Pierre Speaks: What is original?? PART 2

In PART 1 of this article, I used Batman as an example.

Let us use a Flashback Universe character this time.

Let us use Saturn Knight.

I have heard many comparisons. That it was an obvious copy of Guardian/Vindicator. Space Ghost.

Even Iron-Man.

I can understand the Vindicator or Space Ghost comparison.... but Iron-Man??

I am still scratching my head about how anyone could even think that Saturn Knight looks like a copy of Iron-Man.

Essentially, Saturn Knight was our Flashback Universe version of Nova. It seems obvious to me.... but I can understand that if someone wants to call Saturn Knight a copy, and if they don't know the character Nova..... Iron-Man is a much more known character to use as a comparison.

But even then..... a copy of Iron-Man?? "Identical" was the word actually used. "Identical"?? Really???

I am stumped.

When I first read the adventures of Nova a few decades ago. Little did I know that it was meant to be Marvel's Green Lantern. I was not that familiar with Green Lantern at the time. I had seen him once or twice in the pages of the Flash. I did not know about the whole Green Lantern Corps. Or that when Nova was given his powers by a dying alien, that it was more or less the same story as the Green Lantern origin story.

But then again.... Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) was not an original character either. There was another Green Lantern before him (no not Abin Sur), Alan Scott.

I also saw Alan in the pages of the Flash at first, when Jay Garrick mentions his JSA buddies. And since I saw him before Hal Jordan... to me Alan Scott was the TRUE Green Lantern.

But even then..... Green Lantern was essentially the modern version at the time of Aladin and his magic lamp.

So to get back to the original question... "How do you qualify something as original??"

To someone who did not know of Green Lantern.... Nova seemed original. And I am sure that many when they first saw Hal Jordan had no idea that there was Alan Scott before him.

And who knows where Aladdin actually comes from ( I am sure someone knows.... but I am too lazy to look it up ;) ).

And who knows.... maybe someday.... someone will create a new version of a character he fell in love with years before called...... Saturn Knight??

We shall see.

Free Comics Monday: Unknown Worlds

Before you start downloading this weeks latest public domain comics, I'd like to bring your attention to this interesting bit of news from Newsarama concerning DC bringing back the *Archie* or MLJ Heroes...

I don't have any copies of the old MLJ comics handy (The Fly or The Shield, among others...) but I feel certain that a lot of them have fallen into Public Domain, so I'll try to round out some for next week.

If you can't wait until next week, feel free to hop on down to http://goldenagecomics.co.uk/ where you can find a huge library of Public Domain comics.

Until then, enjoy some more issues of Unknown Worlds!

NOTE about these comics. I saw this on Wikipedia:

In the 1980s or so, Roger Broughton obtained the rights to the ACG materials from Fred Iger, and started doing reprints of Herbie and other characters under his Avalon/ Sword-in-the-Stone/A+/ACG/Charlton imprint. Broughton also licensed Herbie to Dark Horse Comics for a 12-issue reprint series, but only 2 issues came out.

I know some ACG are definitely in Public Domain, but I'm not sure where the line is drawn. If Unknown Worlds is not in public domain, feel free to email me and I'll remove them from my site. - Jim



[ Unknown Worlds 31 ]



[ Unknown Worlds 32 ]

Sick Today

The entire Shelley clan is sick today, I'm afraid no new post for today. - Jim

In the meantime, check this out. From Phil Looney at Poptown...

Jim Shelley and the Beyonder - Separated At Birth

Paper Comic DeathWatch: Motion Comics

So, normally I would have another edition of Pierre Speaks today, but I'm going to break that long held tradition and present a special Emergency Edition of Paper Comic DeathWatch.

See, while the press was all focused on Batman: The Dark Knight last Friday, Time Warner/DC decided NOW was the time to strike with their most clever of all Digital Comic Solutions!

Motion Comics! as seen on newsarama...

Now, if for some reason you missed out on the all the hubbub, let me encapsulate it for you this way.

DC took the first issue of Watchman, hired voice actors, added some Flash animation, and uploaded the whole thing to iTunes.

What was the reaction from fans? Here are some sample comments:

...How about DRM-ed comics for sale? I mean, DRM-free would be better but it’s unrealistic. iComics or whatever. Some people would still steal them, just like everything else, but I’d pay bucks for a nice set of remasted early 1980s Batman. Motion comics or whatever… it sounds like you’re ruining the experience just to have a trademarkable name…

...Good gravy! What an exciting time to be a fan!

...Its an interesting concept, and I think offering books online via itunes is a step in the right direction. However, after watching the Watchmen chapter, my biggest concern is over the voice acting. I thought the acting was not very good and took away from enjoying the new format. If this is something you want to pursue, I would highly recommend hiring more accomplished voice actors to read the scripts.

...People don’t want a brand new format. People want to download their brand-new weekly comics at 99 cents a pop and be able to read them on their laptops. And when I say “download”, I mean download-to-own. Not “temporarily download in a web browser that goes away after you view it”.

My own experience was something like this:

First I waited for the 287 meg file to download from Apple. 287 megs for the first installment of what is basically just a Flash animation seems extreme to me, but hey, what do I know? (btw, I think the entire cbr collection of the Watchmen series is just something over 120 megs.)

Now, I really don't know if they intend to do all of the Watchmen comics this way, but if they do, you'll end up with over 3 gigs of files on your iPod/PC for a 12 issue miniseries.

So, just in case you are hoping to get the entire Bob Haney/Jim Aparo Batman Brave and the Bold run in this format, well, you might want to buy another hard drive.

Anyway, while that's downloading, let's get back to what Paul Levitz said about how he expects traditional comic fans to react to this new *revolutionary* digital format.

...I don’t know whether our audiences will enjoy receiving these comics digitally through computers, game consoles or cell phones,...

WTF? What do you mean you don't know? No one did any freaking market research at DC or Time Warner before giving this project a greenlight? No one checked to see how previous animated Comics on the Web were received in the past?

So, exactly what was the market impetus here? Did they just want something to compete with all the bandwidth that was going to be getting sucked up by people torrenting bad Batman: TDK Cams all weekend?

Or is this just some sort of placeholder until Time Warner has a better Digital strategy in place? I think we are all waiting for the day we can download Final Crisis or Metal Men legally, but at this point I wonder if Marvel's Digital Comics Unlimited hasn't made DC nervous about going down that path. It's possible that they may not want to look like they are copying Marvel.

Btw, click the image to see the REAL Batman movie people are talking about. :D

So back to the Future of Comics! - I get the movie downloaded and this is what I see:

I don't know - maybe it's just because all I download is mp3s and DethKlok episodes, but I can't get the movie to play worth a damn.

Is my computer old? Not hardly.

Is it an Apple? No.

But, really, should that matter? I watch iTunes TV shows, so why should this be different?

And I can play DiVX, YouTube and WMV files file.

Heck I rip and burn (legal) copies of DVDs (that aren't copyright protected of course) all the time, so I'm a little surprised that the movie won't play.

So as a last ditch effort, I begin the long and laborious task of updating my iTunes software - it's been asking me to do it for the last week or so, but I keep putting it off. Somehow, I just feel software should work longer than a month before you have to freaking update it.

Anyway, I finally get the software updated, (turns out it's a known QuickTime Update issue) and after numerous restarts, I can see the movie.

This is what it finally looked like in case you're interested.

Except it had Rorshach instead of Thor.

PCDW Points: Zero.

Free Comics Monday: Exciting Comics

Today I present more tales of The Black Terror. Here's what Wikipedia says about The Black Terror:

The character first appeared in the Golden Age of Comic Books in Exciting Comics 9, published in 1941 by Nedor Comics. He was one of that publisher's most popular superhero characters, operating until at least 1949.

His secret identity was pharmacist Bob Benton who formulated a chemical he called 'formic ethers' which gave him various superpowers. He used these powers to fight crime with his sidekick Tim Roland, together known as the Terror Twins.



[ Exciting Comics 43 ]




[ Exciting Comics 44 ]

Enjoy!

Preview: Flashback Two In One

Gentleman Jerry Hinds, artist extraordinaire, has been working on So Falls The World, a Flashback story featuring The Creature and Wild Card written by Chris "ISB" Sims.

Here is a sneak peak at some of the pages - click to enlargemotize.

Joe Staton challenges Ultrax

The Creature says hello

WildCard springs into action

WildCard missing an important date



Have a great weekend!

Pierre Speaks: What is original?? PART 1

How do you qualify something as original?

Years ago, someone was complaining about how there rarely was anything original anymore.

What I usually do is ask such person "Name me something original?".

At the time, that person used the first Harry Potter movie as an example of something "new and original". That for once... "Hollywood" was making something "new" that had not been done before.

I had to point out how Harry Potter was NOT something original that "Hollywood" came up with. That it was an adaptation made from an already existing novel. And even then... watching Harry Potter, it was difficult not to think of earlier young mages going to the magic school like Sparrowhawk from Earthsea or Raistlin from Dragonlance.

But for that person... not knowing about the already existing novel (yes I am not sure how someone could NOT know about the Harry Potter novel... but it happens)... the Harry Potter movie was brand "new and original".

Is there such thing as something original??

Is originality in the eye of the beholder only??

Lets take an obvious example...

Batman.

Most people will see Batman as an original character. But it is very easy to point out how the Batman was derived from other characters such as Zorro, the Phantom, the Shadow, and countless others that I fail to mention.

Sometimes when you mention such characters that "inspired" the creation of Batman... some people will mention that what makes Batman original is the addition of various elements such as the Batcave.

But once again, it is easy to point out that the Phantom also had a Skull cave. That Zorro also had a cave under his house (was it called the Zorro Cave?? ;) ). Heck Bruce Wayne having access to the Batcave using the clock in his mansion was lifted directly from Zorro.

That exercise could be done with pretty much any characters.

Superman?? A mix of Hercules, Doc Savage and Gladiator (the novel), a reverse Flash Gordon.

The Hulk?? Stan Lee has said the Hulk was pretty much Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde made to look like the Frankenstein monster from movies from the 50s.

And these characters in turn inspired other characters that came after them.

Batman?? The Confessor. Midnighter. Moon Knight. Nighthawk.

Superman?? Mr Majestic. Sentry. Hyperion. Supreme.

Hulk?? Pitt.

In parts 2.... I will explore this question using one of our Flashback Universe character as an example.