[Janus Wolf]

I am curious and have two questions....I guess I will post the other in another message.

1) Do we have a list of open source comics? I saw there is a jennyeverywhere.com character that is open source and everyone can use, this is somewhat like public domain as everywhere can use it. Now in open source characters like this that is freely available, what prevents someone from trademarking the character jenny everywhere, even though it is open source?

[John C]

Nobody here is really a "keeper of lists" (except for Darkmark's exhaustive DC indexes and the folks involved in the GCD and like projects, which are all wonderful, but not relevant to your question), so no.  Somebody might, but I don't think that somebody lives here, given how infrequently the topic of Open Source comics comes up (twice, now, as far as I can remember--which isn't to say that there's no interest, just nobody to talk about it).

Open Source lists (starting with software, which I know well), by their nature, are difficult, because you don't need to register anything, meaning the hypothetical list-maker needs to be made aware of everything that needs to be on the list, which is...inefficient, at best.

As to the trademark question, it's mostly a "common sense" answer.  Basically, you could claim (or register) the trademark, but if you sued anybody, the defense would ask you to prove that people uniquely identify the name with your organization.  Xerox Machiines come from Xerox.  Excel comes from Microsoft.  Superman comes from DC.  Jenny Everywhere...assuming you can find people aware of the character, they're not going to say you're the most likely source.

In other words, a trademark would only be useful for harassment, and then only for someone with deep pockets, since you can sue if someone brings a frivolous lawsuit against you.  So you're not likely to see anybody go to the trouble.

I hope that helps...though keep in mind that's not legal advice and all that rot.

[jfglade]

 I'm reminded of the (perhaps) Russian character, Octobriana, who may or may not have been created by a dissident group of Soviet artists. The character was never copyrighted and because of the uncertainty about who created her there are many versions of her knocking around. Octobriana cannot be copyrighted, although Octobrians stories by specific individual can be.  She is not well known in America, but had a small following in England at one time. Interestingly, David Bowie was apparently considering having some involvement in a film featuring Octobriana (perhaps just writing a soundtrack, perhaps writing a soundtack and a screneplay, or perhaps writing and directing the entire project) but nothing came of the idea. Octobriana also has the added wrinkle of international copyright law, a subject which makes my head hurt.

[JVJ]

I'm reminded of the (perhaps) Russian character, Octobriana, who may or may not have been created by a dissident group of Soviet artists.

For what it's worth, jf, my eyes tell me that quite a bit of Octobriana was drawn by Zdenek Burian and the strip is mentioned in the chronology of his career in the back of the monograph I have on him. Sadly, the rest of the entry (and the book) is in Czech, so I can't pursue it further.

My educated guess is that it was not a product of dissident Soviet artists.

my 2

[John C]

I own a copy of the (coffee table-ish) book that "released" Octobriana (a United States publication), but haven't yet had the time to sit and read it.

However, based on the second-hand information available, I'd argue that the story about socialist pornographers creating her as communal intellectual property for their comics is just a fancy and whimsical way of placing the stories in the public domain.  Or, rather, the story (whether true or completely bogus--as Jim suggests, almost certainly the latter) describes the license in which everybody is allowed to use it without restriction because everybody is part of the communal ownership.

It's also worth repeating:  Characters can't have copyrights.  Characters come from (or derive from) stories in which they appear, and those are the copyrights that are important.

[MadMikeyD]

The Public Domain Super Heroes wiki has a list of open source characters:

http://pdsh.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Open_Source_Characters

With open source characters people are free to use the characters however they want.  Each individual story is copyrighted to the creators, however.  As far as I know no actual comics are open source, just the characters.  Jenny Everywhere was the original open source character (although it could be argued Octobriana was the first, but she was created well before the term).  I released some characters I had created, and now other people have started to do the same.

[MadMikeyD]

Sorry, I didn't answer the trademark question.  There is really nothing to prevent someone from getting a trademark on Jenny Everywhere, just like the Black Terror or Green Lama.  However, if you tried to sue someone else for using her, you'd likely get thrown out of court.  The Shifter Archive ( http://theshifterarchive.com ) has done a good job of chronicling her creation specifically for public use.  (They also have archives of dozens - maybe all - of her appearances.)  And, although it cannot really be enforced, it is asked that creators include this notice when using her:

"The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed."

[John C]

With open source characters people are free to use the characters however they want.  Each individual story is copyrighted to the creators, however.

That's...actually both true and false.  It's true that anybody using Jenny Everywhere's license (use it as long as you notify people that they can use it, basically) fits that category, but one could easily create a license for a character where you're obligated to release your story as an open (or public domain) work as a condition of use.

That's an extreme case, but it would be very much in the spirit of Open Source to at least encourage contribution of ideas back to the character, the point of Open Source being improvement of the property and not just availability.  For example, if someone creates an origin for Jenny Everywhere, while nobody can force it to be "canonical," it's the sort of thing that SHOULD be contributed back to the community.  Otherwise, the next writer needs to AVOID that origin to prevent copyright infringement.

As far as I know no actual comics are open source, just the characters.

Now that you mention it, I was once searching around for public domain comics (not because I fancy myself a creator, but rather because I was curious), and turned up an "Open Source" script.  I can't find it now, and it was (to be honest) dreadful stuff--the first pages were chock full of panels of a character (presumably our protagonist) getting dressed.  No, really.

Jenny Everywhere was the original open source character (although it could be argued Octobriana was the first, but she was created well before the term).

A good argument could be made that HP Lovecraft pioneered the concept by encouraging his writer friends to include his characters and concepts without writing up licensing contracts for them, and that tradition has carried on to today among some writers.

I released some characters I had created, and now other people have started to do the same.

(Read, read, read...)  I assume you created the Outworlder book, then?  The other characters I could probably take or leave (but hey, it was the '90s, after all, I guess), but Outworlder himself looks to have a lot of potential.

Oh, right.  To prove my point about how hard it is to keep track of Open Source characters, by the way, check this forum thread out:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?s=448f73409cfe8fc66a8a8a7dbe5c9c43&t=101767

Bonus question:  Since just posting under the banner of a subject line saying "open source" doesn't actually give license to use a character, how many of these are actually available for use?

[MadMikeyD]

Yeah, I did/am still doing (off-and-on) the Outworlder.  (It was the '90s, and we were some of those kids that thought Image was the best thing ever. )

Interesting.  I had not seen that thread before.  I can verify that the "open source" characters on the wiki are available for use.  Besides Jenny Everywhere and Jenny Nowhere, the characters have been posted by their creators for public use. 

You're right, people can stipulate in the license that stories/art be given back to the public for others to build on.  That is not the case of Jenny Everywhere or my characters.  Not that you can't create a story and make it open source or public domain, mind you.  It's just not a requirement.

[John C]

Yeah, I did/am still doing (off-and-on) the Outworlder.  (It was the '90s, and we were some of those kids that thought Image was the best thing ever. )

Hey, if it got you making stuff for other people to see, I don't care if your inspiration came from Tijuana Bibles.  Too many people would rather sit on their ideas or whine about what they'd like to do one day, or "leave it to the professionals."

And let's face it, by the end of the '90s, DC and Marvel clearly thought that Image was the best thing ever, as well.  And they were pulling a salary and had power to be so horribly wrong (I'm lookin' at you, Fate)...

I'm glad to hear you're still at it.  As I said, the other characters don't particularly thrill me, but I could definitely see Outworlder himself going places.

You're right, people can stipulate in the license that stories/art be given back to the public for others to build on.  That is not the case of Jenny Everywhere or my characters.  Not that you can't create a story and make it open source or public domain, mind you.  It's just not a requirement.

I'm just floating the idea to make sure it doesn't get lost.  I'm not the maniacal Open Source advocate that some are (in fact, those people irritate me when they try to sell me on the wonders of OpenOffice), but in looking at the Open Source characters, it feels like it's missing the sense of community and a larger universe.

One of the things I dislike about Jenny Everywhere as a role model for future characters is that she's almost designed to AVOID cooperation.  I mean, even if you ignore the license aspect, her abilities mean that you don't have to follow any guidelines, since it could always be some other Jenny floating through or popping in.  It's like DC's (thankfully abandoned) Hypertime idea:  Everything happened, even the mistakes, but no writer should feel obligated to remember or use anything that's come before because it might've just been an anomoly.

It's just one of those problems I'd like to see solved, one day.  Like, if I first come across Jenny in somebody's comic book and am inspired to use her elsewhere...odds are that the majority of the attributes I liked aren't part of the character as available for use.

It's not a new problem, actually.  When I used to participate in a game-writers' forum (technically, it was a newsgroup about text adventures), the question there was how to license a game so that the mechanics could be reused, but the story components couldn't.  Here, you'd probably want plot developments to be referenceable, but everything else copyrightable.  (I suppose that's all you really need to say in a license:  You can use the character as long as you explicitly allow future writers to reference the character's developments in the story.)

[KnightRandom]

Recently I finally managed to get my hands on a rare book I've been looking for for some time, The Greatest Outworlder Stories Ever Told.  It's a shame that too few readers today appreciate the Outworlder's long and fascinating history.

Debuting in 1940, the Outworlder was one of the first wave of superheroes following the astonishing success of Superman.  In those days the superhero genre and the comics medium itself were only just beginning.  Artists and writers brought a bizarre, feverish intensity to the material.  The rules had not been set down.  Before long the war would come along and give superheroes an easy source of stories and an unified purpose, but until then there were a wide variety of possible stories and approaches.  The recent Fantagraphics collection Supermen! gives a good snapshot of the superhero genre at this point.

Still, the war in Europe cast a shadow on the early incarnation of the Outworlder, just as it did on other superhero comics.  Many comics took a pacifist, isolationist stance.  Several early Superman stories had villains who sought to draw the US into World War II, but comics also took on the Nazis as warmongers--oviously influenced by the fact that many of their creators were New York Jews.  Fear of impending war also gave stories such as Daredevil's battles with the Claw their apocalyptic intensity.  All these elements were reflected in the creation of the Outworlder.

The Outworlder was created by Herman Berkowitz, a writer-artist who used the pseudonym Harold Starr, and first appeared in Ka-Pow Comics #1.  (The same comic also introduced Mr. Jackpot and War-Cry, two other long-running heroes who served as fellow members of the Agents of W.I.E.R.D.)  His unscrupulous editor, Edward Norman, instructed him to create a character who was as much like Superman and Captain Marvel as possible.  The Outworlder does indeed bear a marked conceptual resemblance to both heroes, but he also had an essence uniquely his own.

Unfortunately I have no scanner and this book is pretty rare, so I'll have to recap the story.  It starts out with a large panel showing the Golden Age Outworlder against a backdrop of a star field, full of ringed planets and whooshing comets.  "This is the Outworlder--champion of justice!  Modern day Hercules!  Implacable foe of all that is evil!  But who is he and how did he come to our world?"

The tale begins with a typical zoomy retro-futurescape full of streamlined buildings, flying cars etc, and a series of panels showing their achievements.  "The planet Anak--the greatest civilization in all the myriad galaxies!  Here the evils that plague countless worlds--war and death--have been all but conquered!  Here the world is at last at peace under an unified government.  But the world is not stagnant--mighty artists and philosophers search relentlessly for truth and beauty!"  (Here the story shows two robed, bearded men talking beside some sort of huge swirly thing that is supposed to be Future Art or something of the kind.)  "And here live the greatest warriors in all the galaxy, formed to defend their planet from any invaders, trained all their lives for war yet hoping never to see it--the Galactic Peace Brigade!"  But all is not well, naturally.  Astronomers have seen a bizarre object through a streamlined future-telescope, a hideous and devastated planet with craters in the shape of a skull.  "It is Ashtoreth--planet of the evil dead!"

A hideous swarm of "deadly space-fiends" of Ashtoreth come down to deliver an ultimatum to the "Prime Visionary" of Anak, a bearded old man.  Guarding him is "Aram Zarnath, the greatest Space Marshall of the Peace Brigade!!!"  He has long silver hair wearing a garish blue and red outfit with an eagle symbol.  A gigantic batlike creature delivers an ultimatum:  "Your world possesses some of the greatest warriors of all the universes!  The King of Endless Night cannot allow such a threat to his power to exist!  But we have come to make you an offer--if you serve us and help us conquer the galaxy, we will let you live!"  His answer is definite--"Never!  We would rather die than bow down before a warmonger!"  The space fiend answers "Then so be it!" and the planet Ashtoreth spits out fire from its "mouth."  "Soon the whole world is consumed by an enormous conflagration!"  We see women and children running through the streets before the giant fire.

In the end only one man is left--Aram Zarnath.  A skeletal figure in robes and bearing a scythe comes down the desolate landscape of the world to him and beckons.  "I don't care what the space fiends send after me, I won't let them stop me!"  Then teh figure grips him on the arm "I am no mere space fiend--I AM DEATH!" that last part being written in bones in a panel focusing on his skeletal face.  "Aram Zarnath, your time has come!  You are dead, along with all your world."

"No!" says Zarnath.  "This must be avenged!"  He then punches the figure in the face, in a long panel down the side of the page that shows him from the back and the creature with feet up in front of him. Raising his fist to the stars, he stares defiantly at Death and says, "I SWEAR BY ALL THE STARS THAT I WILL NOT REST UNTIL THE SPACE FIEND ARMY HAS BEEN DESTROYED FOREVER!!!!"

"Even I cannot contradict such an oath!" says Death.  "You will wander the universe forever until your oath has been fulfilled!  But it must be as a ghost--and you will have no power to affect the world directly!"

"Then so be it!" says Zarnath Aram.  "And so the ghost of the Space-Marshall travels the infinite galaxies for millions of years upon end, following Ashtoreth in its course... until he reaches a small blue world called EARTH!"

The story then shifts to "All-American high school athlete Mikey Degner," just coming home from a basketball game in an unnamed city .  He sees some juvenile delinquents picking on a scrawny kid with glasses and intervenes:  "Why don't you pick on someone your own size, buddy?"  He then punches out the delinquent and he falls outside the panel, one of the earliest uses of this device.  Then to his surprise he sees the ghost of Aram Zarnath appear.  "Why--he looks exactly like me!  Except he's older and he's wearing some kind of Buck Rogers getup!"

"How--how can you see me!  Of course!" says Zarnath.  "I should have known!  In the infinite universe all things are possible!  You are my exact twin--we vibrate on the same atomic frequency, and that's how you can see me!"

"This is crazy!  I should stop reading those scientifiction mags before I go loco!"

"There's no time to argue!  The planet of the evil dead is coming to conquer this world as it has so many others!  We must join together and become one to fight it!"

"And so," says the captions, "the two join hands--and a strange figure appears!"  That strange figure is wearing a streamlined black, silver and gold costume with an art deco ray gun.  "I--I'm no longer Zarnath or Mikey!  I've become something else--something alien to both--an Outworlder!"

Meanwhile, a space ship lands in New York as people look on incredulously and a purple-robed being flanked by horned skeletons steps out, "enveloped in a weird mist."  "I am the Emissary of the King of All Darkness!" it says.  "You must surrender control of your planet to him or it will be destroyed forever!"  Outworlder instantly reacts to this--"My cosmo-senses tell me that a space fiend has landed on Earth! I must stop it!"  He then flies "with the speed of an express train" into New York and lands in front of the spaceship.  "I've got something for you, you space-rat--my fists!"  He then punches out the creature, which whooshes toward the reader.  Enraged, it raises its finger--"I summon all the monsters of space to destroy you!"  A horde of fanged vultures appear  He picks up one of the skeletons and uses it to bludgeon the strange creature.  Its robe falls off, revealing a hideous zombie-like creature.  He battles the creature in a prolonged fistfight before deciding that "This has gone on long enough!" and whipping out his ray-gun.  "No evil thing can survive the light of the Astro-Rays!"  The panel then focuses on the hideous creature's scream at the moment of death.  The Outworlder raises his gun and cries out "THUS DIE ALL TYRANTS AND WARMONGERS!!!"

In the end he flies off and uses the "astro-modulator" in his belt to separate back into Zarnath and MIkey.  "Gosh!" says Mikey.  "That sure was a humdinger and a half!  But something tells me this battle isn't over yet!"  As he walks off into the distance a cloud shaped like a skull looms in the air behind him.  "You don't know how right you are, Mikey!" says the final caption.  "Make sure to pick up next issue for the Outworlder's never-ending battle against tyranny and evil!!!"  And indeed the battle with the King of All Darkness did go on for some ten issues until the series settled down to the usual Golden Age business of battling Nazis and "Japs."

[Anyone who wants to draw on any of this for whatever reason should feel free to do so.]

[MadMikeyD]

That's awesome!  That's an excellent Golden Age take on the Outworlder's origin (and probably better than my original story).  Thanks for that. 

[John C]

Now that you mention it, I was once searching around for public domain comics (not because I fancy myself a creator, but rather because I was curious), and turned up an "Open Source" script.  I can't find it now, and it was (to be honest) dreadful stuff--the first pages were chock full of panels of a character (presumably our protagonist) getting dressed.  No, really.

Ah-ha--Found it!

http://stephenfrug.googlepages.com/Continuity1_Script.html

Note the license at the bottom of the page.  You can use the script (and thus the characters, though couldn't say if Frug intends that) provided your result isn't a commercial project, is itself availalble for free collaborative efforts, and credits Frug.  It's less Open than Jenny Everywhere and her successors, but still valid in that sense.

I have to give him credit for releasing it like that, even if I wasn't excited about the story to finish reading.

Edit:  I wasn't getting anywhere with what I was working on, so I quickly ran through the script.  It's not terrible in concept, but (a) it's very self-limiting and can't be integrated elsewhere without a full rewrite,  (b) it's paced VERY poorly for a comic, and is built more on a documentary form, and (c) there's a lot that's intended to be too subtle in the story to notice (so why put it in?), but is made painfully obvious in the script.  But it could be worth a read if you're still fond of deconstructing the superhero idea to show how "stupid" it "really" is, because taken on that basis, it's not a bad story.

[jay042]

One of the things I dislike about Jenny Everywhere as a role model for future characters is that she's almost designed to AVOID cooperation.  I mean, even if you ignore the license aspect, her abilities mean that you don't have to follow any guidelines, since it could always be some other Jenny floating through or popping in.  It's like DC's (thankfully abandoned) Hypertime idea:  Everything happened, even the mistakes, but no writer should feel obligated to remember or use anything that's come before because it might've just been an anomaly.

I agree with you there about Jenny. She's not really a character, shes more a cipher for what the participating artists want her to be. I'm afraid that's all a lot of these recent open source creations really are. While they are fun little internet memes for artists to play around with, I don't see them developing into anything bigger.

[bchat]

When I first ran across "Open Source Characters", I was underwhelmed by Jenny Everywhere.  A head-shot and vague description does not make for a great character, or generate any interest from me to learn more about her.

On the other hand, I think the idea of creating Open Source or Public Domain characters has value, depending on how much information is given when the character is made "Public".  The more details/backstory there are, the more interest a particular character will generate from creators looking for something to work with.

As far as the developement of Open Source characters, that would all depend on how willing creators would be to make their work with those characters Open Source as well.  Not everybody is out to make a buck or is unwilling to share their ideas, so I think it's possible that it could happen.

[Guardian7]

I have to say... this is one of the most fascinating reads (This entire post) about something to do with the subject of Copyrights/Open Source I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

I personally know so little about the subject of Open Source that I pretty much was on nothing but a learning curve with this.

Your a great group of very smart people (everyone of you) and I think someone should tell you that.
Great job folks!

G7

[John C]

I agree with you there about Jenny. She's not really a character, shes more a cipher for what the participating artists want her to be. I'm afraid that's all a lot of these recent open source creations really are. While they are fun little internet memes for artists to play around with, I don't see them developing into anything bigger.

As it stands, I agree.  That's not to say that it couldn't be fixed, but the arrangement created with Jenny Everywhere is too much like the public domain situation today:  Everybody can stake the claim and do what they want, but there isn't any mixing without planned collaboration.  And with Jenny's abiities, it's easier to skip all that and say, no, this is a different universe.

When I first ran across "Open Source Characters", I was underwhelmed by Jenny Everywhere.  A head-shot and vague description does not make for a great character, or generate any interest from me to learn more about her.

It's funny, really.  I searched for "open source characters" before Jenny was well-known, so I ended up finding the original forum thread.  So I found it really interesting and commendable, but...yeah, the "character" is a woman who might (but also might not) be Asian of maybe some nationality or other, who has a power that she doesn't really like to use but allows her to just "end up" in a story without affecting any other appearance.  And that's it, after all that discussion.

On the other hand, I think the idea of creating Open Source or Public Domain characters has value, depending on how much information is given when the character is made "Public".  The more details/backstory there are, the more interest a particular character will generate from creators looking for something to work with.

I'll go a step further, because I could throw together Hyperman from the dead planet Xenon, blah, blah, blah.  I can give you all the details you want, but I'd argue (as I do with the idea of characer copyrights), if you don't have a STORY, then you don't have a character.

That's why, I think, while you have every creator in the world wondering how to cram the Black Terror into a story (even though his stories might not actually be all in the public domain), Jenny is well-known but almost unused even after seven years.

As far as the developement of Open Source characters, that would all depend on how willing creators would be to make their work with those characters Open Source as well.  Not everybody is out to make a buck or is unwilling to share their ideas, so I think it's possible that it could happen.

It's not just their generosity, though, but also their understanding of how to be involved.  After all, if you don't explicitly license your work, your copyright automatically stands.  So you need that reminder or encouragement that you should also probably let people build on your work in return, if only by allowing people to reference the details of your story.

Without that insistence of sharing, you can't really build a character.  You end up with, as I said above, the same situation as with the public domain characters where the AC futures can't be related to the Dynamite futures, which can't overlap with anything that DC, Marvel, or anybody else has done.  Well, again, unless here's some kind of negotiation or forethought.

I have to say... this is one of the most fascinating reads (This entire post) about something to do with the subject of Copyrights/Open Source I have ever had the pleasure of reading.
I personally know so little about the subject of Open Source that I pretty much was on nothing but a learning curve with this.

Glad we could be of help.

If you're interested in reading further (or anybody else, obviously), I'd definitely recommend checking out the Creative Commons website (creativeccommons.org), which tries to break down the concept into units that can be selected.  They also have some discussion as to how different licenses might apply to different kinds of works (music versus prose, for example).

I could also send you to the Free Software Foundation (fsf.org), where the concept mostly originated, but they're a little too preachy and crusading for my tastes.  Plus, they're software people, where the concepts don't readly apply anywhere else.

The key thing to remember that everybody seems to lose sight of, though, is that a license is exactly that.  It LETS you do something that, without it, you wouldn't be allowed to do.  Because with no license, you're not allowed to touch.  I point that out, because people will often complain about "restrictive licenses," as if they have an inherent right to make their reputation on someone else's work.

[bchat]

I'll go a step further, because I could throw together Hyperman from the dead planet Xenon, blah, blah, blah.  I can give you all the details you want, but I'd argue (as I do with the idea of characer copyrights), if you don't have a STORY, then you don't have a character.

That's why, I think, while you have every creator in the world wondering how to cram the Black Terror into a story (even though his stories might not actually be all in the public domain), Jenny is well-known but almost unused even after seven years.

But the difference between Black Terror and Jenny Everywhere is that, first and foremost, Black Terror is a viusally appealing character.  He's fun to draw and look at.  Jenny is just a head shot with goggles.  It's the reason people would prefer to use Black Terror in their stories rather than the less appealing Blue Circle.  Having 140+ stories to "draw" from certainly helps in having something to build a story around, but I don't think it's neccessary in order for someone to have a desire to use any particular character.

Without that insistence of sharing, you can't really build a character.  You end up with, as I said above, the same situation as with the public domain characters where the AC futures can't be related to the Dynamite futures, which can't overlap with anything that DC, Marvel, or anybody else has done.  Well, again, unless here's some kind of negotiation or forethought.

That was pretty much my point, although I don't think "insistence of sharing" is a reasonable demand to make on an Open Source character that, in concept, you're allowing anyone to use.  If additional creators are willing to add to the Open Source material by "donating" their stories back to the character, in as much as the stories can be referenced by other creators, then you start, hopefully, building-up towards something worth using.

[John C]

But the difference between Black Terror and Jenny Everywhere is that, first and foremost, Black Terror is a viusally appealing character.  He's fun to draw and look at.  Jenny is just a head shot with goggles.  It's the reason people would prefer to use Black Terror in their stories rather than the less appealing Blue Circle.  Having 140+ stories to "draw" from certainly helps in having something to build a story around, but I don't think it's neccessary in order for someone to have a desire to use any particular character.

I can't really argue (nor do I want to), but I've never really seen Terror as having any real visual appeal.  He looks like what would happen if Marvel ran one of those '70s fan contest to redesign the Punisher...

Anyway, my point regarding the stories wasn't so much for the purpose of continuity and ideas so much as having a feel for the character.  In theory, I can "get into character" to write a real comic book character.  I know how the character speaks and so forth.  By contrast, I know that Jenny wears goggles, but not over her eyes.  That's about it.

If you look at some of the more modern examples here:

http://pdsh.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Open_Source_Characters

you'll see that this is fairly common.  Picture.  Some explanatory text about the character.  And that's it.  Excelsior is a prime example.  There's a costume and a thorough description, but it's lacking something important, and I wouldn't expect anybody to run with the character any more than they have with Jenny.

Two standouts are Mike's Outlander character and the anonymous Victory Girl, who provide enough of a story (Outlander by way of the comic) to show the character off well enough to get a reader excited, even though Victory Girl lacks a costume design.

That was pretty much my point, although I don't think "insistence of sharing" is a reasonable demand to make on an Open Source character that, in concept, you're allowing anyone to use.  If additional creators are willing to add to the Open Source material by "donating" their stories back to the character, in as much as the stories can be referenced by other creators, then you start, hopefully, building-up towards something worth using.

Right.  I was mostly looking at it from the standpoint of the early software licenses (and now Creative Commons licenses), which tend to say that you can do whatever you like, provided that your published result get released under the same license.

I've been giving it some thought for that Superman project I've mentioned.  Right now, the approach I'm leaning towards is that my work will be available under an attribution-only license, but it would be "greatly appreciated" if other terms were followed when using the character.

[bchat]

I can't really argue (nor do I want to), but I've never really seen Terror as having any real visual appeal.  He looks like what would happen if Marvel ran one of those '70s fan contest to redesign the Punisher...

I personally like The Black Terror's design and find it more interesting/better than a large percentage of Golden Age hero costumes.  There are several fairly popular GA heroes that I just look at and go "what's the appeal?"

Anyway, my point regarding the stories wasn't so much for the purpose of continuity and ideas so much as having a feel for the character.  ...

... you'll see that this is fairly common.  Picture.  Some explanatory text about the character.  And that's it.  Excelsior is a prime example.  There's a costume and a thorough description, but it's lacking something important, and I wouldn't expect anybody to run with the character any more than they have with Jenny.

Excelsior lacks a personality, otherwise it's a decent character.  I don't feel that a story to build from is neccessary to having a well-developed character.  It goes back to what I said earlier about the amount of information & details that are presented initially.  If the creator of Excelsior took the time to let people know how the hero should act and other personality details, then it would possibly be more appealing, although to what degree that would be depends on who's reading the description.

Two standouts are Mike's Outlander character and the anonymous Victory Girl, who provide enough of a story (Outlander by way of the comic) to show the character off well enough to get a reader excited, even though Victory Girl lacks a costume design.

Actually, Outworlder seems less apealling than Excelsior does (not the same as saying I don't like the character, which I do).  Notice that only the idea of the character is free to use, not the story in the link, which is, I am assuming, "under copyright to their respective creators".  So technically, all you have with Outworlder is an image and
"Michael Degner is a high school student from Des Moines, Iowa. One night, he is visited by the spirit of an ancient alien warrior. The alien joins with Degner and gives him super powers so that he can help defend Earth against an alien invasion."
What are his powers?  What kind of kid is he (jock, nerd, anti-social)?  What planet is the alien from?  What does the alien look like?  Does the alien have a name?  Why did the alien visit Degner?  Did the alien give Degner his costume? What planet is this alien invasion coming from?  I know some of these questions are answered in the story, but that informaiton isn't there as part of the Open Source material.  Maybe Mike has no problems with someone referencing his stories, but you can't assume that he feels that way.

I was mostly looking at it from the standpoint of the early software licenses (and now Creative Commons licenses), which tend to say that you can do whatever you like, provided that your published result get released under the same license.

I just don't see a need to put a restriction on usage for characters that are being presented as "free for anyone to use".  It's not really "free to use" if you have to give something back.  I feel that it would be a better situation if you encourage people to add their finished work to the Open Source material rather than forcing them to do so.  Otherwise, they'll just create their own, similar characters and do whatever they want anyway while the OP characters remain stagnant.

[John C]

Excelsior lacks a personality, otherwise it's a decent character.  I don't feel that a story to build from is neccessary to having a well-developed character.  It goes back to what I said earlier about the amount of information & details that are presented initially.  If the creator of Excelsior took the time to let people know how the hero should act and other personality details, then it would possibly be more appealing, although to what degree that would be depends on who's reading the description.

That's fair, though at that point, I feel that you're getting a "story," albeit not one with a complete or linear narrative.

Actually, Outworlder seems less apealling than Excelsior does (not the same as saying I don't like the character, which I do).  Notice that only the idea of the character is free to use, not the story in the link, which is, I am assuming, "under copyright to their respective creators".  So technically, all you have with Outworlder is an image and
"Michael Degner is a high school student from Des Moines, Iowa. One night, he is visited by the spirit of an ancient alien warrior. The alien joins with Degner and gives him super powers so that he can help defend Earth against an alien invasion."

That's fair, and certainly a problem in creation if the one known source is off-limits.  And several of the characters have significant changes between the posting and the comic, so the question becomes what's valid.

I just don't see a need to put a restriction on usage for characters that are being presented as "free for anyone to use".  It's not really "free to use" if you have to give something back.  I feel that it would be a better situation if you encourage people to add their finished work to the Open Source material rather than forcing them to do so.  Otherwise, they'll just create their own, similar characters and do whatever they want anyway while the OP characters remain stagnant.

In a sense, though, isn't that what's happening already?  I'd argue that's pretty much the situation with Amazing Man or Daredevil.  No revamp is the original, because they're detached from it by other people using the same properties.

But to some extent, maybe you're right.  However, I remember saying very much the same thing (loudly and repeatedly...) about Open Source software fifteen years ago.  Today, Mozilla is the backbone of several projects people are using.  There are several versions of Linux you can use as an Operating System and the current Macintosh is actually an Open Source UNIX under the hood, not to mention Android and Chrome.  MySQL and Apache are as common a database and webserver as Microsoft SQL and IIS.  The list goes on longer than I'd like to admit.

Turns out that there are plenty of developers who just accept the restriction as a necessary evil and get on with their lives.  Will that work with artistic people?  I don't know, but people do busily distribute, reformat, and translate Cory Doctorow's books when they come out, and Jonathan Coulton has people regularly producing covers and videos of his songs, so maybe.  Oh, and I could probably also point to Magnatune on the business side of things.

Remember, the alternative is that you can't use it at all and can be sued if your new creation is too similar in what makes the character distinct.  So the loss of non-commercial licensing revenue might not be the worse choice between developing a new character from scratch.

[bchat]

That's fair, though at that point, I feel that you're getting a "story," albeit not one with a complete or linear narrative.

I guess the difference here is how the two of us are defining "story".  When it comes to comic books, I don't feel there's a story until there's completed artwork because it's a visual medium.  What the OP characters have to start with, in my opinion, isn't much more than a foundation or "character sheet", where people only have an idea of how to use the character and can go from there with their own story.

Will that work with artistic people?

That's the real issue, isn't it?  Seems that, so far, the amount of people willing to create & contribute to OP characters is tiny (two people?).  I would imagine that the mindset of most people into drawing comics, for fun or profit, is that in regards to whatever they take the time to create, they want to use it in their own story and not just leave it floating around on the internet for everyone else to use in ways that might not be what that creator would approve of.

Remember, the alternative is that you can't use it at all and can be sued if your new creation is too similar in what makes the character distinct.  So the loss of non-commercial licensing revenue might not be the worse choice between developing a new character from scratch

That's probably why Public Domain characters are attractive to some creators, amateur & professional alike.  They're not creating anything new, really, just using what's already been developed.  There's cetainly enough of a variety of PD characters that anyone could tell whatever kind of story they wanted to tell without having to create a single new character.

I've been giving it some thought for that Superman project I've mentioned.  Right now, the approach I'm leaning towards is that my work will be available under an attribution-only license, but it would be "greatly appreciated" if other terms were followed when using the character.

I meant to ask before and forgot, but I'm not familiar with your "Superman project".  Care to elaborate?

[John C]

I guess the difference here is how the two of us are defining "story".  When it comes to comic books, I don't feel there's a story until there's completed artwork because it's a visual medium.  What the OP characters have to start with, in my opinion, isn't much more than a foundation or "character sheet", where people only have an idea of how to use the character and can go from there with their own story.

I can agree to disagree, here.  Some of the best superhero stories I've read have been novels, rather than comics--"Last Son of Krypton" is one of the few books I've taken the time to re-read more than once, for example.  But on that point of disagreement, we're talking about the same thing, otherwise:  Neither of us thinks that someone could write a good story about a character based solely on a Who's Who or Marvel Handbook entry (or the equivalent).

I've been giving it some thought for that Superman project I've mentioned.  Right now, the approach I'm leaning towards is that my work will be available under an attribution-only license, but it would be "greatly appreciated" if other terms were followed when using the character.

I meant to ask before and forgot, but I'm not familiar with your "Superman project".  Care to elaborate?

In discussing the "public domain characters" idea, at some point, I floated the idea that there was a sufficiently wide variety of public domain appearances for Superman that he could be viably used, provided that all the Intellectual Property originating in sources still under copyright removed or replaced.

Since I was already considering (shudder) starting a blog as a central catch-all for the bunches of projects I've been playing with, I decided it could be fun to go through that process and build an "Open Source Superman" just from public domain sources.  If something originates in one of those sources (John Carter's strength and leaps, for example, or the radio show's kryptonite), then it's part of the "canon," basically.

When I have enough to show, and have proven to myself I'll be able to stick with digging through all that audio and text (not to mention the actual comics, to learn what's specifically out of bounds) on a regular basis, I'll post a link and certainly invite contribution.

[bchat]

Some of the best superhero stories I've read have been novels, rather than comics

I didn't mean to imply that novels weren't "complete stories", and I realize I should have phrased that differently.  It's just that when I talk about comics I don't think about books, since I view them as seperate forms of entertainment.

Neither of us thinks that someone could write a good story about a character based solely on a Who's Who or Marvel Handbook entry (or the equivalent).

I think that's it's possible to write a good story just using a WW or HB entry, but again, the personality of the character is usually missing in such entries.  The writer/artist of a comic story has the information they need to get started in such comic book profiles, but on their own they need to develope the character's personality.  The problem will be that what one creator does may not be consistent with what another creator does with the same information.  So, I'll agree with you on the point that a finished story would be helpful but only in as much as it sets a standard way to portray characters.

The difference between the DC & Marvel profiles and the majority of Open Source Characters is that the OPCs barely have anything close to what Marvel & DC produce in their guides.  There's no inkling of what kind of situations the character gets involved in, or what  decisions they're likely to make when faced with a problem.  The Marvel & DC guides give a fairly decent account of a character's origin/history, some information regarding relationships and, in few cases, give a hint about the character's personality.  I think back to when I got into collecting comics and the first Marvel Handbooks and DC's Who's Who were out.  I took a liking to characters based solely on what I read in the Handbooks.  Had I been so inclined, I could have created my own stories with those characters with nothing more than a "character sheet".  I don't feel the same way about the OPCs because there really just isn't that much information to work with.

"Open Source Superman"

Sounds cool.  I'ld certainly be interested to see the end result and compare it with DC's Superman.

[BountyHunter]

Jenny will be appearing in an issue or two of Bounty Hunter somewhere down the road.  I found her ages ago and she just fit with the whole BH concept so well, I had to find a place for her.