Comic Book Plus Forum
About The Comic Books We Have => Comics Not Allowed => Topic started by: Sackett on November 05, 2015, 04:05:05 PM
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I'm a new member, and learning my way around, and I have a question. I see that someone has uploaded National Comics #26 featuring Uncle Sam. I know that DC Comics has inherited this character from National. Is it considered in the public domain because the likeness is close enough to the Uncle Sam character first appearing in editorial cartoons? And does this mean that if I owned a printing press, I could create a star-spangled & goateed Uncle Sam comic book, too?
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National Comics 26 was published by Quality, who by the time the copyright came up for renewal had ceased publication. Meaning the book is public domain, while the character, not so much
And no, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to create and print your own comic book
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Ok...In reading the forum, I'm beginning to understand the difference between a book being in public domain, and the character...
....if anyone REALLY understands these things
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My understanding with Uncle Sam is that it's like with Dracula. Dracula is in the public domain (in America, not sure about the UK), but each comic adaptation of Dracula is unique to itself so you can't do a version of Dracula that resembles those versions of the character, nor can you do anything too similar to the Universal Pictures Dracula. But you can do your own adaptation of Dracula--so long as you find a way to do the character that qualifies as unique and doesn't borrow too much from any of those others.
So with Uncle Sam there have been several and there were several versions of Uncle Sam during WW II. But the Quality character is their own trademarked version of the character. The copyright has lapsed, but DC still owns the trademark on the Quality Uncle Sam. Yet if you create your own Uncle Sam that's different enough from the Quality version, then that should be okay.