While "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is a Moore title chock full of characters in the public domain, this article is all about his use of a different (and comparatively much more recent) set of characters in "Tom Strong".

D'oh. Frigging fever. I can't keep one thought in my head for ore than two minutes straight, and my typing's gone right to shit, too.

I haven't been able to get to the site in question, so I'm imagining all sorts of obscure, un-PC 1930s era superheroes (Lynch Man; Sam Squarejaw: Immigrant Basher; SuffraJet.)

Un-PC characters wouldn't sit well with Tom. One of the most refreshing aspects of this comic is Tom's mixed marriage.

Edited by author 09-25-2002 09:01 PM
Anyone have a mirror of the site in question?

NEVER MIND, just got through. I guess the Slashdotters moved on to other things.

Look at how many new Oz-related books come out on a regular basis thanks to the expiration of copyrights on those properties.

Actually, there's a wealth of Oz-related stuff that has come out since it went PD, including the wonderful Geoff Ryman novel, "Was," which won the World Fantasy Award. There are Oz-themed carousels at county fairs, there're cameos from the Oz characters in the last three Heinlein novels, und zo weiter.

And, of course, Tom Strong is making use of PD characters to make interesting and good art.

And let's not forget the truly magnificent editions of the various Oz books that we've seen since it went PD. Oh, and the Oz material in Steven King's Gunslinger stories.

And the free e-books! Any school library can download these on demand for any student who wants 'em.

Cory,

Exactly. So this idea that rights holders need these extraordinarily long coypright periods in order to protect the work is absurd. The same thing has happened with Alice in Wonderland where there are derivative works almost as interesting as the original, none of which would have been possible without those characters and stories being in the PD.

If we believed Jack Valenti, et al, characters and books like Alice or Oz should be dying on the vine -- how can anyone make any profit after all, on characters and books that anyone can freely redistribute or modify or reimagine?

Sorry, Brian, I thought your message was sarcastic -- good to see that we're thinking the same way here.

The LA Times has a truly *excellant* article on successful attempts to lengthen the duration of copyrights, and one lawyer's efforts to challenge this process, as it's not what the nation's founders had in mind. This man is fighting Disney Corp., for example; Disney's sweating at the possibility of losing Mickey, and this man's hero is Walt Disney.

http://www.latimes.com/business/custom/cot...38sep22001450.story

hillclimber, I'd hardly describe Laurence Lessig as "one lawyer".

The best quote in the article is: 'The Supreme Court, Jack Valenti says hopefully, is merely having some "legal fun."'

Yeah, those Justices, they're all just a bunch of robed frat-boy pranksters out for a laugh, that's what I've always heard.