Beginner in comics with a few questions

[baemr]

Hi Everyone,
I just started reading comics on my Nook Color and have a few questions.  First of all, what comic book is the second character from the left in the DCM banner from? And second, are there any well known comic characters (Batman, Spiderman, etc..) that are in the public domain in some form?  It would be interesting to see how they got their start.
Thanks!
Jim

[srca1941]

Well, the Marvel Family stories (Fawcett) are public domain, and most are on this site. Same for Quality characters like Plastic Man, Blackhawk, Doll Man, etc.

-Eric

[darkmark (RIP)]

2md character from the left is the Cheyenne Kid from Charlton.  All Marvel and DC characters are NOT in the public domain.

[John C]

Public domain-ness of characters is a touchy situation, because there really isn't much of a concept for copyright of characters.  Stories are protected (and can lose protection), which is a little bit easier to manage.

To that end, as far as we've found, no particularly popular franchise/character today has any stories in the public domain that we're spotted.  I suspect it's because very few companies would bet the farm on stories that could be adapted by anybody, so anything not protected by copyright would be swept under the carpet.  There are minor characters, though.

Eric mentions a few.  Many issues by Fawcett, Quality, and Charlton (though the Charlton "Action Heroes" are later than we generally post here--our "competition" across the street goldenagecomics.co.uk veers more in that direction, ironically) weren't renewed.  Quite a few characters have also been "borrowed," like Fox's Blue Beetle (who became Charlton's Blue Beetle, then DC's), the Fantom of the Fair (who Roy Thomas used in...I think a Sandman origin), a bunch like Human Meteor (used to fight the Invaders), and so forth.  I believe that Amazing Man has made recent appearances in Iron Fist (because he was used as the basis), too.

And, of course, Dynamite Entertainment's "Project: Superpowers" is a fairly popular series that basically takes our inventory and pretends it all happened from 1938-1945, with a modern revival.

[bchat]

To that end, as far as we've found, no particularly popular franchise/character today has any stories in the public domain that we're spotted. 

I'd argue that Captain Marvel, Blue Beetle, The Spirit & Plastic Man are "popular enough".  Plastic Man has had several comic series, plus a cartoon in the 1980s.  Captain Marvel had a movie serial and a tv show in the 1970s, and never seems to have been out of comics for too long before some sort of revival is tried.  Blue Beetle has appeared in comics off-and-on pretty much since the character was created in the Golden Age (Fox, Holyoke, Charlton, AC Comics, DC), plus the character's been used in cartoons and appeared in "Smallville".  The Spirit seems to be a "popular enough" comic character, with a feature film a few years back.  Obviously, none of that puts any of these characters on the same level as Spider-Man, Iron Man or Batman, but, on the other hand, it's more than most modern characters have achieved.

[John C]

It's nothing against the characters, bchat (in fact, I prefer many of them to most of the "big guns"), but just distinguishing between "major brands" and "guy you might have noticed."  A big part of this is how DC and Marvel treat the characters they've "acquired" or adapted, of course, but...that's another long story for another day.

I guess "well-known" is a matter of scale.  I assumed that to mean "mass media headliner," but it's true that the list changes if you're a comic fan and that list changes depending on how long you've been reading.  I mean, the way Roy Thomas (again) played him up in the late '80s, I spent years thinking Dr. Occult was HUGE, when in fact, he had just been dusted off after a decades-long "hiatus."

[bchat]

It's nothing against the characters, bchat (in fact, I prefer many of them to most of the "big guns"), but just distinguishing between "major brands" and "guy you might have noticed."  A big part of this is how DC and Marvel treat the characters they've "acquired" or adapted, of course, but...that's another long story for another day.

I guess "well-known" is a matter of scale.  I assumed that to mean "mass media headliner," but it's true that the list changes if you're a comic fan and that list changes depending on how long you've been reading.  I mean, the way Roy Thomas (again) played him up in the late '80s, I spent years thinking Dr. Occult was HUGE, when in fact, he had just been dusted off after a decades-long "hiatus."

I agree with you, "well known" is going to vary from person to person based on their own experience & interests.  I was a kid in the 70s & 80s (I might still be a kid, but that's not for me to judge), so I was seeing Captain Marvel & Plastic Man on tv while I was only seeing characters like Iron Man & Captain America in comics.

Of what DCM has to offer, it's only my opinion that Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel, Plastic Man & The Spirit are the ones people may be familiar with, as they have gone beyond the comic pages (Beetle, Cap & Plas have all had numerous action figures), and the comic runs that all four had in the Golden Age are comparable to most of The Big Two's top stars.

I thought the same way about Dr Occult.  When I got into reading DC Comics, I thought he had always been around in their books, and was as important to the DC Universe as The Spectre & Dr Fate.  Now, after spending some time poking around the internet, I know better.

Oh, and Happy Holidays to all!

[Yoc]

I've always thought Sheena had a bit of a popular culture presence too.  It's why she's been on both the DCM banners so far.

[theorbys]

There are a lot of books out there with reprints of golden age Batman and Superman stories from comics, Sunday strips, and daily strips.  You can get some of them very cheap, esp. used, from internet book vendors or even public libraries. 

[Yoc]

Half the fun of DCM is discovering hidden gems.  Perhaps an artist you liked on a DC feature also did work on a Nedor title - ie Meskin (Vigilante) did some very nice work on the Black Terror title at the end of it's run.  The high point of the title IMO.  Or finding Dan DeCarlo (Archie) inside G.I. Joe or Jetta.  Fun things like that.  

[John C]

Speaking of Jetta, we overlooked a very obvious character:  Archie, who begins his run in Pep Comics #22, only barely recognizable as the character today, thanks greatly to DeCarlo's influence.  But if there's a character that non-comic-fans know as a comic book character (as opposed to discovering Green Lantern at the movies and discovering that there are comics), it's him, which is saying something.

Speaking of Black Terror, something I find interesting about the character (who doesn't interest me as much as it has captured others), there's a run that introduces what would eventually the the hallmark of Silver Age DC:  I believe that title pioneered the idea of the superhero's "family," with one-shot foreign counterparts, ancestors, descendants, and semi-related heroes.

Among period researchers, certainly Phantom Lady would qualify as well-known, due to her use as examples by Wertham and others, though she's mostly obscure even among comic book readers.

[darkmark (RIP)]

Actually, I'd argue that the Wizard from MLJ pioneered that concept.  In some issues of SHIELD / WIZARD, the Wiz's heroic ancestors are featured from Revolutionary War times onward.  Wotta pity Mighty Comics made him into a bad guy!

[John C]

I'll have to take a look at that.  Thanks for the heads-up!