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Author Topic: Posting old Newspaper strips  (Read 4090 times)

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Offline WiscPackRat

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Posting old Newspaper strips
« on: January 19, 2015, 01:14:56 PM »
I posted some comic books quite a while ago, and stopped because I got lazy and  found out doing that scanning was hard work! But I am feeling energetic again and have spare time, so I am thinking of posting material again.

Back when I was publishing the Menomonee Falls GAZETTE (for those of you wondering what that was, google it and look in the "ancient history" section...) I was approached once by a fellow who saw a local newspaper article about what Mike Tiefenbacher and I were doing. He said he had a collection of old newspaper Sunday sections and wondered if I would like to buy them. I said sure, and went to check them out. I find tied and wrapped bundles of Sunday sections from the local area that  were a total of 15 to 20 feet of papers. I bought the collection for some amount that seemed high at the time, but in retrospect was a steal. The Milwaukee SENTINEL was the local Hearst paper with lot of the famous King Features strips, and the opposing Milwaukee JOURNAL had field, NEA, and McClure syndicated strips, with a variety of others. The bundles were near complete runs of the papers from the mid '20s to the mid '40s as well as incomplete runs going back to 1918. I was able to see in their original glory runs of strips like LITTLE NEMO, THIMBLE THEATRE, PRINCE VALIANT, TARZAN, CAPTAIN EASY (with the best use of color I have ever seen in a strip), L'IL ABNER, FLASH GORDON, RED BARRY, Superman, TOONERVILLE FOLKS... and s, so many other strips. Stuff from the era when they were full pages of great art is so hard to believe unless you really see it. And many strips I knew were "ok" I found were really great back in there prime. I saw POPEYE, L'IL ABNER and BARNEY GOOGLE comics that were light-years better that the older, washed-out versions I grew up with. Part of these runs, like my comic books, have been going to sale on eBay to support me in my old age, but I still have so much left.

The reason I brought this up is to ask about the restrictions on what can be shared here at DCM. I saw a note that anything before 1923 is acceptable, but there are post '23 entries in the newspaper strip section of DCM. Also, the statement, "Anything published in the United States before 1923 is fair game." was made in the forum back in 2012. Did that mean anything over 89 years is alright? So now (in 2015) could we post anything that is from before 1925? In going through boxes, I can scan many great pages of comic strips and share stuff that I think would be enjoyed, but I don't want to do all the work and be told to not post it!I already scanned a handful of strips from the late 20's and early 30's before I noticed the "before 1923" information. Would it matter if a strip was NEA syndicated from 1928? King Features from 1931?  NY Tribune from 1928?

I do have material from before 1923, but that stuff is very delicate and will have to be carefully handled when I scan so I don't have the edges or the folds fall apart on me. I am working on some MUTT AND JEFF, HAWKSHAW THE DETECTIVE and CAPTAIN AND THE KIDS from 1921 right now. but I can only do a few a day. My scanner is only 8.5 by 11.5 capable, so I have to scan 1/6th of the Sunday page at a time and use Windows paint to splice the sections back together. Once I get some runs ready, I will try to recall exactly what I did to send in my postings. I hope to hear from you folks about this project, and if you will be looking forward to this material

Digital Comic Museum

Posting old Newspaper strips
« on: January 19, 2015, 01:14:56 PM »

Offline JonTheScanner

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Re: Posting old Newspaper strips
« Reply #1 on: January 19, 2015, 01:44:11 PM »
Unfortunately that 1922 date has not moved up. The simple rules are:

Anything published in 1922 or before is in public domain in the U.S. (Something created pre-1923 but unpublished is under copyright until 70 years after the death of the author but this needn't worry us about newspaper comic strips as they were published.)

Anything originally published after 1978 is still under copyright.

Anything published from 1923 to 1978 inclusive might be copyright or in the public domain. Things published during that period must have had their copyright renewed to still be copyrighted.  Unfortunately that can be difficult to determine -- and particularly so for newspaper comic strips.  Many syndicates didn't bother to renew. Many syndicates have folded with the rights to their strips possibly sold to other syndicates. Some syndicates "published" weekly "books" of all their strips and copyrighted them in that form so checking renewal is difficult.

We know some strips like Gasoline Alley were not renewed.  Out of copyright, Gasoline Alley strips are being reprinted by Drawn and Quarterly. They must call the books Walt and Skeezix because Gasoline Alley is still a trademark. That probably means that other Chicago Tribune strips were also not renewed, but to be safe someone would have to search.

Similarly many post-1922 Out Our Way and Our Boarding House strips have been reprinted without copyright so it's likely that other NEA strips from the 30s were not renewed. The Skippy and King Aroo strips are reprinted by IDW without an original copyright date so I'd guess those too are PD. Other McClure strips are probably safe (except for things like Superman to which they did not hold the original copyright.  I suspect DC might not have renewed them either, but I'd not like to fight Warner/DC.) King Features seems to have been pretty good about renewals.

In any case your pre-1923 strips are safe here. And later more questionable ones are likely safe but DCM might be reluctant to host. There are other venues for sharing those though. If you're interested PM me.

Offline John C

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Re: Posting old Newspaper strips
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2015, 02:30:01 PM »
Two minor additions to Jon's comments.

First, there's a slim chance that anything published up until March of 1989 is in the public domain, if it didn't have a copyright notice and if there was no effort made to fix the missing notice (like publishing a new edition) within...I think it was up to a couple of years, by that point.  But anything published since 1978 has a Life+70 term, making things even weirder.

Second, what makes comic strips so hated around here is that they're "contributions to periodicals," rather than periodicals, themselves.  Periodicals are helpfully ordered by title in the books, but contributions are lumped in with books and stuff, and are ordered by copyright owner.  Who owns the copyright to a particular strip?  Maybe the artist, the originating newspaper, the syndicate, an agent, or an outside trademark holder.  Or someone else.  Plus, every strip can is independent, meaning hundreds of entries if they're there.

Offline Yoc

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Re: Posting old Newspaper strips
« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2015, 04:12:05 PM »
There are other options outside of DCM that I'm sure would be interested or perhaps have already scanned some of what you have.  I recommend you contact Jon here with a PM (click this image under his avatar -
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/forum/Themes/default/images//im_off.gif
and he can pass along some more detailed suggestions.)

Congrats on your amazing collection!
-Yoc

Offline WiscPackRat

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Re: Posting old Newspaper strips
« Reply #4 on: January 19, 2015, 04:33:47 PM »
Thanks for the replies, buddies. I will very carefully try to scan a bunch of the pre-1923 pages and share them with you eventually.

Offline Yoc

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Re: Posting old Newspaper strips
« Reply #5 on: January 19, 2015, 08:33:46 PM »
Thanks.
Please do a Google on the strips to see if they aren't already out there somewhere (but not as reprints, obviously we could never share those)

Good luck on the project!
:)

Offline drkuntz

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Re: Posting old Newspaper strips
« Reply #6 on: February 03, 2015, 08:54:55 AM »
I got nothing for you regarding your question, but I do remember the Gazette and looked forward to it each week. I think I lost mine one year during spring cleaning.  :'(

Good paper.

Offline WiscPackRat

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Re: Posting old Newspaper strips
« Reply #7 on: February 23, 2015, 01:05:40 PM »
Hmmm. This may take a while. The stuff from the 30's and 40's are in pretty good shape and can easily be scanned. The stuff from the 20's are a little more delicate, but still able to be handled during scanning. But the early 20's and WWI era pages are really hard to hold and scare me little when I try to scan them.

Plus my HP Photosmart Plus Print/Scan/Copy machine is great at scanning, but can only do 9x12" which means a full newspaper page has to be done in sections and spliced together carefully to get it accurate. Each scan has to be almost perfectly perpendicular in line-up to merge correctly. Each page needs at least 4-6 scans, not counting repeats when I have to redo a section that is at a slight angle. So I'm not being lazy, just taking time to get them right.

Oh heck, I am being a little lazy. This is hard work and I do some, then take time off to calm my nerves, especially after I scan the lower left corner of a page five times and it keeps coming out cocked a little clockwise or a little counter-clockwise no matter how I try to shift it slightly between scans.

I have heard people refer to adjusting their scans to line things up on the computer, but I don't know how to do that or if I can with with the HP editing and in working in Windows Paint. The hardest part when I splice the sections together I put scotch tape on my monitor to hold them together. Does anybody know an easier way to ge the tape buildup off of it? :P :P

Offline Geo (RIP)

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Re: Posting old Newspaper strips
« Reply #8 on: February 23, 2015, 05:23:36 PM »
I hate to tell you, but a stand alone scanner is the simple answer. I too use my HP for quick scans, not for anything like your talking about. I don't know which graphic program is best for what your looking for on the PC, I'm from the Mac side from working in the school setting for years. I will have to say before I retired we started using PC for word processing and data for grades. Someone else with more time with the PC should be able to help more with the graphic program question. Would hope this gives a step in the right direction.

Geo
Filling holes, by ONE book at a time

Offline CBpop

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Re: Posting old Newspaper strips
« Reply #9 on: February 24, 2015, 05:04:22 AM »
Hi WiscPackRat.  I understand your pain, having had the same problem trying to scan brittle  newspaper strips.  Just a couple of ideas.

1- Never use tape if you can help it.

2- Find a clear, 3 hole paper protector at an office supply store.  Not sure what they are called, but they are made of a stiff clear plastic and usually have a black insert that is pre punched for 3 – 5 hole binders.  You can place the daily strips in the protector which allows them to be scanned  flat. It also allows you to position 5 or 6 strips  at a time for a multi page scan, cutting your scanning time.

3- A stand alone scanner will give you better scans and usually comes with a good editing program. I haven't had much luck with multi purpose printer/scanner/fax machines.  I have used several stand alone scanners with good success.  Epson has some nice stand alone scanners for $100 or less.  I'm using a Plustek Optic book 3800 scanner now with good success.

4- I've always used PhotoShop for final editing. PhotoShop Elements is a good alternate to the very expensive full version of PhotoShop. There are other excellent graphic editors on the market, it depends on what you are comfortable with. There are also some free programs that are good for minor editing.

5-I use a digital camera for large Sunday strips and that would take up too much space to describe in this post  ;) You can scan a larger Sunday page  in several scans and merge them into one using a good editor. A stand alone scanner with a cover that can be removed works well for larger scans.

Just some thoughts off the top of my head.  I know there are others who can add to the tips.  Good luck with the scanning.
Ed

Offline mr_goldenage (RIP)

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Re: Posting old Newspaper strips
« Reply #10 on: February 25, 2015, 12:18:43 PM »
An A4 scanner (large format for oversized books) is what you need. U can pick one up fairly cheap on Ebay. I bought mine for $189.00 with shipping. A deal considering how large it is and it works great for Sunday Funnies. Good Luck. Look forward to seeing your work.

Richard Boucher aka Mr_Goldenage.
Richard D. Boucher (12.14.1955 - 4.15.2018)
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