Archive Page 2194

January 2024

Walmart, January 7, 2024

When will Batman and Superman go into public domain? – Yahoo Entertainment

James Gunn and Peter Safran of DC Studios plan to launch a massive shared universe. But they could have a few problems to sort out if the DCU continues until the mid-2030s. After all, not just Batman or Superman, but Wonder Woman will also be joining the public domain in 2037, having made her debut in All-Star Comics #8 in December 1941."

Just like the inherent problems around Mickey Mouse going into public domain yet being a heavily trademarked character and with many "updated" versions still safely under copyright, anyone taking up using Batman, Superman or Wonder Woman in a inspired public domain work will have some pretty strict guidelines to observe or face the wrath of corporate lawyers. Nailing people who think they can use public domain characters but don't do it in a legal manner could become a lucrative money-stream for the corporations (and their attorneys) who will have plenty of reasons to try and police what's happening starting in 2034 when Superman slides into public domain.

Slabbed Comics and Tulip Mania – Bob Beerbohm

The original stockholders of CGC fairly recently sold out to a Wall St Hedge Fund for a reported $500 million. The CGC plastic holder is damaging comic books sent into that company since they began heat-sealing squishing the books, but it does not stop on just that note..."

Public Domain Mickey Mouse "running wild" – High Times

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Dan Parent interview talks about Archie, Veronia and Betty – MSN Times of India

Q: With a Bollywoood version of your comic creation out on OTT, do you believe that films based on comic books do justice to its original creation?

A: Whenever I see any Archies inspired work, I always look out for the Archie-Betty-Veronica love triangle, I feel that is the core of the comic. So if that is done well, everything else falls into place. I think a well-done movie can do full justice to a comic book within two hours or so, you don’t always need a drawn out series.

Comic book "industry person of the year" – Comicsbeat

2023 Comics Industry person of the year is Sloane Leong. An acclaimed cartoonist for books such as Prism Stalker and A Map to the Sun, in 2023 Leong made news for co-founding Cartoonist Coopertive, a "a member-driven organization working to improve and protect the labor rights of comic industry workers worldwide."

Patrick Stewart talks about the frustrating way Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness cameos were shot “frustrating And disappointing” – Bounding into Comics

Auctions sales dropped in 2023, but younger people are buying into the field and this is reflected in what they're bidding on – MSN Barrons

The fact that newer and younger collectors may be drawn to less conventional, less expensive art and collectibles was evident at Heritage Auctions last year, which saw a 22% jump in total sales to a company record of US$1.76 billion.

Scranton Comic Book shop hits 30 year anniversary – Wilkes Barre

The 2024 search for a blockbuster has begun

"Will Deadpool, ‘Wicked' and Two Kevin Costners Bring a Blockbuster Year?" – MSN Variety

According to rumours this is going to be Avengers line-up pic.twitter.com/U5VM4jbZ7F

— Chaos Sedaiᱬ (@CovenofChaoss) January 2, 2024

A new Rey Star Wars movie coming – Movie Web

Why Patty Jenkins quit Thor Dark World – Yahoo News

The best comic books of 2023 – Hollywood Reporter

HR exult over Birds of Prey, I am Stan, Transformers and others.

With superhero movies failing to deliver boxoffice, what's next for Hollywood is "not pretty" – Slate MSN

The rosiest spin you can put on this sudden collapse is that it’s the movie industry equivalent of a stock market correction, roughly disabusing Disney and Warner Bros. of the idea that they can put out substandard super-suit-clad product and expect fans to flock to it out of a sense of duty or FOMO. The strong performance of Across the Spider-Verse and last year’s The Batman ($771 million) is an indicator that audiences aren’t tired of all superhero movies, per se, but specifically of the sprawling and unwieldly universes that now stretch across TV as well as multiplex screens.

...Hollywood loves nothing more than copying success, but what is Barbenheimer’s takeaway? Oppenheimer is, among other things, the fruit of 20 years of building up Christopher Nolan as a brand-name auteur, and as few Greta Gerwigs as there are, there are even fewer Barbies—intellectual property launchpads that resonate across generations with no cumbersome lore to get tripped up by.

Probably the best summing up of the situation (for Hollywood) is:

It’s a genuinely shocking stumble for what as recently as a year ago still felt like an unstoppable cultural juggernaut.

Which means, as far back as the (very successful) Suicide Squad of 2016 ($747 million earnings) that (in Hollywood) no one with power was listening to the fans and the critics who in a combined voice were warning that the hero films had to get better.

The medium remains pristine, but the goods churned out from within the sausage factory have blackened its name, and probably the worst mistake was to let multiverse themes takeover the genre until now there's confusion for some people that multi-world stories are the superhero genre now.

Hopefully, there will come creators who will get unshackled from the puppet strings of Hollywood story-by-committee and the multiverse taint and bring the audience back.

Get into the Public Domain archives that are online at Graphic Chatter

Original page January 6, 2024