Superman. Captain America. The Fantastic Four. All of these characters, and many, many more, are getting new movies this year, and all of them represent just the latest fullisade of franchise extension movies dedicated to milking the maximum amount of profits out of corporate owned characters who remain under copyright.
Some of them might even be good! I certainly hope so. But their existence is predicated just as much, if not more, on capitalistic greed than it is on any desire for artisitic expression. Quality is a lucky byproduct, not the investor-approved endgoal of these projects.
That’s why I am always glad, when the new year rolls around, to see what has entered the public domain and can perhaps be saved, if only in part, from the bean counters and put back in the hands of writers and artists who actually care about these characters.
(On the other hand, most of these characters will also be stuffed into bottom-tier slasher movies to make a quick buck, just like Winnie-the-Pooh and many others before them, so it’s not a total win).
Current U.S. law has it set so that works from 1929 now enter the public domain, meaning they are no longer the sole property of a company, writer’s estate or other legal entity, but are in fact open to anyone who wants to use them.
Just last year, for instance, the cartoon “Steamboat Willie” entered the public domain, making Mickey Mouse open to anyone’s use — as long as he’s black and white, has black button eyes with no pupils and doesn’t wear gloves, at least. These rules can be very specific sometimes.
Well, this year brings some new characters into the ever-growing but never full public domain club. More Mickey Mouse, for instance — now he has gloves! and talks! Tintin, the intrepid Belgian reporter who travels the world on adventures with his dog, Snowy, and never seems to file any copy. Also some famous novels, such as “A Farewell to Arms” and “The Sound and the Fury.”
Perhaps most exciting is the addition of that squinty-eyed sailor man, Popeye, who first debuted in E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theater comic back in 1929 and is now free to use by anyone, making the possibilities of some new nautical adventures enticing.
With caveats, of course. The Popeye of the early comics was not quite the same as the hero of the famous Fleischer Studio animated shorts, incluidng in his use of spinach, which would not appear as his magical strength-enhancing superfood for several more years.
So, if you decide to write and draw your own Popeye epic now, keep the spinach out of it for a while. Just to keep the lawyers off your back.
It’s good to see all of these icons out in the free world now, though. Even if it does mean a Popeye horror movies has probably already been greenlit.
Stephen Milligan is news editor of The Walton Tribune. Email comments to stephen.milligan@ waltontribune.com.
