorship, and painting the person who would create an infringing
> work as the victim.
Have you? I've argued two cases on this newgroup. One about uploading other
people's work onto a website and this one about the use of Groucho's image
in a Bonelli book. I've tried to find similar cases to give as examples for
you, to explore how far your perception of respect for intellectual property
rights goes - and you've done the same. That's hardly 'repeatedly' anything.
For the record, I'm not denying the right of ownership of intellectual
property. Right from the start, in both arguments, I've said that when an
artist sells their work, and when that work gets itself a public audience,
that audience has an interest in the further development of the artwork and
the artist. That interest doesn't gainsay the artist's copyright but it *is*
a legitimate interest and shouldn't be ignored. Both in the previous case
and now you don't seem to want to take that interest into account (whether
or not it is taken into account in legal procedure is irrelevent for reasons
I've already stated). The irony of all this is that you, me, all of us on
this newsgroup, whether we're creators or not, love comics, are consumers of
comics; we are that audience and that interest is ours.
Someone else taking your line [sorry, can't find your name] asked if it
would be OK for Disney to adapt Burroughs' Tarzan stories without
permission. Obviously it wouldn't, but the analogy is wrong (because you've
accused me of having no respect for intellectual property rights Nat, I'm
assuming you could have asked me the same thing). Adapting a novel or book
of stories is not the same as occasionally using an imitation of an iconic
figure in an entirely different story. You need to be clear about this:
since you're taking an absolutist point of view, ie that the law must apply
in all cases, no matter what, then the use of characters from Bram Stoker's
Dracula in another Bonelli book in the same spirit as the Groucho in DD must
be equally wrong.
>
> > The use of the Groucho persona in DD is
> > meant entirely in the most affectionate terms.
>
> "Is meant"? Who are you psychically channeling now?
That's just silly. We all intepret what we read in our own way, based on our
own experiences etc. Yeah, I could be wrong: so could you. If you think my
intepretation is wrong, explain why: give us your version and we'll compare
notes. It's no use criticising someone's opinion if you can't or won't
provide an alternative - my psychic channeling isn't up to that job.
>
> > It's a tribute, for God's
> > sake, and the character pretending to be him isn't an idiot: he's
slightly
> > cracked, sure, slightly mad, but his madness is only explicable if we
> > recognise the person he's meant to be and what that person represents
(ie
> > the signifier).
> > It's supposed to show the guy has a particular relationship
> > to American culture, as signified by a particular American cultural
icon.
>
> Let me note that if that truly were to be the creator's goal, one
> could not expect it to work the same in the US anyway.
How do you mean? If you mean it wouldn't work because it's foreign, what
makes you think an American comic would 'work' in... in Italy, say (they do
and always have, of course). And I mean a comicbook comic - although the
same question could be asked of the other kind of comic, or any other kind
of cultural export. Like Groucho Marx, for instance.
>
> > > Let's support instead the publisher and
> > > creator who are trying to scam money out of the character created
> > > by Julius Marx!"
> >
> > Nat, I'm not saying that! I'm saying let's support the creators of Dylan
> > Dog.
>
> The folks who are trying to exploit the character created by J. Marx.
It's not exploitation!!!! If it were, I'd agree with you! By what logic
would I be advocating the right of the writer of Dylan Dog (I wish I knew
his fucking name!) to have his work published as he wrote it but at the same
time deny J Marx's 'right' (in inverted commas because he's dead; it's
actually his memory we're talking about) not to have *his* work tampered
with? That wouldn't make sense! If this was a comic strip which deliberately
set out to destroy Marx's reputation - well, we wouldn't be having this
argument, for starters. I'm a big fan of the Marx Bros, FWIW; I can
guarantee you - psychic channeling or not - that Dylan Dog's writer is too.
He wouldn't have used his image that way otherwise. There are comics which
incidentally attempt to destroy (well, destroy is putting it too strong:
let's say 'piss over') public figure's reputation - in the UK, Dr Horror and
Meng & Ecker would be examples. The writer of Dr Horror, David Brittan,
recently came out of prison for such an offence. Generally his targets are
spot on, often they're not. I don't think he should've gone down but - I
guess you'd say I've resigned myself to his fate. This (DD) is an entirely
different case.
>
> > Let's support their right to say or depict what they feel they need to
> > say or depict. In other circumstances I feel sure you'd support me on
that.
>
> In circumstances where they were not ripping someone off or
> unfairly maligning someone and where they had a publisher
> who desired to publish the material, yes.
Uh-huh. Assuming you're still referring to Dylan Dog mnaybe you'd like to
give some examples of that 'unfairly maligning' of Groucho that's going on?
>
> > > > On that basis, it would have been nice to think Dark Horse
> > > > would have seen it that way and gone ahead and ublished.
> > >
> > > "Yeah, let's put ourselves in the path of a lawsuit to defend
> > > the 'rights' of the artist to exploit someone else's characters!"
> >
> > It's not exploitation, for God's sake, it's free speach and artistic
> > integrity and - yeah, it would have been nice if dark horse had stood up
for
> > it but I don't blam them for not doing so. i'm absolutely gobsmacked
that
> > you're taking this line, Nat.
>
> O, horrors, is someone who makes his living off of his intellectual
> property being concerned about the intellectual property of others?
Not in this case you're not. You are clearly not concerned about the
intellectual property of [the DD writer].
>
> > Back to the law again... As I was saying before, there's an old
Liberatore
> > story about Superman having sex with Lex Luthor. Liberatore is using
Soops
> > as a symbol of that old fashioned kind of US superhero which was
undermined
> > by Frank Miller etc. in the 80s - the square-jawed, home-town white
> > conservative who fights for truth, bullshit - sorry, beauty - and the
> > American way. Should Liberatore have been stopped? Should his book
> > (collected in Video Clips on Catalan, btw) have been banned? Should he
have
> > changed Superman's name and costume (as Moebius did when he did a
similar
> > sort of thing for Batman later on in Penthouse Comix)? I don't think so.
>
> A single commentary story might *arguably* be fair use. Dylan Dog
> uses the Groucho name and license on an on-going basis.
I haven't brought up fair use here because I think the law itself is
inadequate but the idea behind it - that intellectual property should be
respected except in certain circumstances - is, imo, the right one. 'Fair
use' would need to be extended and judged case by case. The use of Groucho
Marx's image in DD (like Superman's in the Liberatare story) is clearly
fair, imo, for reasons I've already said, that it is an iconic image which
has taken up associations and meanings which trancend the character itself
and for which the concept of ownership is meaningless. That's precisely the
sort of thing that would have to be talked through in court - as I said
before, it would have been nice if it had actually happened but given that,
as an intelligent sort of bloke, your insistence on a literal intepretation
of the law and an unwillingness to make allowance for the creator's meaning
could well be a representative opinion, I can see why Dark Horse didn't try
it.
> > >
> > > > It's all bollocks. It's a scam. It's a way for people who have no
> > creative
> > > > input into an artform, who cannot even claim an interest as that
> > artform's
> > > > 'consumers', to skim money from it.
> > >
> > > After all, heaven forbid anyone have any rights but Duncan.
> >
> > Heh, heh. Now normally I'd be getting bored round now anyway and so I'd
go
> > into one about how you all must obey my commands - but I won't, I think
this
> > is actually an important subject. Obviously, Nat, I'm not defending my
> > 'rights' - other than as a consumer of what, I hope, is material that is
as
> > close to what its creator intended as possible;
>
> Yup. The right to get it as you want it.
I wouldn't call it anything as high-falutin' as a 'right'. It's an interest;
it's something I (and you, presumably, and most readers/movie watchers/art
lovers/consumers of one kind or another) want. The 'right' involved is that
of the creator(s).
>
> > And it's the creators' rights I'm
> > sticking up for.
>
> You're sticking up for J. Marx's rights? Sure doesn't look that way.
> Oh, wait, you don't mean the *creator* of Groucho,
He's dead, Nat. He's dead. What more do you want me to say? He's dead. How
can I stick up for his rights? If he were here I would but he's not. You
want I should stick up for his lawyer's rights? For his executor's? If he
were alive the situation would be different. I've already said that. He's
not. It's not. (Or rather, it shouldn't be.) Were he alive, Marx would have
a rightful claim, imo, on profits of works which use his creation. I don't
think it's right for his estate to be able to exercise the same claim (which
isn't to say they should have no claim at all) once he's dead. I've already
said that. (And don't hit me with a legal definition. I know his estate have
that right in law, I'm talking about a moral right, not a legal one).
There's a private club in London, a well known one, called Groucho's. It
uses Groucho's name and by using it alludes to his creation, his famous line
that he wouldn't join any club that invites the likes of him (those fucking
advertsing/media types. Docha just love them?). Should they be allowed to
get away with it?
> you mean the guy
> who is exploiting someone else's creation.
I-Yi-Yi. Again with the exploitation. Chill out, dude.
>
> > > > Copyright exists to protect the creative and pecuniary interests of
the
> > > > artist, balanced with the interests of the consumers of that art.
When i
> > was
> > > > arguing with Todd about the rights and wrongs of uploading Barry
Smith
> > > > artwork, I did say that copyright as it applies to hard copy and
while
> > the
> > > > artist is living is probably too unsuportive of the artist (example:
guy
> > > > davies said in TCJ that he has no rights to his redesign of the
Golden
> > Age
> > > > Sandman and so gets no return
> > > > from the sales of the character's plastic models. That's wrong.)
> > >
> > > Gee, it's wrong for DC not to pay for character rights that have been
> > > contractually assigned to them.... but it would be right for
> > > Dark Horse not to pay for the character created by Julius Marx,
> > > rights which have never been assigned to them. Oh, real consistant
> > > there, Duncan.
> >
> > What do you mean by 'wrong'?
>
> You're the one who introduced the term.
Huh? OK, so if we haven't been arguing about what's right or wrong, apart
from a possible misintepration of [DD's writer]'s meaning on one of our
behalf's, what have we been arguing about? I mean, yes I introduced the
term. And...?
>
> > Should the guardians of his estate be afforded the same rights? Ideally,
no.
> > That way, publishers won't feel the need to doctor their creator's work
to
> > appease them.
>
> Let's screw with the wishes of the man involving his inheritence,
> because somewhere, some artist may wish to make money off of him!
Let's not allow a third party's purchase or inheritance of copyright allow
them to alter either the original creator's (eg when Disney *do* adapt work
like Tarzan they invariably make a soppy, sentimental, inaccurate fuck-up of
it, miles away from what the likes of Burroughs' intended. Is that a 'good'
thing, just because they've had enough money to buy the rights? I'm only
asking...) intentions or to unduly influence another creator's [fair use] of
said creation [the term fair use to be replaced, expanded], where deemed
appropriate and taking into account the interests of the general audience
and any general understanding of the significance of said creation in
society, at home and abroad... etc. etc. Sounds like a New Labour manifesto
but you get the drift...
I take it from that you're perfetly happy with copyright law as it stands?
Nothing should be changed?
>
> > Should publication on the net be treated differenly to hard copy
publishing?
> > Ideally, yes. Partly because there are enormous differences in financial
> > return between the two; partly because that would help to keep the net
free.
>
> Ah, the screw-the-creator-and-his-rights attitude.
Oh, my! I recognise that tree! Toto? I think we've been this way before!
>
> > > The writer has no financial interests? And it's amazing how you know
> > > just what the writer is thinking... or has he been speaking to you
> > > about it?
> >
> > I could ask you the same question, Nat. Everything you've just said is
based
> > on your understanding of the meaning of that particular comic strip.
>
> Mope.
Mope?
> And certainly none of it has indicated what the writer/artist of
> Dylan Dog intended.
No. It's a pity he's not here. You wouldn't get good odds that he's a Marx
Bros. fan, mind, I promise you.
The Mute That Time Forgot
>Back to the law again... As I was saying before, there's an old Liberatore
>story about Superman having sex with Lex Luthor. Liberatore is using Soops
>as a symbol of that old fashioned kind of US superhero which was undermined
>by Frank Miller etc. in the 80s - the square-jawed, home-town white
>conservative who fights for truth, bullshit - sorry, beauty - and the
>American way. Should Liberatore have been stopped? Should his book
>(collected in Video Clips on Catalan, btw) have been banned? Should he have
>changed Superman's name and costume (as Moebius did when he did a similar
>sort of thing for Batman later on in Penthouse Comix)? I don't think so.
Actually, Moebius did that story for Batman: Black & White. DC shat
themselves, he retouched the art and took it elsewhere.
Wouldn't it be fun if Kyle could take the Letitia Lerner story to
the Siegels now...
-Mute.
______________________
whose news server is a festering pile of shite again
Nat Gertler
> > repeatedly treat respect for intellectual property rights as
> > censorship, and painting the person who would create an infringing
> > work as the victim.
>
> Have you?
Yes, I have. Even if you'd been involved in no other threads,
you've repeatedly called it "censorship" in this thread.
> > > The use of the Groucho persona in DD is
> > > meant entirely in the most affectionate terms.
> >
> > "Is meant"? Who are you psychically channeling now?
>
> That's just silly. We all intepret what we read in our own way, based on our
> own experiences etc.
Yes, but you go around talking about what the author's intent
was. It's one thing to say what you see in the work; don't
confuse that with what the author was trying to do.
> > > It's supposed to show the guy has a particular relationship
> > > to American culture, as signified by a particular American cultural
> icon.
> >
> > Let me note that if that truly were to be the creator's goal, one
> > could not expect it to work the same in the US anyway.
>
> How do you mean?
Because as far as I can see, Groucho does not stand for "American
culture" in America. There are other things he may represent
(witty rebellion), but he mostly represents Groucho. The relationship
of Americans to their culture is different than the relationships
of others to American culture.
> > > > Let's support instead the publisher and
> > > > creator who are trying to scam money out of the character created
> > > > by Julius Marx!"
> > >
> > > Nat, I'm not saying that! I'm saying let's support the creators of Dylan
> > > Dog.
> >
> > The folks who are trying to exploit the character created by J. Marx.
>
> It's not exploitation!!!! If it were, I'd agree with you!
No, it's only depicting Groucho in for-profit materials...
gee, how could one find exploitation in that?
> By what logic
> would I be advocating the right of the writer of Dylan Dog (I wish I knew
> his fucking name!) to have his work published as he wrote it but at the same
> time deny J Marx's 'right' (in inverted commas because he's dead; it's
> actually his memory we're talking about) not to have *his* work tampered
> with? That wouldn't make sense!
And yet, that is exactly you're advocating. You're right, it doesn't
make sense.
> > O, horrors, is someone who makes his living off of his intellectual
> > property being concerned about the intellectual property of others?
>
> Not in this case you're not. You are clearly not concerned about the
> intellectual property of [the DD writer].
I am concerned. If someone wanted to rip off his Dylan Dog character
because the creator's heart stopped beating for a second, then I'd
hold the same concern. But the guy who created Dylan Dog did not
create Groucho. Marx did.
> > > And it's the creators' rights I'm
> > > sticking up for.
> >
> > You're sticking up for J. Marx's rights? Sure doesn't look that way.
> > Oh, wait, you don't mean the *creator* of Groucho,
>
> He's dead, Nat. He's dead. What more do you want me to say? He's dead. How
> can I stick up for his rights?
You can stick up for his right to pass on what he owns as his
wishes, instead of opening it up to grave robbery.
> > you mean the guy
> > who is exploiting someone else's creation.
>
> I-Yi-Yi. Again with the exploitation. Chill out, dude.
Say the guy who repeatedly invokes "censorship".
> > Let's screw with the wishes of the man involving his inheritence,
> > because somewhere, some artist may wish to make money off of him!
>
> Let's not allow a third party's purchase or inheritance of copyright allow
> them to alter either the original creator's (eg when Disney *do* adapt work
> like Tarzan they invariably make a soppy, sentimental, inaccurate fuck-up of
> it, miles away from what the likes of Burroughs' intended. Is that a 'good'
> thing, just because they've had enough money to buy the rights? I'm only
> asking...) intentions or to unduly influence another creator's [fair use] of
> said creation [the term fair use to be replaced, expanded], where deemed
> appropriate and taking into account the interests of the general audience
> and any general understanding of the significance of said creation in
> society, at home and abroad... etc. etc. Sounds like a New Labour manifesto
> but you get the drift...
Yeah... it's not right for the inheritors to fug with it, but anyone
else can fug with it all they like.
> > Mope.
>
> Mope?
Er, "nope". You can't trust a drug user to type well. (Okay, it's
only Flonase, but I'll take any excuse...)
Duncan
> Duncan wrote:
> >
> > > No, I don't know you're not saying that, Duncan. I've seen you
> > > repeatedly treat respect for intellectual property rights as
> > > censorship, and painting the person who would create an infringing
> > > work as the victim.
> >
> > Have you?
>
> Yes, I have. Even if you'd been involved in no other threads,
> you've repeatedly called it "censorship" in this thread.
If an artist's work is tampered with by a publisher etc. so that its meaning
is changed that contiutes a form of censorship, doesn't it? If an artist
holds back from saying what s/he'd *really* like to say for fear of legal
action, upsetting readers etc. that's cnsorship too, self-censorship. That's
not necessarily to give the word some kind of moral dimension: it just is
what it is.
>
> > > > The use of the Groucho persona in DD is
> > > > meant entirely in the most affectionate terms.
> > >
> > > "Is meant"? Who are you psychically channeling now?
> >
> > That's just silly. We all intepret what we read in our own way, based on
our
> > own experiences etc.
>
> Yes, but you go around
[Heh. Yeah, I could be heard haranguing commuters on a train platform about
the meaning of Dylan Dog only this morning...]
> talking about what the author's
Tizo Sclavi. That's only an approximation of his name but it'll do.
> intent
> was. It's one thing to say what you see in the work; don't
> confuse that with what the author was trying to do.
Ach. For the purposes of this or any other argument, if the writer isn't
actually present, there's no difference. It's pretty clear to me that the
use of Groucho's image is not meant to show him disrespect. You haven't
given any examples of where Sclavi is - I'veforgotten the word you used -
taken the piss out of Groucho.
Incidentally, I checked througfh all six issues of DD last night:
Felix/Groucho appears a few times in two issues, briefly in one other. Out
of six. His appearance isn't changed, only his name. It's obvious to anyone
who knows who Groucho is that it's supposed to be him; the change has only
been made to his name and, apart from the irritation it causes, therefore is
only effective for people who *don't* know who Groucho is - and why should
the estate care what they think? The whole thing is stupid.
>
> > > > It's supposed to show the guy has a particular relationship
> > > > to American culture, as signified by a particular American cultural
> > icon.
> > >
> > > Let me note that if that truly were to be the creator's goal, one
> > > could not expect it to work the same in the US anyway.
> >
> > How do you mean?
>
> Because as far as I can see, Groucho does not stand for "American
> culture" in America. There are other things he may represent
> (witty rebellion),
Yeah, that's a good one. A clever clown. Did you see that Italian movie
about the death camp which won an oscar?
> but he mostly represents Groucho. The relationship
> of Americans to their culture is different than the relationships
> of others to American culture.
Sure. The same would go for people of any country, although different people
in each country will have different perceptions of their own culture. What's
your point?
Presumably, you'd like the copyright law to work equally in every country.
If not, your perception of it, as a law which only applies to Americans, is
a sort of protectionist, Buchannanite one. If so, you'd be expecting
non-Americans to comply with an American, rather than, say, Italian,
understanding of American culture, which smacks of imperialism.
Dylan Dog is very popular in Italy. What happens if it becomes so popular
that DD - and his sidekick - become icons in their own right, to rival
Groucho? By what right do you alter it?
>
> > > > > Let's support instead the publisher and
> > > > > creator who are trying to scam money out of the character created
> > > > > by Julius Marx!"
> > > >
> > > > Nat, I'm not saying that! I'm saying let's support the creators of
Dylan
> > > > Dog.
> > >
> > > The folks who are trying to exploit the character created by J. Marx.
> >
> > It's not exploitation!!!! If it were, I'd agree with you!
>
> No, it's only depicting Groucho in for-profit materials...
> gee, how could one find exploitation in that?
Any writer likes to make money out of their writing, presumably, or they
wouldn't have it published. Sclavi obviously feels the need to depict his
character this way; it has a meaning for him and his readership. Who are we
to deny that? Who are we to deny his right to earn a living? Given that
no-one else is losing out - Marx's estate is not losing anything (they're
not gaining money, sure. If you want to argue that they should get a cut for
the use of the Groucho name/image, fine. I wouldn't agree but I can
understand the argument).
> verted commas because he's dead; it's
> > actually his memory we're talking about) not to have *his* work tampered
> > with? That wouldn't make sense!
>
> And yet, that is exactly you're advocating. You're right, it doesn't
> make sense.
His work *isn't* being tampered with! When his directors told him to cut
material for being too risque, *that* was when his work was being tampered
with.
> his living off of his intellectual
> > > property being concerned about the intellectual property of others?
> >
> > Not in this case you're not. You are clearly not concerned about the
> > intellectual property of [the DD writer].
>
> I am concerned. If someone wanted to rip off his Dylan Dog character
> because the creator's heart stopped beating for a second, then I'd
> hold the same concern. But the guy who created Dylan Dog did not
> create Groucho. Marx did.
I don't like the term but... Fair Use.
> I'm
> > > > sticking up for.
> > >
> > > You're sticking up for J. Marx's rights? Sure doesn't look that way.
> > > Oh, wait, you don't mean the *creator* of Groucho,
> >
> > He's dead, Nat. He's dead. What more do you want me to say? He's dead.
How
> > can I stick up for his rights?
>
> You can stick up for his right to pass on what he owns as his
> wishes,
Intellectual property as a commodity. Sorry, beyond the first generation, I
don't buy it (ho ho). I didn't really want to get into it but I guess an
ideal copyright law would involve some system of passing on the right to
earn money for a creation while retaining the actual ownership of it and the
right to determine how it's portrayed (which would actually increase the
creator's rights). The quid pro quo would be an expanded/revised fair use
clause - make it incidental use or something.
> nstead of opening it up to grave robbery.
DO you know how to stop my PC from deleting forwards?
That's a very emotive way of putting it. It's not robbery, any more than the
Liberatore example I gave or a million others where popular icons or
characters are used as a shorthand to meaning.
> -Yi. Again with the exploitation. Chill out, dude.
>
> Say the guy who repeatedly invokes "censorship".
As above. I should say instead... what?
> e man involving his inheritence,
> > > because somewhere, some artist may wish to make money off of him!
> >
> > Let's not allow a third party's purchase or inheritance of copyright
allow
> > them to alter either the original creator's (eg when Disney *do* adapt
work
> > like Tarzan they invariably make a soppy, sentimental, inaccurate
fuck-up of
> > it, miles away from what the likes of Burroughs' intended. Is that a
'good'
> > thing, just because they've had enough money to buy the rights? I'm only
> > asking...) intentions or to unduly influence another creator's [fair
use] of
> > said creation [the term fair use to be replaced, expanded], where deemed
> > appropriate and taking into account the interests of the general
audience
> > and any general understanding of the significance of said creation in
> > society, at home and abroad... etc. etc. Sounds like a New Labour
manifesto
> > but you get the drift...
>
> Yeah... it's not right for the inheritors to fug with it, but anyone
> else can fug with it all they like.
Fug?
...that's another thing. This usiness of not allowingswearing in comics.
It's censorship, pure and simple... etc.
If Sclavi wrote a new marx bros. script, broadcast it with actors and
claimed it as an original, that'd be 'fugging'. Incidental use is no fuggie
mister.
Nat Gertler
>
> If an artist's work is tampered with by a publisher etc. so that its meaning
> is changed that contiutes a form of censorship, doesn't it?
No, that's a form of editing. A publisher does not owe it to
any creator that happens to come along to publish their work,
nor does a creator owe his work to a publisher without having
made an agreement. The choice to deal with the publisher and
the publisher's restrictions is very much under the creator's
control.
> > intent
> > was. It's one thing to say what you see in the work; don't
> > confuse that with what the author was trying to do.
>
> Ach. For the purposes of this or any other argument, if the writer isn't
> actually present, there's no difference.
No, it makes a huge difference.
> > but he mostly represents Groucho. The relationship
> > of Americans to their culture is different than the relationships
> > of others to American culture.
>
> Sure. The same would go for people of any country, although different people
> in each country will have different perceptions of their own culture. What's
> your point?
That the effect of the work (as you describe it) is changed by
being presented for Americans anyway. If the intent of using
Groucho is to comment on American culture, and when presented
to Americans it fails to do that, then this whole thing about
keeping Groucho to match the original intent is fallacious.
> Dylan Dog is very popular in Italy. What happens if it becomes so popular
> that DD - and his sidekick - become icons in their own right, to rival
> Groucho? By what right do you alter it?
First off, I'm not the one who's altering it. Secondly, I never
said that Groucho should have been used in the Italian version.
> Any writer likes to make money out of their writing, presumably, or they
> wouldn't have it published. Sclavi obviously feels the need to depict his
> character this way; it has a meaning for him and his readership. Who are we
> to deny that?
I'm not denying that. Yes, Groucho has meaning... created by Marx.
> Who are we to deny his right to earn a living?
Who is trying to deny his right to earn a living? If his earning
his living is contingent on that Groucho character, however,
perhaps he should be making a deal with people who may own
rights to that character, and not deny their earning their living.
I don't deny the guy next door the right to earn a living, but
if he makes his money by swiping my hubcaps and selling them, I
certainly deny his having a right to do so.
> His work *isn't* being tampered with!
The creation of the Groucho persona is a large part of his work.
> > I am concerned. If someone wanted to rip off his Dylan Dog character
> > because the creator's heart stopped beating for a second, then I'd
> > hold the same concern. But the guy who created Dylan Dog did not
> > create Groucho. Marx did.
>
> I don't like the term but... Fair Use.
On-going commercial exploitation of fictional content is pretty
hard to squeeze into "fair use".
Duncan
> Duncan wrote:
> >
> > If an artist's work is tampered with by a publisher etc. so that its
meaning
> > is changed that contiutes a form of censorship, doesn't it?
>
> any creator that happens to come along to publish their work,
> nor does a creator owe his work to a publisher without having
> made an agreement. The choice to deal with the publisher and
> the publisher's restrictions is very much under the creator's
> control.
Yes, but we're talking about ideal cases here. Ideally, (and imo, obviously)
this is one consideration Sclavi (or anyone else) wouldn't have to take.
Ideally, any creator should be able to expect any publisher to bring his
work to the public (who also have this expectation) in a form as close to
what the artist originally intended as possible. In fact, that is the
publisher's first priority - or he's a lousy publisher. I've just been
reading an article about the publication of Samuel Beckett's first novels in
English. It took months of work to translate them from French because most
translator's couldn't get the feel for Beckett's language right. If he had
had a character who liked to pretend to be Groucho Marx (by no means
impossible, as it happens) do you think any publisher would have *dared* to
tamper with it?
Besides, DD has already been published in at least one country, in at least
one language. The publisher doesn't need to cut deals with the writer; he or
she is simply required to republish the comics as faithfully as possible,
for the sake of the writer and the readers.
>
> > > intent
> > > was. It's one thing to say what you see in the work; don't
> > > confuse that with what the author was trying to do.
> >
> > Ach. For the purposes of this or any other argument, if the writer isn't
> > actually present, there's no difference.
>
> No, it makes a huge difference.
I'm confident that Sclavi intends no disrespect to Marx; on the contrary,
his inclusion is a kind of tribute. That seems obvious to me (although I'm
happy to say I could be wrong, about this or anything else. Seems
impossible, I know, but stranger things have happened. :-)) Anyway, I'm
confident in my understanding of his writing; I'd be happy to read an
alternative point of view...
>
> > > but he mostly represents Groucho. The relationship
> > > of Americans to their culture is different than the relationships
> > > of others to American culture.
> >
> > Sure. The same would go for people of any country, although different
people
> > in each country will have different perceptions of their own culture.
What's
> > your point?
>
> That the effect of the work (as you describe it) is changed by
> being presented for Americans anyway. If the intent of using
> Groucho is to comment on American culture, and when presented
> to Americans it fails to do that, then this whole thing about
> keeping Groucho to match the original intent is fallacious.
Hmmmm. That's a really interesting thing to say, Nat. If I understand you
right you're saying that since Americans are unlikely to understand
something, because it's in a 'foreign' idiom, they would be better off -
irrespective of the legal situation - if some kind 'editor' stepped in and
made things nice and easy for them. Have I got that right? That's actually
what I originally accused Dark Horse of doing - I said they were being
patronising to their readership by assuming they wouldn't be able to
understand something written for a non-American market. You were the one who
pointed out the - more likely - legal explanation. Since it's Drak Horse's
intention with the Bonelli books to bring comics which are popular in Italy,
which are wreitten in an Italian 'style', what the hell would be the point
of doctoring them? That defeats the object. And who the hell are Dark
Horse - or you, or anyone else - to step in and 'make things easy to
understand' for comics readers? Doesn't that strike you as a tad elitist?
And what makes you think Americans wouldn't understand the nuances of
unedited foreign-written comics (comics, for chrissakes! Hardly the Book of
Kells, is it?) anyway? And just what constitutes 'American' here?
>
> > Dylan Dog is very popular in Italy. What happens if it becomes so
popular
> > that DD - and his sidekick - become icons in their own right, to rival
> > Groucho? By what right do you alter it?
>
> First off, I'm not the one who's altering it.
No, but you're advocating its alteration.
> Secondly, I never
> said that Groucho should have been used in the Italian version.
So you'd like it to be altered in Italy TOO? My God, Nat! Where does your
ambition stop??!! Why don't you take a flight to Papua New Guinea while
you're at it, and advise the population there how to adjust their
penis-gourdes so that they won't offend Dan Quayle? (to pick a name
seemingly at random) ...or the Isle of Man, or Upper Volta... Are you
seriously saying that because copyright law happens to work in a particular
way (ie in a way which above all benifits large corporations which can buy
and sell rights like commodities, but that's just my opinion) at this
particular time in America, that the cultural practices and understanding of
fair dealing of every other country in the world (because that';s what it
ammounts to - why stop at Italy?) has to fall into line?
I've forgotten which Italian film director it was who made Fred & Ginger -
bloody stupid, famous, on the tip of my tongue, not Visconti... whatever -
let's say they didn't get permission to use those names or their likenesses:
should that movie have been disallowed? Or censored? (How the hell would you
do that?)
If a novelist - if Sclavi wrote Dylan Dog as a novel, and had the sidekick
character think he was Groucho as in the comic, should that then be altered
for US publication? Think about that before you answer because I'm sure I
can come up with a few examples of where just that sort of thing has
happened - and you wouldn't want to go down the road of saying that comics
shouldn't be treated as seriously as novels, right?
>
> > Any writer likes to make money out of their writing, presumably, or they
> > wouldn't have it published. Sclavi obviously feels the need to depict
his
> > character this way; it has a meaning for him and his readership. Who are
we
> > to deny that?
>
> I'm not denying that. Yes, Groucho has meaning... created by Marx.
Yeah, yeah. You know I mean the meaning of the character in DD. By forcing
him to change his invention's name you are changing Sclavi's meaning. It's
not that he has an absolute right to say whatever he wants but in this
case - this particular case - it would have been much better to allow Sclavi
his freedom of expression (allowing for cultural misunderstandings etc.),
recognising that no damage has been done to Marx's reputation, and no loss
of earnings have been accrued (accrued? Can't be right...) In another case
there would be grounds, presumably, for revaluation - but every time you try
and impose a blanket ban on something: "Thou shalt not copy another man's
creation, under ANY circumstances. Not even for an instant. Not even if that
creation has taken on a set of meanings and associations quite beyond the
creation itself and which cannot possibly be judged to belong to the creator
or any other single person (especially not to BS Merchant & Sons, who bought
the copyright in a car-boot sale in 1974) but rather to the culture itself -
which is to say, the general public: the true, non-legal meaning of 'the
public domain.'" If you try and do that you're advocating a kind of
non-thinking, knee-jerk - well, what you're doing is giving a green light to
every scam artist, bullshit merchant and ambulance chaser to buy up rights
on the cheap and resell them to unscrupulous developers (sounds like I'm
talking about a piece of real estate - that's what you get for treating
intellectual property like any other kind), thus destroying the meaning of
the original creation. Jesus, Nat, what I'm in favour of is giving the
creator's *more* control, not less.
>
> > Who are we to deny his right to earn a living?
>
> Who is trying to deny his right to earn a living? If his earning
> his living is contingent on that Groucho character, however,
> perhaps he should be making a deal with people who may own
> rights to that character, and not deny their earning their living.
> I don't deny the guy next door the right to earn a living, but
> if he makes his money by swiping my hubcaps and selling them, I
> certainly deny his having a right to do so.
See what i mean? Hubcaps. If a person's creation is the intellectual
equivalent of a bunch of goddam hubcaps s/he'd've been better off keeping
his/er day job. If you write something, Nat, you will borrow (steal, if you
like) an idea, a form of words, an image from someone else. If you invent an
entire narrative, with characters and plots and the whole shebang you're
going to be using lots of 'stolen' concepts, things, whatever. If you want
to place your story in real life, in the culture around you; if you want to
employ social comment, humour, irony, all that neat stuff, you're going to
start coming up against - well, precisely situations like Sclavi's. I say,
if that's what he needs - well, you know what I say. You never did answer my
question about all the references to movies, books, comics, real and
fictional characters etc. in all the Bonelli books. It's precisely that
referential quality to them which makes them worth reading (they don't
really cut it as simply horror/adventure stories, after all) - maybe you
think the whole thing was a bad idea, Nat?
>
> > His work *isn't* being tampered with!
>
> The creation of the Groucho persona is a large part of his work.
When I next see a marx bros. film my enjoyment will not have been diminished
one iota. My understanding won't have been changed - nothing will have been
changed. The creation is intact. Dylan Dog will have had no more effect than
the Groucho Club in London does - except possibly to bring the Marx Bros. to
more people's attention, thus possibly increasing video rentals and
purchases, thus possibly increasing the evenue of the Marx Bros. estate.
Funny, that.
>
> > > I am concerned. If someone wanted to rip off his Dylan Dog character
> > > because the creator's heart stopped beating for a second, then I'd
> > > hold the same concern. But the guy who created Dylan Dog did not
> > > create Groucho. Marx did.
> >
> > I don't like the term but... Fair Use.
>
> On-going commercial exploitation of fictional content is pretty
> hard to squeeze into "fair use".
[Sigh] You're going back to legal definitions, Nat. I'm talking about what
is 'good' or 'bad' here: the current legal situation isn't likely to help me
work that out now, is it? (As C18th French anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon
said: 'Laws are cobwebs for the rich - and iron chains for the poor'. Quoted
by Cliff Harper in Anarchy Comics no.4 on Last Gasp. After all, this *is* a
comics NG). Ads it stands it *is* hard to squeeze the use of icons in comics
under fair use - which is precisely why fair use is inadequate and needs to
be changed.
Incidentally, Nat. Don't you have any sense at all of how rights laws can
ber so easily exploited by wealthy people and corporations who have no
interest whatsoever in the integrity of the original creation? To give a
relatively benign example, the one I used before, do you think Disney gives
a toss about the original work it adapts? Or any Hollywood studio? Which
isn't to say Hollywood doesn't produce good films even when it *does* ignore
the original art - but doesn't it bother you? Doesn't it bother you that
comics, for instance, are kept out of print by people sitting on their
copyrights? Not that I'm making a big issue out of it or anything, I just
get the impression from what you say that you think everything in the garden
is rosey. Which leaves me... gobsmacked, frankly.
Nat Gertler
> > being presented for Americans anyway. If the intent of using
> > Groucho is to comment on American culture, and when presented
> > to Americans it fails to do that, then this whole thing about
> > keeping Groucho to match the original intent is fallacious.
>
> Hmmmm. That's a really interesting thing to say, Nat. If I understand you
> right you're saying that since Americans are unlikely to understand
> something, because it's in a 'foreign' idiom, they would be better off -
> irrespective of the legal situation - if some kind 'editor' stepped in and
> made things nice and easy for them. Have I got that right?
Nope.
> > > Dylan Dog is very popular in Italy. What happens if it becomes so
> popular
> > > that DD - and his sidekick - become icons in their own right, to rival
> > > Groucho? By what right do you alter it?
> >
> > First off, I'm not the one who's altering it.
>
> No, but you're advocating its alteration.
I am advocating not publishing it in a form which may well infringe
on the rights of another.
> > Secondly, I never
> > said that Groucho should have been used in the Italian version.
>
> So you'd like it to be altered in Italy TOO?
I would like it to have been different in the first place.
> Incidentally, Nat. Don't you have any sense at all of how rights laws can
> ber so easily exploited by wealthy people and corporations who have no
> interest whatsoever in the integrity of the original creation?
They at least have the on-going interest in the value of the
property, such as integrity might inform that... as opposed
to whatever random artist feels like exploiting a property
which is not his.
> Doesn't it bother you that
> comics, for instance, are kept out of print by people sitting on their
> copyrights?
No, not really. Because it is the same protection of rights that
gives value to the new comics that are produced, and allow those
the reasonable opportunity of being profitable. And because some
of those sitting on the copyrights are the creators of the
material in question, and they may be choosing the route for
their own creation. Do I wish that the entire first year of
Peanuts were in print? Yes. Does it bother me that Schulz is
allowed to say "no" to that? Not at all. That's the way
it should be.
> Not that I'm making a big issue out of it or anything, I just
> get the impression from what you say that you think everything in the garden
> is rosey.
I don't think everythings rosy, so you can ungobsmack yourself.
I do think that the things that are problematic in the rights
world are largely (albeit not solely) in the ease with which
a creator can be separated from his rights.... and not the
other direction, which is what you appear to repeatedly advocate.
Craig Lenney
____________________________________________________________
Craig Lenney
Real Time Studio, 7 Soho Square, London W1V 5DD
Tel: +44 171 544 4600 - Fax: +44 171 544 4701
mailto:craig....@realtime.co.uk - http://www.realtime.co.uk
____________________________________________________________
The information in this email is confidential. It is intended solely for the
addressee(s). Access, copying or re-use of the information by anyone
else is unauthorised. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure,
copying, distribution or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance
on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful.
____________________________________________________________
----------
In article <37CEF2D0...@gertler.com>, Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com>
wrote:
> Duncan wrote:
>>
>> Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote in message
>> news:37CEBB22...@gertler.com...
>> > That the effect of the work (as you describe it) is changed by
>> > being presented for Americans anyway. If the intent of using
>> > Groucho is to comment on American culture, and when presented
>> > to Americans it fails to do that, then this whole thing about
>> > keeping Groucho to match the original intent is fallacious.
>>
>> Hmmmm. That's a really interesting thing to say, Nat. If I understand you
>> right you're saying that since Americans are unlikely to understand
>> something, because it's in a 'foreign' idiom, they would be better off -
>> irrespective of the legal situation - if some kind 'editor' stepped in and
>> made things nice and easy for them. Have I got that right?
>
> Nope.
>
>> > > Dylan Dog is very popular in Italy. What happens if it becomes so
>> popular
>> > > that DD - and his sidekick - become icons in their own right, to rival
>> > > Groucho? By what right do you alter it?
>> >
>> > First off, I'm not the one who's altering it.
>>
>> No, but you're advocating its alteration.
>
> I am advocating not publishing it in a form which may well infringe
> on the rights of another.
So the writer's choice is alteration of his artistic vision or no
publication. If you can think of an alternative to censorship to describe
that I'd be grateful to hear it. I don't want to be boring or anything.
>
>> > Secondly, I never
>> > said that Groucho should have been used in the Italian version.
>>
>> So you'd like it to be altered in Italy TOO?
>
> I would like it to have been different in the first place.
You'd like the writer to write in a way that suits you. Fine. He won't,
unfortunately. Thank god for writers and artists who do things we dont like.
>
>> Incidentally, Nat. Don't you have any sense at all of how rights laws can
>> ber so easily exploited by wealthy people and corporations who have no
>> interest whatsoever in the integrity of the original creation?
>
> They at least have the on-going interest in the value of the
> property, such as integrity might inform that... as opposed
> to whatever random artist feels like exploiting a property
> which is not his.
Copyright as a commodity: the plague of the modern comics industry.
>
>> Doesn't it bother you that
>> comics, for instance, are kept out of print by people sitting on their
>> copyrights?
>
> No, not really. Because it is the same protection of rights that
> gives value to the new comics that are produced, and allow those
> the reasonable opportunity of being profitable.
That's fine - as long as the artist makes the profit.
> And because some
> of those sitting on the copyrights are the creators of the
> material in question, and they may be choosing the route for
> their own creation. Do I wish that the entire first year of
> Peanuts were in print? Yes. Does it bother me that Schulz is
> allowed to say "no" to that? Not at all. That's the way
> it should be.
I agree. But when he dies...?
>
>> Not that I'm making a big issue out of it or anything, I just
>> get the impression from what you say that you think everything in the garden
>> is rosey.
>
> I don't think everythings rosy, so you can ungobsmack yourself.
> I do think that the things that are problematic in the rights
> world are largely (albeit not solely) in the ease with which
> a creator can be separated from his rights.... and not the
> other direction, which is what you appear to repeatedly advocate.
No, I'd agree with that last part too. What I detest is the notion of
creation as commodity - to be bought and sold like any other. Something
*you* seem to repeatedly advocate.
George
<dun...@airstream.co.uk> writes
<snip>
>
>Incidentally, I checked througfh all six issues of DD last night:
>Felix/Groucho appears a few times in two issues, briefly in one other. Out
>of six. His appearance isn't changed, only his name. It's obvious to anyone
>who knows who Groucho is that it's supposed to be him; the change has only
>been made to his name and, apart from the irritation it causes, therefore is
>only effective for people who *don't* know who Groucho is - and why should
>the estate care what they think? The whole thing is stupid.
Actually, I think the art *has* been changed as well. I don't have any
copies to hand at the moment, but I'm pretty sure the in the Italian DD
the Groucho character has a greasepaint moustache, a la the real
Groucho.
None of this touches on the other problem with the books, namely Dark
Horse's bone-idle translations - ones that have Subways in London,
Congressmen in Government, Faucets in the Kitchen, and so on....
george.
******REMOVE 'SPAM' TO REPLY******
George
<dun...@airstream.co.uk> writes
<snip
>
>I've forgotten which Italian film director it was who made Fred & Ginger -
>bloody stupid, famous, on the tip of my tongue, not Visconti... whatever -
>let's say they didn't get permission to use those names or their likenesses:
>should that movie have been disallowed? Or censored? (How the hell would you
>do that?)
>
Federico Fellini (and just to be pedantic, it was Ginger e Fred/Ginger
and Fred)
<snip>
schrodinger's damon
KurtBusiek wrote:
> >>So the writer's choice is alteration of his artistic vision or no
> publication. If you can think of an alternative to censorship to describe that
> I'd be grateful to hear it.>>
>
> Sure. The appropriate term is "ownership."
>
> "Artistic vision" is not a license to do anything, and limits on the expression
> of that vision are not necessarily censorship. If I want to put the cast of
> Schoolhouse Rock into ASTRO CITY as regular characters, and I don't have the
> permission of the owners of those characters, then my choice is alteration of
> my artistic vision or no publication, with no censorship involved.
>
> Similarly, if my artistic vision is to do a revival of THUNDER AGENTS in a
> monthly comics series, my vision may be creative as all hell, but John
> Carbonara gets to stop me, and what he's doing is asserting his own rights, not
> denying mine. Artistic vision covers what I come up with myself, not
> appropriations of the properties of others.
>
> Censorship is a word that has a number of meanings, but "you can't take that,
> it's not yours" isn't one of them.
>
> I haven't read DYLAN DOG, myself, but I'd think that the author must have been
> aware, when he used a character based on Groucho Marx, that it might not be
> considered acceptable everywhere, just as he might not much like it if Howard
> Mackie introduces a new character in SPIDER-MAN next month, who looks like
> Dylan Dog, acts like Dylan Dog, and is named Dylan Dog.*
>
> Would you consider the DYLAN DOG creator's attempts to stop Marvel Comics from
> appropriating his property to be censorship?
>
> kurt
>
> * this is, of course, assuming that the lead character in DYLAN DOG is named
> Dylan Dog; I don't actually know whether he is.
>
> ** and just in case someone wants to tell me why the Groucho use in DD is
> actually acceptable, there's no need -- I'm not claiming to make any judgments
> on that score, simply responding to this assertion that any limits on 'artistic
> vision' are censorship.
i wonder myself.
i have been half following this thread, and haven't seen the book.
but as i understand it, the character is someone who *thinks* he's groucho, or acts
like
him.
how far does ownership go?
parody is allowable, and i think at least some of sim's use of groucho
would fall under that.
but is psychosis allowable?
if someone is convinced he's reagan, and acts like reagan and
speaks like reagan using his quotes,
and someone makes a work of this, or using this, is it pirating ownership?
--
It seems that some people think a white man running for mayor
in the majority black city of Baltimore is a racist act.
KurtBusiek
Craig Lenney
----------
In article <W0Ap4KAc...@ogtec.demon.co.uk>, George
<geo...@ogtec.demon.co.ukSPAM> wrote:
> In article <7qlmaf$p95$1...@grind.server.pavilion.net>, Duncan
> <dun...@airstream.co.uk> writes
> <snip>
>>
>>Incidentally, I checked througfh all six issues of DD last night:
>>Felix/Groucho appears a few times in two issues, briefly in one other. Out
>>of six. His appearance isn't changed, only his name. It's obvious to anyone
>>who knows who Groucho is that it's supposed to be him; the change has only
>>been made to his name and, apart from the irritation it causes, therefore is
>>only effective for people who *don't* know who Groucho is - and why should
>>the estate care what they think? The whole thing is stupid.
> <snip>
>
> Actually, I think the art *has* been changed as well. I don't have any
> copies to hand at the moment, but I'm pretty sure the in the Italian DD
> the Groucho character has a greasepaint moustache, a la the real
> Groucho.
He has a 'tache.
>
> None of this touches on the other problem with the books, namely Dark
> Horse's bone-idle translations - ones that have Subways in London,
> Congressmen in Government, Faucets in the Kitchen, and so on....
>
Yeah. Part of the same problem.
D
KurtBusiek
would fall under that.>>
Parody only works as a defense for a short time, and Sim's been using Lord
Julius far longer than that. I think he's getting away with it largely because
his targets don't know or don't care. But Marvel shut him down over his
Wolverroach covers, which lasted long enough to be no longer protected as
parody, and Lord Julius has been around well longer than Wolverroach was.
>>if someone is convinced he's reagan, and acts like reagan and speaks like
reagan using his quotes, and someone makes a work of this, or using this, is it
pirating ownership?>>
Reagan's a public figure in a way that a fictional character like Groucho or
Elivra is not, and thus the rules would be different.
If someone wrote and drew a character who was convinced he was Sam Spade, or
Superman, or the Fonz, and used the name, the likeness, the speech patterns and
actual quotes, then I expect they'd either need to secure permission or they'd
get in trouble within a fairly short period of using that character.
kurt
Craig Lenney
Blighty), 48 hours non stop, running on caffeine, black tobacco and cheap
Bennies* and feeling like shit warmed up.
*not really. Just wanted to say it.
----------
In article <19990903203951...@ng-fs1.aol.com>,
kurtb...@aol.comics (KurtBusiek) wrote:
>>>So the writer's choice is alteration of his artistic vision or no
> publication. If you can think of an alternative to censorship to describe that
> I'd be grateful to hear it.>>
>
> Sure. The appropriate term is "ownership."
>
> "Artistic vision" is not a license to do anything, and limits on the
expression
> of that vision are not necessarily censorship.
I'm aware the word 'censorship' is a loaded one. I'm not trying to imply
that the editor involved is some kind of monster. It's just, if you cut out
part of a piece of writing you're censoring it, whether we like to use the
word or not.
> If I want to put the cast of
> Schoolhouse Rock into ASTRO CITY as regular characters, and I don't have the
> permission of the owners of those characters, then my choice is alteration of
> my artistic vision or no publication, with no censorship involved.
Yes.
>
> Similarly, if my artistic vision is to do a revival of THUNDER AGENTS in a
> monthly comics series, my vision may be creative as all hell, but John
> Carbonara gets to stop me, and what he's doing is asserting his own rights,
Yes.
> not
> denying mine.
No. He IS denying your vision. Rightly or wrongly, that's what he's - or the
law is - doing (if you want to get the thing published that is).
> Artistic vision covers what I come up with myself, not
> appropriations of the properties of others.
It includes your interpration of anything that forms part of your culture -
ie the culture around you. That may include things invented by other people
- in fact, it'd be pretty amazing if it didn't. It's the LAW which prevents
you from using other people's art, not (necessarily) the limits of your
artistic vision, or the arbitary limits you place on it to make it 'valid'.
Everything out there is up for grabs. Only the law (and your concience,
obviously) is limiting you.
>
> Censorship is a word that has a number of meanings, but "you can't take that,
> it's not yours" isn't one of them.
DD with Groucho was already published in Italy. It - or rather, the name -
was removed for US publication. If anyone can think of an alternative word
to use than censorship I'd be happy to use it.
>
> I haven't read DYLAN DOG, myself, but I'd think that the author must have been
> aware, when he used a character based on Groucho Marx, that it might not be
> considered acceptable everywhere,
Yeah, could be. Presumably he ('Sclavi', the writer) didn't kick up a fuss
about the change. It's not clear, btw, that it would have been illegal for
it to be left in. Nat reckons so (I think) and I'm inclined to believe him
but I guess he could be wrong.
> just as he might not much like it if Howard
> Mackie introduces a new character in SPIDER-MAN next month, who looks like
> Dylan Dog, acts like Dylan Dog, and is named Dylan Dog.*
I've no idea. It's *me* with the unpopular way of thinking, not Sclavi.
I've tried to explain why I think there should be a difference in the way a
living artist's work is treated (as opposed to a dead one) and - much more
difficult - how 'fair use' could be expanded to include things which have
become iconic, have entered the culture in some way - or another culture's
interpretation of a culture etc. etc.
So far all I'm getting is a blanket denunciation: 'copyright is copyright'.
In fact, what we've got is 'copyright is commodity'. The rights laws are
being exploited, not to the benifit necessarily of artists, and certainly
not the audience.
>
> Would you consider the DYLAN DOG creator's attempts to stop Marvel Comics from
> appropriating his property to be censorship?
Strictly speaking, yes. But it could be - probably is - justified.
>
>
> * this is, of course, assuming that the lead character in DYLAN DOG is named
> Dylan Dog; I don't actually know whether he is.
Yeah, he is. The books are full of references to films, books etc.
>
> ** and just in case someone wants to tell me why the Groucho use in DD is
> actually acceptable, there's no need -- I'm not claiming to make any judgments
> on that score, simply responding to this assertion that any limits on
'artistic
> vision' are censorship.
>
Someone come up with another word...
KurtBusiek
the editor involved is some kind of monster. It's just, if you cut out part of
a piece of writing you're censoring it, whether we like to use the word or
not.>>
You might want to look the word up. I've only looked in Webster's New
Collegiate, so it's not exactly comprehensive, but can be expected to cover the
main usages of the word, and none of them cover what you're talking about.
I think you're using the word "censorship" in such a broad way that it no
longer has useful meaning, since you're using it to cover any after-the-fact
change. I would think "change" is the broad-meaning word that applies, and
"censorship" should be saved for the situations in which it's useful.
Otherwise, when you have a situation that actually _merits_ the use of the
word, you've destroyed its power.
>>No. He IS denying your vision.>>
Didn't say he wasn't. I said he wasn't denying my rights. I have no right to
use the THUNDER Agents.
>> Rightly or wrongly, that's what he's - or the law is - doing (if you want to
get the thing published that is).>>
And it's still not censorship.
>> It includes your interpration of anything that forms part of your culture -
ie the culture around you.>>
At that point, my vision is mingling with the vision of others, and there's no
reason my vision should be considered more protected than theirs.
>> DD with Groucho was already published in Italy.>>
It seems Nat's point was that it shouldn't have been done that way in the first
place, not without permission. I can't judge, since I haven't seen it, but if
it's infringement in the first place, then it doesn't really merit protection
after the fact.
>> It - or rather, the name - was removed for US publication. If anyone can
think of an alternative word to use than censorship I'd be happy to use it.>>
Revision. Editing. Both of those fit, while censorship does not, not by any
of the meanings in my dictionary.
>> Presumably he ('Sclavi', the writer) didn't kick up a fuss about the
change.>>
If that's the case, then there's no way it can be considered censorship, unless
you consider editorial suggestions an author agrees to censorship, which is
even farther from the definition and damages the word even further.
>>I've tried to explain why I think there should be a difference in the way a
living artist's work is treated (as opposed to a dead one) and - much more
difficult - how 'fair use' could be expanded to include things which have
become iconic, have entered the culture in some way - or another culture's
interpretation of a culture etc. etc.>>
I've noticed, but I haven't found your arguments compelling -- you're basically
saying that if anyone wants to use, say, my creations after my death, that
should override my ability to pass those rights down to my daughter. I can't
see why my wishes shouldn't be respected -- my work will eventually fall into
public domain, but if, in the meantime, I want to provide for my children's
security, I can't see a reason to deny me that. I created this stuff, and
while I recognize the idea of public domain, I haven't heard any good reason it
should be occur immediately upon my death. Neither have international
copyright bodies, it seems.
There _is_ provision for an artist's work to be treated differently after his
death. Just not _immediately_ after.
>>So far all I'm getting is a blanket denunciation: 'copyright is copyright'.
In fact, what we've got is 'copyright is commodity'.>>
Copyright is property, at the very least. That's why it can be owned.
>>The rights laws are being exploited, not to the benifit necessarily of
artists, and certainly not the audience.>>
"Exploited" is a loaded word. Copyright laws were _created_ to protect
creators, not to provide for others to use their work without permission, or to
give audiences greater rights than the creator of the material. Part of the
reason copyrights last beyond a creator's death is to allow creators to provide
for their families, if they wish, just as that same creator can bequeath other
property.
Any creator who wants to can give his copyrights to the world at the time of
his death, and put his work into public domain. As I understand it, H.P.
Lovecraft encouraged others to use his characters and ideas while he was still
alive. But that's his choice, and I don't think the right to make that choice,
or to choose to bequeath the rights to an heir, should be taken away from
creators.
> Strictly speaking, yes. But it could be - probably is - justified.>
So basically, you'd say that if the Groucho Marx estate tried to stop DYLAN DOG
from making use of their property, they'd be justified -- but you'd think
they're wrong?
How can they be justified and wrong at the same time?
kurt
Johanna Draper Carlson
> If someone wrote and drew a character who was convinced he was Sam Spade
I was just wondering how this relates to Paradox Press' Bogie Man.
Johanna
Nat Gertler
>
> I'm aware the word 'censorship' is a loaded one. I'm not trying to imply
> that the editor involved is some kind of monster. It's just, if you cut out
> part of a piece of writing you're censoring it, whether we like to use the
> word or not.
Perhaps we should introduce you to the word "editing".
> DD with Groucho was already published in Italy. It - or rather, the name -
> was removed for US publication. If anyone can think of an alternative word
> to use than censorship I'd be happy to use it.
Yeah, that word "editing" pops to mind again.
> Yeah, could be. Presumably he ('Sclavi', the writer) didn't kick up a fuss
> about the change. It's not clear, btw, that it would have been illegal for
> it to be left in. Nat reckons so (I think) and I'm inclined to believe him
> but I guess he could be wrong.
I reckon that the change *may* have been for concern about the legal
situation. (It may also have been that the book would have seemed like
a more interesting licensing possibility to film studios if it was
not dependent on Groucho, who has been dead for a while now.)
Elayne Riggs
> Duncan borrowing someone else's Mac..
> In article <19990903203951...@ng-fs1.aol.com>,
> kurtb...@aol.comics (KurtBusiek) wrote:
>> Artistic vision covers what I come up with myself, not
>> appropriations of the properties of others.
> It includes your interpration of anything that forms part of your culture -
That doesn't sound like artistic vision to me, it sounds like
regurgitation.
- Elayne
KurtBusiek
>>I was just wondering how this relates to Paradox Press' Bogie Man.>>
You could certainly look at it and see, perhaps.
I never read BOGIE MAN, though I've heard it's good. As I recall, the lead
didn't look like Humphrey Bogart, and I don't know whether he thought he was
Spade -- he affected the appearance and attitude of a hardboiled PI in the
Bogart mold, without coming so close as to infringe on specific work.
Even if he did think he was Spade in particular, that would be only one part of
a resemblance. The Groucho in DYLAN DOG apparently has the name, the likeness
and the behavior -- though again, I haven't read it, so I can't say for sure,
but the two prime combatants in this discussion seem to agree on that.
kurt
Johanna Draper Carlson
> Craig Lenney <craig....@realtime.co.uk> happened to mention:
>> Duncan borrowing someone else's Mac..
>>> appropriations of the properties of others.
>
>> It includes your interpration of anything that forms part of your culture -
>
> That doesn't sound like artistic vision to me, it sounds like
> regurgitation.
Not necessarily. The first person to make a Blair Witch parody ad was
interpreting part of the culture while adding a new take on things. That's
not regurgitation.
(Example selected because I'm darned sick of all of them!)
Johanna
Johanna Draper Carlson
>>>> If someone wrote and drew a character who was convinced he was Sam Spade
>
>>>I was just wondering how this relates to Paradox Press' Bogie Man.>>
>
> You could certainly look at it and see, perhaps.
??? I'm confused.
> I never read BOGIE MAN, though I've heard it's good. As I recall, the lead
> didn't look like Humphrey Bogart, and I don't know whether he thought he was
> Spade -- he affected the appearance and attitude of a hardboiled PI in the
> Bogart mold, without coming so close as to infringe on specific work.
I did read Bogie Man, and enjoyed it to a degree. The lead character was
someone attempting to look as much as possible like Bogart, though external
trappings (trenchcoat, cigarette, speech patterns). He thought he was Spade
-- that was the point, that he was mentally ill. So by appearance, behavior,
and name, it seems to be a very similar case.
Johanna
KurtBusiek
>
>>>I was just wondering how this relates to Paradox Press' Bogie Man.>>
>
> You could certainly look at it and see, perhaps.
>>??? I'm confused.>>
Sorry; didn't mean to confuse you. I just suggested that you could look at THE
BOGIE MAN and judge the matter for yourself.
> I never read BOGIE MAN, though I've heard it's good. As I recall, the lead
> didn't look like Humphrey Bogart, and I don't know whether he thought he was
> Spade -- he affected the appearance and attitude of a hardboiled PI in the
> Bogart mold, without coming so close as to infringe on specific work.
>> I did read Bogie Man, and enjoyed it to a degree. The lead character was
someone attempting to look as much as possible like Bogart, though external
trappings (trenchcoat, cigarette, speech patterns). He thought he was Spade
-- that was the point, that he was mentally ill. So by appearance, behavior,
and name, it seems to be a very similar case.>>
Having not read BOGIE MAN or DYLAN DOG, I can't speak to the specifics of
either. What I saw of BOGIE MAN didn't seem to me to infringe on any likeness
rights; he dressed like Sam Spade but didn't actually look like Bogart.
However, I saw it years ago and may be remembering it wrong. I can't go
further than that, though -- I'm not familiar enough with the example.
kurt
schrodinger's damon
KurtBusiek wrote:
> >>parody is allowable, and i think at least some of sim's use of groucho
> would fall under that.>>
>
> Parody only works as a defense for a short time,
why?
> and Sim's been using Lord
> Julius far longer than that. I think he's getting away with it largely because
> his targets don't know or don't care. But Marvel shut him down over his
> Wolverroach covers, which lasted long enough to be no longer protected as
> parody, and Lord Julius has been around well longer than Wolverroach was.
>
marvel shut him down over the covers, because that was pissing on their
trademark.
sim after that still parodied marvel characters, and even put some
on the cover.
>
> >>if someone is convinced he's reagan, and acts like reagan and speaks like
> reagan using his quotes, and someone makes a work of this, or using this, is it
> pirating ownership?>>
>
> Reagan's a public figure in a way that a fictional character like Groucho or
> Elivra is not, and thus the rules would be different.
>
well,...
first, i'm not sure reagan isn't fictional.
second, groucho is a public figure, in a sense.
but okay, what if someone used the 'you talking to me?' bit from taxi driver
to show someone who adored the movie and the character
and because of that movie decided to go shoot people?
>
> If someone wrote and drew a character who was convinced he was Sam Spade, or
> Superman, or the Fonz, and used the name, the likeness, the speech patterns and
> actual quotes, then I expect they'd either need to secure permission or they'd
> get in trouble within a fairly short period of using that character.
>
i'm trying to get a handle on the idea of fair use, sort of.
...like being able to quote certain amounts of other people's
text in books is okay.
if you're clearly alluding to another person's work BUT adding depth
to a single aspect which isn't central to the work, how far
can you go?
how far should you be able to go?
two recent examples of this i have read:
alan moore's extensive use of ___'s theories in
frome hell, which are attributed but not distinctly labeled
used by permission.
and dave sim's recent appropriation of f scott fitzgerald,
which is meticulously documtned, but contains
multiple examples of plagairism.
KurtBusiek
>>why?>>
Because the law is based on the reasoning that if you do it two or three times,
you're making a joke, but if you keep going you're riding coattails.
>> sim after that still parodied marvel characters, and even put some on the
cover.>>
Not to the same extent.
>>well,...
first, i'm not sure reagan isn't fictional.>>
That's okay.
>>second, groucho is a public figure, in a sense.>>
Yes, but not in the same sense, which is why I made the distinction.
>>but okay, what if someone used the 'you talking to me?' bit from taxi driver
to show someone who adored the movie and the character and because of that
movie decided to go shoot people?>>
Depends on how extensively and how often they did it, I'd guess.
>>if you're clearly alluding to another person's work BUT adding depth to a
single aspect which isn't central to the work, how far can you go?>>
I don't think the law draws an exact line. If someone thinks someone else is
making unreasonable use of their property, the first thing they do is tell them
to cut it out. If the other party doesn't, the first party sues, and either
the second party cuts it out at that point, or a court decides.
>>how far should you be able to go?>>
I don't think it's possible to draw an exact line, myself. I think the current
laws handle it pretty well.
kurt
Johanna Draper Carlson
> Sorry; didn't mean to confuse you. I just suggested that you could
> look at THE BOGIE MAN and judge the matter for yourself.
And since I was posting after already looking at it, that meaning didn't
occur to me. Thanks for helping me out. :)
> What I saw of BOGIE MAN didn't seem to me to infringe on any likeness
> rights; he dressed like Sam Spade but didn't actually look like Bogart.
Does anyone know how much of likeness rights legally are related to pure
appearance, and how much are otherwise (speech, actions, etc.)?
(I just flipped back through the book, and although his appearance varies at
times, there are several pages where he's clearly Bogart.)
I'm surprised, actually, that Dark Horse would be more lawsuit-shy than DC,
but I guess DC's also got Mad's expertise with parody and satire law.
Johanna
Mute, with enzymes!
keyboard thus:
>kurtb...@aol.comics (KurtBusiek) wrote:
>> If someone wrote and drew a character who was convinced he was Sam Spade
>I was just wondering how this relates to Paradox Press' Bogie Man.
Was the Paradox version (I've not seen it) an all-new story, a
sequel, a retelling of the earlier stories, or a reprint?
Please, no-one answer "yes".
-Mute.
______________________
Who finally finished reading Cages the other week.
Only took me nine years...
Johanna Draper Carlson
> Was the Paradox version (I've not seen it) an all-new story, a
> sequel, a retelling of the earlier stories, or a reprint?
The Paradox copyright says "originally published as The Bogie Man (1989),
The Bogie Man: Chinatoon (1993)".
Johanna
Doug Tonks
>"Johanna Draper Carlson" <joha...@mindspring.com> hammered on a
>keyboard thus:
>
>>kurtb...@aol.comics (KurtBusiek) wrote:
>
>>> If someone wrote and drew a character who was convinced he was Sam Spade
>
>>I was just wondering how this relates to Paradox Press' Bogie Man.
>
> Was the Paradox version (I've not seen it) an all-new story, a
>sequel, a retelling of the earlier stories, or a reprint?
I understood that it was a reprint of the first "Bogie Man"
series, but I should take a closer look to make sure, I guess. If
it's new, I need to pick it up.
If no one comes up with a definitive answer, I can let you know
later this week after my next comics run.
--Doug Tonks
_____
Teaching AIDS--a book for parents and teachers
AIDS Prevention Education
http://www.mtsu.edu/~hytonks/aidsbook.html
KurtBusiek
appearance, and how much are otherwise (speech, actions, etc.)?>>
I think likeness rights are all about appearance, and speech, actions etc.
would be covered by copyright.
At least, that's how likeness rights seemed to operate on some Marvel
movie-based comics, in which they had the right to do stories featuring the
character, using wardrobe, personality, dialogue, etc. -- but didn't have the
right to duplicate the actors' likenesses.
I'm not an intellectual property attorney though, so for all I know "likeness
rights" is a multi-use term, or there are different levels of it, or something.
But that's the context in which I'm most familiar with the term.
kurt
Mute, with enzymes!
keyboard thus:
>mu...@tpg.com.au (Mute, with enzymes!) wrote:
>> Was the Paradox version (I've not seen it) an all-new story, a
>> sequel, a retelling of the earlier stories, or a reprint?
>The Paradox copyright says "originally published as The Bogie Man (1989),
>The Bogie Man: Chinatoon (1993)".
Ta. I'm not sure if that covers everything from the past, but it's
been scattered over so many anthologies and formats...
-Mute.
______________________
Who finally finished reading Cages the other week.
Only took me, what, nine years...
BradW8
It's just that, every time I see, "So, how did you like Bonelli?"
I get this urge to say: "With alfredo sauce."
NYSteve11
>Ta.
Tut.
>I'm not sure if that covers everything from the past, but it's
>been scattered over so many anthologies and formats...
There was a BOGIE one-off called "Manhattan Project" or something like that.
I think that may be it. Or at least close to it.
Steve Wacker
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you're in New York come by and see the city's only live comic book!!!
Ka-Baam!!
Fridays. October 15-November 19th.
Surf Reality. 172 Allen Street
http://www.yesand.com/kabaam
Duncan
schrodinger's damon <dcru...@mdo.net> wrote in message
news:37D08B9E...@mdo.net...
>
>
>
> if someone is convinced he's reagan, and acts like reagan and
> speaks like reagan using his quotes,
> and someone makes a work of this, or using this, is it pirating ownership?
>
(I'm not trying hard enough to be popular, am I?)
Duncan
KurtBusiek <kurtb...@aol.comics> wrote in message
news:19990903234209...@ng-fq1.aol.com...
> >>parody is allowable, and i think at least some of sim's use of groucho
> would fall under that.>>
>
> Julius far longer than that. I think he's getting away with it largely
because
> his targets don't know or don't care. But Marvel shut him down over his
> Wolverroach covers, which lasted long enough to be no longer protected as
> parody, and Lord Julius has been around well longer than Wolverroach was.
Is this a 'good' thing? I thought that parody was OK. Marvel shut down Todd
McWeeney when he used the Thing in Roachmill, I believe...
>
Duncan
KurtBusiek <kurtb...@aol.comics> wrote in message
> >>I'm aware the word 'censorship' is a loaded one. I'm not trying to imply
that
> the editor involved is some kind of monster. It's just, if you cut out
part of
> a piece of writing you're censoring it, whether we like to use the word or
> not.>>
>
> You might want to look the word up. I've only looked in Webster's New
> Collegiate, so it's not exactly comprehensive, but can be expected to
cover the
> main usages of the word, and none of them cover what you're talking about.
In the dictionary I've got in front of me (Concise Oxford) it refers to
change or supression of whole or parts of etc.
>
> I think you're using the word "censorship" in such a broad way that it no
> longer has useful meaning, since you're using it to cover any
after-the-fact
> change. I would think "change" is the broad-meaning word that applies,
and
> "censorship" should be saved for the situations in which it's useful.
I think it's correct here. 'Change' doesn't cover what happened in DD
because
the actual meaning of the story was altered - in however a small way - in a
way contrary to the writer's original intention (even if he gave his
permission).
> Otherwise, when you have a situation that actually _merits_ the use of the
> word, you've destroyed its power.
True, but this isn't so it doesn't.
>
> >>No. He IS denying your vision.>>
>
> Didn't say he wasn't. I said he wasn't denying my rights. I have no
right to
> use the THUNDER Agents.
No legal right, sure. I was trying to get away from the legal issues since
they're only helpful in determining what is, er... legal.
>
> >> Rightly or wrongly, that's what he's - or the law is - doing (if you
want to
> get the thing published that is).>>
>
> And it's still not censorship.
I still say it is.
>
> >> It includes your interpration of anything that forms part of your
culture -
> ie the culture around you.>>
>
> At that point, my vision is mingling with the vision of others, and
there's no
> reason my vision should be considered more protected than theirs.
No... I don't follow the point you're making...
>
> >> DD with Groucho was already published in Italy.>>
>
> It seems Nat's point was that it shouldn't have been done that way in the
first
> place, not without permission. I can't judge, since I haven't seen it,
but if
> it's infringement in the first place, then it doesn't really merit
protection
> after the fact.
Dunno, I'm not a lawyer. I only have a passing interest in the legal
situation. I'm much more interested in whether restricting publication of
something, or altering someone's creation, can be considered a good or bad
thing.
>
> >> It - or rather, the name - was removed for US publication. If anyone
can
> think of an alternative word to use than censorship I'd be happy to use
it.>>
>
> Revision. Editing. Both of those fit, while censorship does not, not by
any
> of the meanings in my dictionary.
It *is* revision; it *is* editing. Likewise, amputating your leg can be
described as 'stopping your foot itching'. (I'm exaggerating with that, but
you get the point.)
>
> >> Presumably he ('Sclavi', the writer) didn't kick up a fuss about the
> change.>>
>
> If that's the case, then there's no way it can be considered censorship,
unless
> you consider editorial suggestions an author agrees to censorship, which
is
> even farther from the definition and damages the word even further.
Of course people agree to censorship! To take an even more exaggerated (?)
example, Galileo was in perfect agreement to the censorship of his (correct)
theories of astronomy. Of course, he was expecting the Spanish
Inquisition*...
>
*in case you're wondering, I have to mention Spanish Inquisition at least
once per argument.
> >>I've tried to explain why I think there should be a difference in the
way a
> living artist's work is treated (as opposed to a dead one) and - much more
> difficult - how 'fair use' could be expanded to include things which have
> become iconic, have entered the culture in some way - or another culture's
> interpretation of a culture etc. etc.>>
>
> I've noticed, but I haven't found your arguments compelling -- you're
basically
> saying that if anyone wants to use, say, my creations after my death, that
> should override my ability to pass those rights down to my daughter. I
can't
> see why my wishes shouldn't be respected -- my work will eventually fall
into
> public domain, but if, in the meantime, I want to provide for my
children's
> security, I can't see a reason to deny me that. I created this stuff, and
> while I recognize the idea of public domain, I haven't heard any good
reason it
> should be occur immediately upon my death. Neither have international
> copyright bodies, it seems.
Yeah, I was kinda hoping you wouldn't bring up your daughter. I admit,
inheritance is a difficult one. It's a grey area.
When a copyright is owned by a multinational entertainment co. it's a
commodity, a product. To allow that multinational greater legal rights than
an individual artist to express him/herself in (more or less) any way they
see fit (there's never complete freedom of expression) seems to me utterly
perverse.
Not only that, it's actually part of the reason the comics industry is held
in such contempt: far too many 'creators' are pumping out meritricious crap,
in large part so that they can later sell the rights to Hollywood. Is this
what we want? They do it, imo, partly because they hold their readership in
such contempt - otherwise they'd be spending their time and energy on
something they actually believe in.
I think the commoditisation of rights is part of the problem in comics (and
movies, too). If, somehow, more attention was paid, first to allowing the
individual artist/writer more freedom and second, to the interests of the
audience out there, in trying to provide at least more of a choice, that
would be altogether a 'good' thing. If the only people who lose out along
the way are a few multinationals, so be it.
Having said that, when I attempted to come up with an alternative law
before, I was trying to work out a way for it to be possible for creator's
to sell their rights (the right to earn royalties, that is) as they see fit
but still maintain editoral control (while they're still alive). The quid
pro quo for that would be an expanded fair use clause for other creators.
But yeah, I can see the point of being able to pass ownership of that kind
on to at least one generation.
Incidentally, nobody has yet said who *owns* the rights to Groucho Marx's
image and name.
Yeah, hang on, I'm not advocating exploitation. I'm not saying Sclavi should
be free to invent a new marx Bros. routine. His 'Groucho' character appeared
briefly in three out of six DD books. It was very much an incidental
character. The freedom to iclude him in such a way that, you know, *makes
sense* and is faithful to Sclavi's intention - to his original work, in
fact - would come under the kind of incidental use clause I'm envisiging.
You're doing what Nat keeps doing, Kurt, and extrapolating from the
particular to the universal (painful). I'm not trying to come up with some
grand principle: I'm really just dealing with this one case which seems to
me to have come out badly and working out a way to change the law to prevent
it from happening again. That's all, m'lud.
>
> > Strictly speaking, yes. But it could be - probably is - justified.>
>
> So basically, you'd say that if the Groucho Marx estate tried to stop
DYLAN DOG
> from making use of their property, they'd be justified -- but you'd think
> they're wrong?
Sorry, don't know what you're referring to. If the Marx estate had tried to
stop DD (which presumably would have meant Dark Horse would have made a
proper translation first) they would have been wrong but legally entitled...
(maybe that's what I meant).
>
> How can they be justified and wrong at the same time?
>
I am SO tempted to tell you about the planet I come from... :-)
Possibly someone on this NG remembers the Air Pirates case. This was the
early 70s when a group of Underground Comix types led by Dan O'Neill - inc.
Ted wotsit, the 40 Year Old Hippie guy - published a series of comix which
deliberately used copyrighted mainstream comic characters but remade to fit
the counterculture (Dopin' Dan was one - based on Beetle Bailey, I think).
O'Neill himself hit on Disney - he had Mickey and Minnie fucking, Donald
smoking grass etc. etc. - and it led to a court case which lasted years.
O'Neill lost (although ironically, I think most of the others got good jobs
in mainstream comics afterwards) but it was quite a cause celbre in the UG
press for a while (I'm getting all this from an early Heavy Metal article by
Jay Kinney, btw). The line *then* was that Disney represented everything
wrong with comics - with modern culture, in fact. It was greedy, totally
uncreative, ripped off it's genuine talent, stole their rights and was
obsessed with copyright as a commodity. Disney was also perfectly within its
(legal) rights to slap O'Neill - who saw the whole issue as a moral
crusade - down. His career never really recovered, I don't think.
Point is, most of the hippy revolutionaries back then *knew* O'Neill was
right, even if they couldn't justify it legally. This was one against The
Man.
How times change...
Duncan
Johanna Draper Carlson <joha...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:7qr2qv$qhu$2...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net...
> kurtb...@aol.comics (KurtBusiek) wrote:
>
> > If someone wrote and drew a character who was convinced he was Sam Spade
>
> I was just wondering how this relates to Paradox Press' Bogie Man.
>
competition about 'freedom of expression'...
Duncan
Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote in message
news:37D140D9...@gertler.com...
> Craig Lenney wrote:
> >
> > I'm aware the word 'censorship' is a loaded one. I'm not trying to imply
> > that the editor involved is some kind of monster. It's just, if you cut
out
> > part of a piece of writing you're censoring it, whether we like to use
the
> > word or not.
>
>
name -
> > was removed for US publication. If anyone can think of an alternative
word
> > to use than censorship I'd be happy to use it.
>
'Editing' implies no change in meaning was made. Unlike here.
>
> > Yeah, could be. Presumably he ('Sclavi', the writer) didn't kick up a
fuss
> > about the change. It's not clear, btw, that it would have been illegal
for
> > it to be left in. Nat reckons so (I think) and I'm inclined to believe
him
> > but I guess he could be wrong.
>
> I reckon that the change *may* have been for concern about the legal
> situation. (It may also have been that the book would have seemed like
> a more interesting licensing possibility to film studios if it was
> not dependent on Groucho, who has been dead for a while now.)
Yup, I'd go along with that. That's the third time I've agreed with you,
Nat. Something's wrong...
Duncan
Mute, with enzymes! <mu...@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:37d2...@dnews.tpgi.com.au...
>
> >> If someone wrote and drew a character who was convinced he was Sam
Spade
>
> >I was just wondering how this relates to Paradox Press' Bogie Man.
>
> sequel, a retelling of the earlier stories, or a reprint?
>
>
(to the last choice)
Duncan
> >> sequel, a retelling of the earlier stories, or a reprint?
>
> >The Bogie Man: Chinatoon (1993)".
>
> been scattered over so many anthologies and formats...
>
other than ...Dan Quayle. He of the penis gourdes.
Nat Gertler
>
> > Yeah, that word "editing" pops to mind again.
>
> 'Editing' implies no change in meaning was made.
It does? Boy, I wish you'd tell that to my editors!
> > I reckon that the change *may* have been for concern about the legal
> > situation. (It may also have been that the book would have seemed like
> > a more interesting licensing possibility to film studios if it was
> > not dependent on Groucho, who has been dead for a while now.)
>
> Yup, I'd go along with that. That's the third time I've agreed with you,
> Nat. Something's wrong...
(Oh, and just to make sure you know: there *is* a current Dylan
Dog film project... I don't know how far along it is. The title
is Dead Of Night.)
KurtBusiek
I'd say so, in the abstract. In the concrete, people tend to think it's good
when it protects people they like, and bad when it protects people they don't.
>>I thought that parody was OK.>>
Parody is fine, but it has limits. If you do a Mickey Mouse parody, it's a
joke. If you want to do 250 issues of it, then the profiteering aspect of it
is likely outweighing the humor.
kurt
KurtBusiek
change or supression of whole or parts of etc.>>
What's the "etc."?
I hauled out the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which isn't
abridged -- it just shrinks the type down really small -- and even it doesn't
say anything of the sort. It pretty solidly seems to require that it be a
government or religious official doing it.
The definition you quote is simply a synonym for "change," since any change is
covered under "change or supression of whole or parts of." Change your mind,
change the oil in your car, change a record -- it's all censorship by that
definition.
Still if that's what it says, that's what it says, and I won't quibble. I'll
still argue that you're mistaken when you say there aren't any other words that
apply, since "change" and "edit" both cover the situation.
>>'Change' doesn't cover what happened in DD because the actual meaning of the
story was altered - in however a small way - in a way contrary to the writer's
original intention (even if he gave his permission).>>
What makes that not "change"? Or not "editing"? Neither word excludes
situations in which the actual meaning is altered.
I'll skip most of the rest -- not that the post wasn't interesting, but you
veer off into arguments against multinationals that I don't think even apply
here -- Dark Horse is technically a multinational, but they're not the rights
holder on either side of the question -- but more to the point, I want to stick
with the point I entered this with: You said the only word that described this
situation was censorship, and you'd use another if someone brought it up. I
brought up a few, since I don't think that's the only one that fits at all -- I
don't even think it's one of the ones that fits.
I'll just skip down to a couple of minor bits:
>>It *is* revision; it *is* editing. Likewise, amputating your leg can be
described as 'stopping your foot itching'. (I'm exaggerating with that, but you
get the point.)>>
Sure, but (a) you are exaggerating, as you say, and (b) you've agreed with my
point -- there are alternative words that cover the situation.
>>Not only that, it's actually part of the reason the comics industry is held
in such contempt: far too many 'creators' are pumping out meritricious crap, in
large part so that they can later sell the rights to Hollywood.>>
I don't think this has anything to do with whether copyright should be voided
on a creator's death. The principle you're talking about isn't specific to
comics -- Groucho made movies and television, for heaven's sake. Painters,
musicians, photographers, novelists -- this all applies to them as well as it
does to comics creators.
I don't know that I'd agree with your thesis here -- there are certainly plenty
of comics creators pumping out meretricious crap, but there are plenty of
novelists and pop singers doing it too. And I'd wager that you don't think
Sclavi is one of them -- and certainly, Groucho Marx wasn't a comics creator
pumping out meretricious crap -- so I don't see what the assertion has to do
with your argument.
>>You're doing what Nat keeps doing, Kurt, and extrapolating from the
particular to the universal (painful).>>
That's the essential test of any principle. If it doesn't work any more when
you apply it to other situations, it doesn't work; that very idea is used to
veto or abolish bad laws -- they have too great an effect beyond what their
intent was.
And with that, hopefully, I'll back back out again...
kurt
Duncan
KurtBusiek <kurtb...@aol.comics> wrote in message
> >>In the dictionary I've got in front of me (Concise Oxford) it refers to
> change or supression of whole or parts of etc.>>
>
...parts of a piece of writing - the artwork in question.
>
> I hauled out the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which
isn't
> abridged -- it just shrinks the type down really small
[saves actually subbing the thing, the cheap punks :-)]
>-- and even it doesn't
> say anything of the sort. It pretty solidly seems to require that it be a
> government or religious official doing it.
Huh? Why? In the UK the film censor is independent of government and
certainly isn't part of any religion. Why wouldn't that count? What's
religion got to do with it anyway?
>
> The definition you quote is simply a synonym for "change," since any
change is
> covered under "change or supression of whole or parts of." Change your
mind,
> change the oil in your car, change a record -- it's all censorship by that
> definition.
>
> Still if that's what it says, that's what it says, and I won't quibble.
I'll
> still argue that you're mistaken when you say there aren't any other words
that
> apply, since "change" and "edit" both cover the situation.
>
> >>'Change' doesn't cover what happened in DD because the actual meaning of
the
> story was altered - in however a small way - in a way contrary to the
writer's
> original intention (even if he gave his permission).>>
>
> What makes that not "change"? Or not "editing"? Neither word excludes
> situations in which the actual meaning is altered.
I guess 'change' *does* cover it - it's just not strong enough. Change' and
'edit' imply a benign process - something like fact-checking or subbing. I
know it's annoying for me to keep using the word censorship - but that's the
point. Censorship carries all sorts of associations - of Big Brother etc. -
which I specifically wanted to bring up. Not because I think this is a
*serious* threat to free speach - or that there *is* a Big Brother, as
such - but i guess because, to my mind, whether a piece of writing is
altered because, say, a pressure group thinks it 'obscene', or to protect
someone else's right of ownership of a copyright doesn't really matter. It's
the same process. Someone's creation has been made into something it wasn't
meant to be - that strikes me as more than just 'editing'. It could be,
though, that 'censorship' doesn't carry the same charge here - there's no
'right' of free speach to be violated here - and besides, some censorship is
necessary.
>
> I'll skip most of the rest -- not that the post wasn't interesting, but
you
> veer off into arguments against multinationals that I don't think even
apply
> here -- Dark Horse is technically a multinational, but they're not the
rights
> holder on either side of the question
Sure. I was referring to the owner of Groucho's image - assuming that it's
the same person/company as the owner of the copyright to his estate.
Nobody'd yet come up with his/her/its identity.
On the point of multinationals: the fact that it is usually a multinational,
like Disney, that we hear about getting upset about the use of their
characters' images, rather than an individual artist just goes to point up
the unfairness of a multinational pursuing an artist through the courts.
> -- but more to the point, I want to stick
> with the point I entered this with: You said the only word that described
this
> situation was censorship, and you'd use another if someone brought it up.
I was challenging you to come up with an alternative word with the same
meaning, yeah. I don't think 'editing' or 'changing' cut it, even though
their literal meaning covers the meaning of censorship (ie censorship is a
kind of change).
> I
> brought up a few, since I don't think that's the only one that fits at
all -- I
> don't even think it's one of the ones that fits.
>
> >>It *is* revision; it *is* editing. Likewise, amputating your leg can be
> described as 'stopping your foot itching'. (I'm exaggerating with that,
but you
> get the point.)>>
>
> Sure, but (a) you are exaggerating, as you say, and (b) you've agreed with
my
> point -- there are alternative words that cover the situation.
Yes but, as I said, they don't convey the same meaning do they? Editing
hardly sounds like a threat to free expression does it?
>
> >>Not only that, it's actually part of the reason the comics industry is
held
> in such contempt: far too many 'creators' are pumping out meritricious
crap, in
> large part so that they can later sell the rights to Hollywood.>>
>
> I don't think this has anything to do with whether copyright should be
voided
> on a creator's death. The principle you're talking about isn't specific
to
> comics -- Groucho made movies and television, for heaven's sake.
Painters,
> musicians, photographers, novelists -- this all applies to them as well as
it
> does to comics creators.
>
> I don't know that I'd agree with your thesis here -- there are certainly
plenty
> of comics creators pumping out meretricious crap, but there are plenty of
> novelists and pop singers doing it too. And I'd wager that you don't
think
> Sclavi is one of them -- and certainly, Groucho Marx wasn't a comics
creator
> pumping out meretricious crap -- so I don't see what the assertion has to
do
> with your argument.
It's hard to answer that without going through the whole thing again. I *am*
only referring to comics, although most pop music and a lot of movies are
crap, yeah. Groucho only enters into it because he is - that is, his face,
walk, way of talking and mannersims - an icon. He - or rather, it (his
image) - has become symbolic of something (Nat called it - shit, what did he
call it? - witty rebellion, that's it), especially outside America (in the
same way Chaplin's little tramp, John Wayne's swagger, Clint's big gun in
Dirty Harry - these are all American icons with particular associations
etc.). When a creation becomes iconic like that it does so because of the
associations, meanings etc. given to it BY OTHER PEOPLE. (Other than the
creator, that is). There's no way the creator could plan for that to
happen - it just does, but only in a tiny handful of cases, usually American
(or French - funny that). The icon has therefore entered the culture and in
some way it's 'ownership' is spread to the culture as well.
Therefore, in that sort of case, it should be OK for an artist to be free to
refer to - that kind of icon (IYKWIM). Therefore it should have been OK for
Sclavi to include references to Groucho (and Dracula, Bladerunner, Night of
the Living Dead, and all the other iconic images referred to in the Bonelli
books). Especially when the creator himself, who is the only one (leaving
his imediate family out of it for a second) who has a right to object on
artistic - as opposed to financial - grounds.
That's pretty much all I was saying. I wasn't advocating that someone should
do new versions of the Marx Bros. films.
There's a sitcom starting on British TV soon full of refrences to 70s TV
culture - at one point two of the characters start thinking they're called
Velma and Shaggy. I'd bet the writers didn't get 'permission' from Hanna /
Barberra to say that - and why the hell should they? It's part of their
(our) culture.
Hopefully, Astro City will be too, one day. Astro City could be used to
describe any real place which refers to a mythological one (in the specific
case, the New York of Stan Lee, Ditko and Kirby, where you might see
SpiderMan swinging past the Baxter Building - unless I'm misreading your
intentions, Kurt). "That place is a real Astro City". I could imagine it
happening, although probably (I hate to bring it up) after your death. If
someone said that, in that way, in a comic would you expect your estate to
sue them?
>
> >>You're doing what Nat keeps doing, Kurt, and extrapolating from the
> particular to the universal (painful).>>
>
> That's the essential test of any principle. If it doesn't work any more
when
> you apply it to other situations, it doesn't work;
That's the essential test for a principle, not a law.
> that very idea is used to
> veto or abolish bad laws -- they have too great an effect beyond what
their
> intent was.
Exactly. They have too great an effect because they are being used to apply
some grand and simple principle over complex and particular, individual
cases.
>
> And with that, hopefully, I'll back back out again...
>
Fair enough. None of this is what has gobsmacked me; rather it's the
automatic identification with the 'law' some of youse guys have. Like I said
in the Air Pirates case [it's Ted Richards, btw, who did Dopin' Dan], there
was a time when the 'law' was the devil's work.
Maybe I'm just an old hippy...
[We really *did* levitate the White House that time, y'know...]
Duncan
> Duncan wrote:
> >
> > > Yeah, that word "editing" pops to mind again.
> >
> > 'Editing' implies no change in meaning was made.
>
> It does? Boy, I wish you'd tell that to my editors!
Oh, OK. Have you got an example? I'm genuinely curious...
>
> > > I reckon that the change *may* have been for concern about the legal
> > > situation. (It may also have been that the book would have seemed like
> > > a more interesting licensing possibility to film studios if it was
> > > not dependent on Groucho, who has been dead for a while now.)
> >
> > Yup, I'd go along with that. That's the third time I've agreed with you,
> > Nat. Something's wrong...
>
> (Oh, and just to make sure you know: there *is* a current Dylan
> Dog film project... I don't know how far along it is. The title
> is Dead Of Night.)
...yeah, it's got this great scene in it where DD, his sidekick, his clint,
and his girlfriend all have to fit into this tiny ship's cabin, along with
an enormous trunk. I think there's a monkey in it somewhere too...
Nat Gertler
>
> Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote in message
> news:37D3DD9B...@gertler.com...
> > Duncan wrote:
> > >
> > > > Yeah, that word "editing" pops to mind again.
> > >
> > > 'Editing' implies no change in meaning was made.
> >
> > It does? Boy, I wish you'd tell that to my editors!
>
> Oh, OK. Have you got an example? I'm genuinely curious...
For various reasons, I don't want to go into the full details...
but lets say I've had a young boy character edited into being
an old pervert... I had a brief, straightforward and necessary
reference to HTML as a "language" turned into an inappropriately
complex, unneeded and erroneous explanation that HTML is *not*
a language... etc.
When writers remove their names from works, or directors from
films, it's generally because it's been "edited" beyond what
their intent was.
Duncan
Sure. Another implication of censorship would be a deliberate change of
meaning, rather than the result of a mistake. Were these mistakes of your
editors?
Can you give me some names of comics in question, or others? Ta.
Elayne Riggs
>> > If someone wrote and drew a character who was convinced he was Sam Spade
>>
>> I was just wondering how this relates to Paradox Press' Bogie Man.
>>
> ...written by Alan Grant who, according to Elayne, is running some kind of
> competition about 'freedom of expression'...
??? The only thing I've said lately about Alan Grant is that I like the
work he's doing on ANARKY. Mayhap you're thinking of another poster?
- Elayne
Nat Gertler
>
> Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote in message
> news:37D52779...@gertler.com...
> > Duncan wrote:
> > >
> > > Nat Gertler <n...@gertler.com> wrote in message
> > > news:37D3DD9B...@gertler.com...
> > but lets say I've had a young boy character edited into being
> > an old pervert... I had a brief, straightforward and necessary
> > reference to HTML as a "language" turned into an inappropriately
> > complex, unneeded and erroneous explanation that HTML is *not*
> > a language... etc.
> >
> > When writers remove their names from works, or directors from
> > films, it's generally because it's been "edited" beyond what
> > their intent was.
>
> Sure. Another implication of censorship would be a deliberate change of
> meaning, rather than the result of a mistake. Were these mistakes of your
> editors?
Those changes were deliberate. And they were not censorship, they
were editing.
KurtBusiek
certainly isn't part of any religion. Why wouldn't that count? What's religion
got to do with it anyway?>>
The Catholic Church isn't a government, but it's capable of censorship. Thus,
the definitions recognize that any body large and powerful enough to compel
through the exercise of police power (as religions have been able to do, at
times) can censor.
If the "film censor" in the UK is independent of government, why does anyone
have to listen to him? What gives him power to force his changes?
>'Change' and 'edit' imply a benign process - something like fact-checking or
subbing.>
I disagree -- "change" covers all situations in which change occurs, and "edit"
as well -- when editors at Marvel rewrote Mark Waid's CAP #14 script to the
point that he took his name off it, that was editing, and it was hardly benign.
>> Censorship carries all sorts of associations - of Big Brother etc. - which I
specifically wanted to bring up.>>
Yeah, but you bring them up by assertion and then declare that no other word
fits, even though, as you point out, free speech hasn't been threatened, and
Big Brother ain't involved.
Free speech does not include the right to publication in any form by any
publisher -- if Sclavi wanted to publish in the US on his own hook, he'd have
complete control (and complete exposure to any lawsuits). If the work is
offered to Dark Horse, and Dark Horse says "We won't take it unless this bit
here gets changed," then the Italian rights holder, be it Sclavi or someone
else, has the utter freedom of choice to accept the deal or reject it. They're
not being compelled in any way.
>>to my mind, whether a piece of writing is
altered because, say, a pressure group thinks it 'obscene', or to protect
someone else's right of ownership of a copyright doesn't really matter. It's
the same process.>>
I can't agree. You're back to the idea that if I start publishing my own
THUNDER Agents comics, and I get shut down because I don't own the characters
and am infringing on the rights of those who do, I'm being foully censored,
since you've just called it "the same process."
>> Someone's creation has been made into something it wasn't meant to be - that
strikes me as more than just 'editing'.>>
But that happens all the time. I pitch a story, and a publisher accepts it so
long as I change a few bits, or do the whole thing in three issues instead of
six. I write a script, and the editor tells me that he thinks a conversation
is too harsh, and would I rethink it? A novelist offers a novel to a publisher
who loves the first half, but thinks it falls apart thereafter, and could the
novelist rewrite it?
In each of these cases, the editing alters the work. Publishers have the right
to say "No, we won't take that unless..." That's not censorship, since no
creator is guaranteed publication. The creator is free to agree or not agree,
at whatever stage it becomes appropriate.
The difference here is that you're aware of the change, not that changes didn't
happen in works where you're not aware of any.
>>On the point of multinationals: the fact that it is usually a multinational,
like Disney, that we hear about getting upset about the use of their
characters' images, rather than an individual artist just goes to point up the
unfairness of a multinational pursuing an artist through the courts.>>
No, it doesn't. All it means is that those are the news stories that get wide
enough play for you to hear about them. It doesn't mean that those are, in
fact, the majority of the cases, or even that there's rampant unfairness at
work.
>> I don't think 'editing' or 'changing' cut it, even though their literal
meaning covers the meaning of censorship (ie censorship is a kind of change).>>
I don't think "censorship" cuts it, myself, since we know of no element of
compulsion. But at that, we seem to have gotten to a base disagreement, and
will just have to agree to disagree.
>>Editing hardly sounds like a threat to free expression does it?>>
That's why I think it fits better. Sclavi expressed himself freely. He
doesn't have an inherent right to American publication through Dark Horse --
they're free to bargain with him (or with whomever owns the material) and to
come to an accomodation that suits both sides without it being a threat to free
expression.
>> There's a sitcom starting on British TV soon full of refrences to 70s TV
culture - at one point two of the characters start thinking they're called
Velma and Shaggy. I'd bet the writers didn't get 'permission' from Hanna /
Barberra to say that - and why the hell should they? It's part of their (our)
culture.>>
There's a difference between making a reference and, say, duplicating the
character designs from SCOOBY-DOO and speech patterns along with the names.
They'd need permission for the latter, if it wasn't parodic or lasted more than
a brief time.
>>If someone said that, in that way, in a comic would you expect your estate to
sue them?>>
If it involved having Samaritan show up, in costume, under that name, I'd
certainly support them in such a lawsuit from the Great Beyond.
>>That's the essential test for a principle, not a law.>>
No, it's the essential test for a law, too. There's even a formal name for it,
though it's not coming to me right now, that is invoked when a law designed to
do one thing has a broader effect than intended.
Laws have to be applied impartially -- you can't say, "Well, sure, it says
that, but it wasn't meant to cover that situation." The people framing a law
have to take into account what it accomplishes that they didn't mean, as well
as what they did.
>>They have too great an effect because they are being used to apply some grand
and simple principle over complex and particular, individual cases.>>
That's what laws do; they codify a principle. If you can't write them so that
they only cover what they need to, they don't work.
>> None of this is what has gobsmacked me; rather it's the automatic
identification with the 'law' some of youse guys have. >>
We're the people protected by those laws. For the most part, we like 'em.
>> Like I said in the Air Pirates case [it's Ted Richards, btw, who did Dopin'
Dan], there was a time when the 'law' was the devil's work.>>
To one side of the equation, yes. But that's very, very subjective -- and if
someone decided that I wasn't as creative as I used to be, and did the ASTRO
PIRATES as a protest against my vile uncreative ways, I'd shut them down.
Doesn't mean I don't think the AIR PIRATES wasn't daring or a bold political
statement -- but I don't want to see the laws changed as a result of it. If
doing projects like AIR PIRATES was in fact legal, then redoing Marx Brothers
movies would be, too, since the movies are owned by a corporation -- but you
say that's not what you're arguing for either.
>>Maybe I'm just an old hippy...>>
Could be. You may also have a different perspective, since it's not your
property you're calling to be given to the world...
kurt
Duncan
Duncan
Why? Why would he want to do that?
> And they were not censorship, they were editing.
OK, what is your definition of censorship? Presumably you'd agree it is a
*form* of editing? In practice it usually means the (deliberate) editing
(changing/ altering/ whatever) of something according to a pre-conceived
idea of what is acceptable - either morally or (imo) legally. You haven't
implied that your editor had any such ulterior motive.
And you still haven't mentioned anything you've written by name - I really
*am* curious, btw - just in case you think *I* have an ulterior motive in
asking!
Duncan
KurtBusiek <kurtb...@aol.comics> wrote in message
> >'Change' and 'edit' imply a benign process - something like fact-checking
or
> subbing.>
>
> I disagree -- "change" covers all situations in which change occurs, and
"edit"
> as well -- when editors at Marvel rewrote Mark Waid's CAP #14 script to
the
> point that he took his name off it, that was editing, and it was hardly
benign.
You'd have to explain what happened. [Only then, when all has been made
clear, can I pass judgement, my son. :-)]
>
> >> Censorship carries all sorts of associations - of Big Brother etc. -
which I
> specifically wanted to bring up.>>
>
> Yeah, but you bring them up by assertion and then declare that no other
word
> fits, even though, as you point out, free speech hasn't been threatened,
and
> Big Brother ain't involved.
[Jeez, start an argument about ethical principles and it starts going all
semantic on you... I blame the modern generation and their bleedin' pop
music, drugs and post structuralism...]
I'm sure I said no big issue of free speech was threatened, or something
along those lines. Obviously, Sclavi's [that isn't his name, btw, just as
close as I can remember] freedom of expression hasn't just been threatened,
it's actually been denied - at least in this instance: in respect of this
one character appearing in this small part of his work, in this publication
at this time in the USA. Like I said, not important in the scheme of
things - not important to your average East Timorese right now - but a
denial of free expression, none the less.
>
> Free speech does not include the right to publication in any form by any
> publisher -- if Sclavi wanted to publish in the US on his own hook, he'd
have
> complete control (and complete exposure to any lawsuits). If the work is
> offered to Dark Horse, and Dark Horse says "We won't take it unless this
bit
> here gets changed," then the Italian rights holder, be it Sclavi or
someone
> else, has the utter freedom of choice to accept the deal or reject it.
They're
> not being compelled in any way.
That's not freedom! That's prescription - 'freedom' within prescribed - and
arbitary - limits. Limits, I should add, whose invention Sclavi has no way
of influencing.
Free speech means just that - freedom to say anything (something I don't
advocate, obviously). Once you impose limits on that freedom it isn't really
worth calling it free, is it?
Yes, Sclavi has legal limits to the exercise of his freedom of expression -
we all do. That doesn't mean they're 'right'. What we're talking about
here - the limit imposed by copyright of a specific character already used
in a specific situation (don't forget the comic has already been published
in Europe with no problem) isn't something that necessarily should be
imposed - just because it happens to be legal.
>
> >>to my mind, whether a piece of writing is
> altered because, say, a pressure group thinks it 'obscene', or to protect
> someone else's right of ownership of a copyright doesn't really matter.
It's
> the same process.>>
>
> I can't agree. You're back to the idea that if I start publishing my own
> THUNDER Agents comics, and I get shut down because I don't own the
characters
> and am infringing on the rights of those who do, I'm being foully
censored,
> since you've just called it "the same process."
[Foully?]
I'm not advocating the abolition of copyright. Right from the start I've
said the same thing ie that in some cases - where the character or image or
whatever from the first artwork is iconic (which I've tried to explain*) and
where the original artist is dead copyright law shouldn't be applied in the
usual way. Instead, fair use** should be expanded to allow the incidental
use of that character (or image or whatever) in the second artwork.
*because ownership in those cases is disputable
**beyond parody and comment
In other words, I think the law should be more flexible so that certain use
of the image of characters like Groucho and Clint and Monroe etc., in
certain cases, is - allowable.
(I also tried to work out a way of keeping editorial control with the
creator even though rights have been sold. Then I ranted on about how the
obsession with copyright sales has lead to a wave of comics artists creating
comics which they clearly don't give a toss about but which may well fetch a
good price in Hollywood. I probably could have added something about that
guy Perlman's takeover of Marvel too, but none of that's strictly relevent.)
Sooooo, in the case you mentioned above, since the THUNDER Agents aren't
icons (the only superheroes I can think of who this would apply to at this
time are Superman - as in the Liberatore story I mentioned - and Batman.
Maybe the Hulk once, but not any more) and since you're not proposing
incidental use but a whole goddamn rewrite, I'd say you haven't got a leg to
stand on and it's slapped wrists all round.
Is that censorship? Hmmmm.
>
> >> Someone's creation has been made into something it wasn't meant to be -
that
> strikes me as more than just 'editing'.>>
>
> But that happens all the time. I pitch a story, and a publisher accepts
it so
> long as I change a few bits, or do the whole thing in three issues instead
of
> six. I write a script, and the editor tells me that he thinks a
conversation
> is too harsh, and would I rethink it? A novelist offers a novel to a
publisher
> who loves the first half, but thinks it falls apart thereafter, and could
the
> novelist rewrite it?
The second case is simple editing. You're implying that the quality of the
writing falls off in the second half; any editor wouldn't be doing his/her
job if s/he didn't fix that. In the first case it all depends what you mean
by 'harsh'. Bad language? politically incorrect? I think you *could* be
describing censorship, yeah. What if by 'harsh' you meant you had included a
story about children with guns at a time of national sensitivity of guns and
schools and the editor had refused it publication. Is that censorship? I
guess you'd have to ask Warren that.(He'll probably say 'no', mind, damn his
eyes :-)).
>
> In each of these cases, the editing alters the work. Publishers have the
right
> to say "No, we won't take that unless..." That's not censorship, since no
> creator is guaranteed publication. The creator is free to agree or not
agree,
> at whatever stage it becomes appropriate.
That's a legal or semi-legal relationship you're describing there, between
artist and publisher. I'm not sure how I feel about that: if a painter - if
Francis Bacon, say, had ever been told that his gallery wouldn't hang one of
his paintings because it briefly used something from another work, or
libelled someone or in some other way might be legally dodgy: how would you
feel about that?
I guess it depends how wedded you are to your creation. If you feel that no
matter what anyone else says you will NOT tolerate the slightest change to
it I guess you *would* call any attempt censorship, no? Especially if it has
been published in the form you expect already. Not that I think this applies
to Scalvi, particularly. I'm sure he'd take your view, that compromise is
necessary.
But this is where the interests of the readership come in: we ALSO have an
interest in the integrity of the artist's or writer's work being as close to
what they intended as possible. Given that DD has been published already in
its 'proper' form - but not in English - it is particular annoying when it's
Anglophone publisher can't do Sclavi the same courtesy - for whatever
reason.
(I guess what makes it even more annoying is that this sort of thing may
well be solved - for me, at least - if there was something resembling a
comics industry in the UK).
>
> The difference here is that you're aware of the change, not that changes
didn't
> happen in works where you're not aware of any.
Yes. I'm sure Sclavi accepted the change. But that doesn't make it OK. He
might have felt he didn't have any choice (and he'd have been damn well
right: who the hell else but Dark Horse would publish six of his books in
English and get them distributed properly?) and it doesn't take into account
us, the readership.
We have feelings too, you know.
>
> >>On the point of multinationals: the fact that it is usually a
multinational,
> like Disney, that we hear about getting upset about the use of their
> characters' images, rather than an individual artist just goes to point
up the
> unfairness of a multinational pursuing an artist through the courts.>>
>
> No, it doesn't. All it means is that those are the news stories that get
wide
> enough play for you to hear about them. It doesn't mean that those are,
in
> fact, the majority of the cases, or even that there's rampant unfairness
at
> work.
That's exactly what I meant. "It's usually a multi... ...we *hear about* [my
emphasis] etc." The point I'm making is that it is the multis' involvement
which makes it seem so unfair. It doesn't make it any less uynfair because
they make up a minority of cases.
>
> >> I don't think 'editing' or 'changing' cut it, even though their literal
> meaning covers the meaning of censorship (ie censorship is a kind of
change).>>
>
> I don't think "censorship" cuts it, myself, since we know of no element of
> compulsion. But at that, we seem to have gotten to a base disagreement,
and
> will just have to agree to disagree.
I get you. You're saying censorship implies compulsion on behalf of the
censor? No I don't agree. It doesn't. There are a million ways of censoring:
most are never noticed*. The most pervasive form is self-censorship.
*Don't ask me for examples: I've never noticed.
>
> >>Editing hardly sounds like a threat to free expression does it?>>
>
> That's why I think it fits better. Sclavi expressed himself freely.
In Italian he did. Not in translation. :-).
> He
> doesn't have an inherent right to American publication through Dark Horse
He doesn't have a *legal* right. Should he? I say, yes.
> they're free to bargain with him (or with whomever owns the material) and
to
> come to an accomodation that suits both sides without it being a threat to
free
> expression.
>
> >> There's a sitcom starting on British TV soon full of refrences to 70s
TV
> culture - at one point two of the characters start thinking they're called
> Velma and Shaggy. I'd bet the writers didn't get 'permission' from Hanna /
> Barberra to say that - and why the hell should they? It's part of their
(our)
> culture.>>
>
> There's a difference between making a reference and, say, duplicating the
> character designs from SCOOBY-DOO and speech patterns along with the
names.
> They'd need permission for the latter, if it wasn't parodic or lasted more
than
> a brief time.
We'll see. it hasn't been on yet. One of these days I'm going to find out
how many references to say, famous films, are made in other films. Where do
you draw the line, anyway? Should Leone pay royalties to Ford? Lock, Stock &
Two Smoking Barrels had a movie reference or straight lift every five
minutes - that's what made it so enjoyable. (For me, anyway.)
>
> >>If someone said that, in that way, in a comic would you expect your
estate to
> sue them?>>
>
> If it involved having Samaritan show up, in costume, under that name, I'd
> certainly support them in such a lawsuit from the Great Beyond.
Ah, but this would only apply if Samaritan had become a cultural icon, on a
par with Superman. That may be a pretty high target to shoot for, my friend,
even for you. Though I wish you luck.
[Furiously thinks: which sodding one is the Samaritan?????]
>
> >>That's the essential test for a principle, not a law.>>
>
> No, it's the essential test for a law, too. There's even a formal name
for it,
> though it's not coming to me right now, that is invoked when a law
designed to
> do one thing has a broader effect than intended.
>
> Laws have to be applied impartially -- you can't say, "Well, sure, it says
> that, but it wasn't meant to cover that situation." The people framing a
law
> have to take into account what it accomplishes that they didn't mean, as
well
> as what they did.
Maybe our experiences of this are different: in mine, laws are nearly always
badly written, archaic and often irrelevent. they only work by precedence:
because over the years they get tested, found wanting and refined in actual
cases in actual courts (often ending up with stupid results). There are no
principles as such for the law to follow, beyond common sense and what has
become acceptable to society.
They're reasonably easy to change, too. You just need a pressure group to
bribe the right 50 or so MPs and you've done it - yes, you've legalised
bestiality. (I'm exaggerating - but not *that* much. Especially when you've
seen the MPs).
>
> >>They have too great an effect because they are being used to apply some
grand
> and simple principle over complex and particular, individual cases.>>
>
> That's what laws do; they codify a principle. If you can't write them so
that
> they only cover what they need to, they don't work.
Welcome to England...
>
> >> None of this is what has gobsmacked me; rather it's the automatic
> identification with the 'law' some of youse guys have. >>
>
> We're the people protected by those laws.
We are? I know it's really obvious but for some reason i can't think of a
single law which protects me. I can think of people, and conventions, and
social habits etc. which protect me but... ah, it'll come to me.
> For the most part, we like 'em.
...but we wan't to change *some* of them, don't we? ....don't we?
>
> >> Like I said in the Air Pirates case [it's Ted Richards, btw, who did
Dopin'
> Dan], there was a time when the 'law' was the devil's work.>>
>
> To one side of the equation, yes. But that's very, very subjective -- and
if
> someone decided that I wasn't as creative as I used to be, and did the
ASTRO
> PIRATES as a protest against my vile uncreative ways, I'd shut them down.
>
> Doesn't mean I don't think the AIR PIRATES wasn't daring or a bold
political
> statement
Artistically they were pants, frankly, but yeah...
> -- but I don't want to see the laws changed as a result of it.
As a result of Air Pirates? Funnily enough, Dan O'Neill kept on at Disney so
much for so long and he was getting so much support that Disney were forced
to settle. Of course, Air Pirates comics are hard to find now but Dan
O'Neill's later stuff is still around - and he never stopped attacking
Disney. they just ignored him in the end. But the law was never invoked, or
challenged in that case, I don't think, any more than it was in the DD case.
Who knows, maybe Dan O'Neill would have won?
> If
> doing projects like AIR PIRATES was in fact legal, then redoing Marx
Brothers
> movies would be, too, since the movies are owned by a corporation -- but
you
> say that's not what you're arguing for either.
I'm not arguing for a Marx Bros. remake, no. In fact, I'm arguing against
one - but that won't stop the rights owners if they think they can make
money out of it. Is this a good thing? Imagine if all the Marx Bros. movies
were remade by whoever owns the rights with every halfwitted disaster area
of a Hollywood star you can think of in the starring roles (I'm trying to
remember the Mork from Ork's name...Robin something...) Imagine that.
Imagine what a pile of steaming shite that would be. That would piss over
Groucho's memory more than anything Sclavi has been accused of. That would
be REAL grave robbing.
But it would be 'legal'.
But getting back to the Air Pirates: as I said, Dan O'Neill didn't have a
leg to stand on - but that wouldn't've stopped me from rooting for him, on
the perfectly logical and sensible grounds that I have an irrational dislike
of Disney (and Microsoft and News Corp and Amex and etc. etc.) I just get
suprised when other people don't share my irrational dislikes of big
corporations, too.
>
> >>Maybe I'm just an old hippy...>>
>
> Could be. You may also have a different perspective, since it's not your
> property you're calling to be given to the world...
That's hardly what I'm asking for though, is it? Just greater use of certain
properties. Not the same.
I want to see more control for creators; less control for non-creative
rights owners; and I guess for the 'consumers' the knowledge that what
they're getting is what the creator wanted to produce, or as close as
possible.
[slight return]
> >>Huh? Why? In the UK the film censor is independent of government and
> certainly isn't part of any religion. Why wouldn't that count? What's
religion
> got to do with it anyway?>>
>
> The Catholic Church isn't a government, but it's capable of censorship.
Thus,
> the definitions recognize that any body large and powerful enough to
compel
> through the exercise of police power (as religions have been able to do,
at
> times) can censor.
>
> If the "film censor" in the UK is independent of government, why does
anyone
> have to listen to him? What gives him power to force his changes?
Hmmm. Maybe I've misunderstood you. I thought you by independent you meant
not controlled or unduly inluenced by... Yes, it's the government who backs
up the film censor's decisions, in that they will be ultimately responsible
for the imposition of a ban. I'm not sure if this *is* what you meant
because this doesn't apply to the Catholic Church or any other religion
outside Afghanistan or Iran, except maybe cults. As I think it was Stalin
said, how many battalions has the Pope?
Duncan
> to Scalvi, particularly. I'm sure he'd take your view, that compromise is
> necessary.
I mean, I'm sure Sclavi can stand the compromise, not that the entire
argument doesn't apply to him. I'm not quite going mad...