Public Domain Comic Book Covers
Merlino Riviere
Image was started thirty years ago by creators who knew their value. They struck out on their own and created a space where writers and artists could own their own work. It was incredibly important to me to wholly own Public Domain given its subject matter, so what better place than the company that allowed Matt and I to publish our weird smut book full of feelings.
There was never any doubt in my mind that Public Domain would see print. It\u2019s a comic about comics, so it had to exist in that single issue format, a format almost unchanged since the days when kids were buying Superman from newsstands. Sure, the paper is better, the printing is better, but it\u2019s still just a floppy periodical, paper held together by a couple of staples. It can be rolled up and shoved in your back pocket as you head to your favourite spot to get lost in the latest adventure. It\u2019s a COMIC BOOK.
And there was never any doubt as to where it would be published. Image Comics changed my life when Matt and I put out our first issue of Sex Criminals through them back in 2013. By that point Matt had worked for years at Marvel, so he knew the deal. He wrote, they owned. He got a paycheck, they got unlimited possibilities in perpetuity. So the rewards that came from a hit book that he co-owned with me was an incredible and well-earned reward for building a career at Marvel. And for me, holy shit what a stoke of beginner\u2019s luck being attached to the brilliant star that is Matthew J. Fraction.
I didn\u2019t publish Public Domain with a million variant covers. In fact, I just did one. I don\u2019t have any feelings one way or the other for creators who go the million covers route. I just knew that I wanted this to be a comic that was for reading, not collecting (plus, I clearly hate making money). I can\u2019t stop people from sending their copy to a company who inspects it and gives it a 9.8 and then places it between hard plastic, sealed away. But my wish is that you\u2019ll roll it up, put it in your back pocket, head to your favourite spot, and read a story that will hopefully entertain you as much as it did me during the process of making it.
And to all my subscribers here on this Substack who have already read it, and the issues after: thank you. You were my first readers and your words of encouragement mean more to me than you\u2019ll ever know.
For those who don\u2019t know, Chip headed up the ComiXology Originals program, which published Afterlift and is currently publishing The Allnighter. Chip is, by far, the best, most supportive person I\u2019ve met in comics. The guy looks out for creators and just LOVE COMICS. Much like with Image, Jason Loo and I own our books with ComiXology because Chip believes in creator rights and made a home for them both at ComiXology and at Dark Horse for the later print editions.
It was Chip\u2019s passion for comics and getting people to read them that secured us our Eisner win for Afterlift, I\u2019m sure of it. That Eisner is Chip\u2019s as much as it is any of us who worked on the book, but I\u2019m not going to give him my trophy are you crazy
Also, just so you know, ComiXology Originals is in excellent hands with Bryce Gold! Bryce has comics in his veins and I\u2019ve got no doubt that the line will continue to grow under him! Expect more Chip (Zdarsky) comics through ComiXology!!
A reminder that, in 2012, I \u201Crappelled\u201D down City Hall dressed as Spiderman. I put \u201Crappelled\u201D in quotes because the ledge at the top pushed the ropes out too far and made it hard to really do classic rappelling, so it was mostly just me slowly lowering myself without dying.
Works from 1925 were supposed to go into the public domain in 2001, after being copyrighted for 75 years. But before this could happen, Congress hit a 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years.2 Now the wait is over.
Here are some of the works that will be entering the public domain in 2021. (To find more material from 1925, you can visit the Catalogue of Copyright Entries.)(You can click on some of the titles below to get the newly public domain works. In the case of videos with sound, the copyright status of the audio is unknown.)
Note that only the musical compositions referred to above are entering the public domain. Subsequent arrangements, orchestrations, or recordings of those compositions, such as the recording of Sweet Georgia Brown by The Beatles and Tony Sheridan, might still be copyrighted. You are free to copy, perform, record, or adapt the composition, but may need permission to use a specific recording of it.4
Unfortunately, the fact that works from 1925 are legally available does not mean they are actually available. After 95 years, many of these works are already lost or literally disintegrating (as with old films7 and recordings), evidence of what long copyright terms do to the conservation of cultural artifacts. For example, sequences that were shot in two-tone Technicolor from two of the films above, The Merry Widow and Pretty Ladies, are apparently lost. For the material that has survived, however, the long-awaited entry into the public domain is still something to celebrate.
In an abundance of caution, our lists above primarily include works where we were able to track down the renewal data suggesting that they are still in-copyright through the end of 2020, and affirmatively entering the public domain in 2021. However, there were many exciting works from 1925 for which we could not locate renewals. They will also be in the public domain in 2021, but may have entered the public domain decades ago due to lack of renewal.
Written by Jennifer Jenkins. Special thanks to our tireless and talented research maven and website guru Balfour Smith for building this site and compiling the list of works from 1925.
Here are some of the works that will be entering the public domain in 2019. A fuller (but still partial) listing of over a thousand works that we have researched can be found here. (You can click on some of the titles below to get the newly public domain works.)
Of course, 1923 was a long time ago. (Under the 56-year copyright term that existed until 1978, we could be seeing works from 1962 enter the public domain in 2019.) Unfortunately, the fact that works from 1923 are legally available does not mean they are actually available. Many of these works are lost entirely or literally disintegrating (as with old films and recordings), evidence of what long copyright terms do to the conservation of cultural artifacts. For the works that have survived, however, their long-awaited entry into the public domain is still something to celebrate.
How can anyone on the planet not know that it's M-I-C (see ya real soon)-K-E-Y (why? because we like you!) M-O-U-S-E?
I agree--"egregious" is the word for such an error. Also while looking for errors, I noticed that the octopus has only seven tentacles--unless the other one is hidden in back, but wouldn't some portion of it be visible? Besides that, why would Mickey dive underwater with a shovel in hand? Does he plan on digging up the ocean floor in search of buried treasure? And wouldn't a shovel be sort of an unwieldy instrument on an underwater expedition? Carrying it would make swimming difficult, if not impossible, unless it were strapped on one's back--and even then, it would slow a person down by resisting the flow. It might come in handy for cracking bad guys over the head, but I don't see much other practical use for it in the ocean depths.
I'm sure Bella Luausi would second my observations.
Cheers!
Maybe they think the movie is lousy...reminds of that guy Mark Evanier wrote about who worked at Gold Key and was so in love with Mary Tyler Moore that he posted weird messahes on the covers of the "Dick Van Dyke Show" comic books.
There was a toy company called Performo that had a Micky Mouse toy - maybe that's a nod to that. ;)
The octopus in the horror movie "It Came from Beneath the Sea" had five or six tentacles. For years, there was a rumor that it was because Ray Harryhausen charged $10,000 per tentacle, and Columbia could only pay $50-60,000 for special effects. The real reason, Harryhausen explained in an interview, was to simplify animation. Interestingly, he noted that Mickey (that's M-I-C-K-E-Y) Mouse and other cartoon characters usually had only three fingers on each hand, for the same reason. -TC
Ah why thank you for the praise! Perhaps I shall compose more atrocities :D.
And yes, there were worse covers to come. One of the many things we can thank Bruce Hamilton and Gladstone for is the reemergence of the classic Dell-style gag covers. Some of my favorite covers grace the fronts of Gladstone WDC&Ses.
Even if they were right from the point of the law and you accidentally used non-public domain picture, this case looks very wrong to me from ethical point of view.
The copyright laws were created to protect rights and profits of living artists and their families. This ended up in situation when copyright trolls do emails with legal threats about usage of almost 90 years old art, now empowered with email automation and AI recognition.
I am not against the copyright principles and law, but this use case is something I strongly disagree with.
An orphan work is a work whose copyright owner is impossible to identify or contact. This inability to request permission from the copyright owner often means orphan works cannot be used in new works nor digitized, except when fair use exceptions apply. Until recently, public libraries could not digitize orphaned books without risking being fined up to $150,000 if the owner of the copyright were to come forward. This problem was briefly addressed in the 2011 case Authors Guild, Inc. v. Goo The o...
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