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r/Publicdomainsuperhero

Image 1 — DC & Marvel PD Comics
Image 2 — DC & Marvel PD Comics
▲ 48 r/Publicdomainsuperhero+1 crossposts

DC & Marvel PD Comics

I recently ran across listings of Marvel & DC issues that fell through the cracks and didn't have their copyrights renewed. Most don't have super heroes, and few of those that do have any first appearances, but they do give us Marvel monster Fin Fang Foom and Flash villains Gorilla Grodd and the Pied Piper. I'm sure the list is incomplete.

DC PD books:

A Date with Judy - #2, 4-7, 18-79

Adventures of Rex, the Wonder Dog - #1, 31

All-Star Comics - #1-4

Big Book of Fun Comics - #1

Flash Comics - #15-16

Gang Busters - #13

Girls' Love Stories - #9, 13-14

Girls' Romances - #7, 11-12

Jimmy Wakely - #10-16

Leave it to Binky - #45

More Fun Comics - #7-30, 42-44

Movie Comics - #1-6

Movietown's Animal Antics - #24-31

Mutt & Jeff - #1-54, 56

New Adventure Comics - #12-27

New Book of Comics - #1

New Comics - #1-11

New Fun Comics - #1-6

Pat Boone - #4

Real Screen Comics - #22-24

Rip Hunter... Time Master - #1-18

Superman's Christmas Adventure - #1-2

Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane - Annual #1

The Brand New Adventures of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - Annual #1

The Flash - #106, Annual #1

Wonder Woman - #30-32

World's Finest Comics - #6-8, 35-38

Action Comics Free Souvenir Edition - (1947)

All-American Comics - Ashcan, #1-11, 24-25

All-American Men of War - Ashcan

Double Action Comics - #2

Double Action Comics - Ashcan, #2

Comic Cavalcade "Tomorrow the World!" - #1

Flash Comics Miniature Edition - #1

Make Way for Youth - #1

New York World's Fair Comics - #1-2

Star Spangled War Stories - Ashcan

Superman and the Great Cleveland Fire - #1

Superman Special Edition (Kellog's) - 1954, 1955 1A, 1B, 1C

The Adventures of Superman (Py-Co-Pay) - #1

Marvel PD books:

Journey into Mystery #1-41

Strange Tales #42-44, 85-95

u/MadMikeyD — 2 days ago
▲ 85 r/Publicdomainsuperhero+1 crossposts

As exciting as the next ten years will be for new public domain superheroes, I hope it will ALSO reinvigorate interest in the superheroes who are already public domain. There are already a lot of amazing ones that could easily be/have been used to build awesome universes.

In case you don’t recognize any:

* Black Terror

* Spider

* Stardust the Super-Wizard

* Blue Bolt

* Fly-Man

* Daredevil

* Captain Midnight

* Blue Beetle

* Fighting Yank

* Samson

* Green Lama

* Miss Fury

* Skyman

* Pyroman

* Blue Flame

* Miss Masque

* Black Bat

* Hydroman

* Fantomah

* Arrow

* Cat-Man

* Green Turtle

* Flame

* Black Hood

* Phantom Lady

* Bulletman

* Spy-Smasher

* Amazing Man

* Magno the Magnetic Man

* Heap

* Funnyman

* Fantoman

* Atoman

* American Crusader

* Black Cat

* Claw (archenemy of Daredevil)

* Puzzler (enemy of Black Terror)

u/Greybishop_PDSH — 2 days ago
▲ 1 r/Publicdomainsuperhero

Proof Conan the barbarian is already public domain.

Similar to Tracy, but this one is a bit tough cause the estate is a litigious as hell company, But The Cinnermian is already free too. Based on a deleted post from the Conan fan sub.

Phoneix on the Sword was published in 1932, according to Wikisource which is accurate when it comes to public domain these stories are all in the public domain Due to no renewal. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Robert_Ervin_Howard

However there is statememts from some people the magazines themselves were renewed which could count, however I dug deeper into this and Wikisource states this when it comes to periodical renewals: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Help:Copyright_renewals#Contributions_to_periodicals

“If the original author died before the renewal year, the contract between them and the publisher ended. Therefore the publisher no longer owned the copyright and was not eligible to register a renewal.”

This is known as unvested non-renewal, in which the magazines or serials lose the rights to the sole contributions of a non work for hire author and don’t have the rights to renew. Robert’s estate would have been the one required to renew, however searching the renewals in 1959 or 1960 yield no renewals for the first story:

https://books.google.com/books?id=lNcgAQAAIAAJ&q=phoenix+#v=onepage&q=phoenix&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=TSEhAQAAIAAJ&q=Phoenix#v=onepage&q=Phoenix&f=false

This is a similar case to Lovecrafts stories, which was ruled in court to be already public domain for the same thing in the 1970s.

So as far as I’m aware, Conan the Barbarian is already public domain In the United States as Howard‘s estate never renewed the sole stories, however Conan Enterprises is very litigious so be careful if planning to use him. Also Red Sonja herself is not yet public domain, but Red Sonya is. Some public domain adaptations name the story the cimmerian to avoid lawsuits.

Thoughts?

reddit.com
u/Only-Squirrel-7384 — 4 days ago
▲ 2 r/Publicdomainsuperhero

General Question: How did you came to the public domain?

So this is a question i often ask alot of creators who do public domain related content and alot more, so here i wanna know: How did you came to the public domain? How did you got this facination? and how did you came to create stories, arts, comics and alot more with public domain characters?

If anybody is interessted, heres my story: Ok its actually some time ago and it was before Mickey Mouse was even pd, Basically i watched a channel called Mr Rogues (A Youtuber who does quite cool content espically about supervillains in comics) and then there was some videos about public domain superheroes, theres was a video about the harvey comics hero "Fly-Man" (The dude from the second picture) and i watched it and just thought "Hmmm whatever weird superhero" but then after he basically said "He is public domain, so free to use", i was like "What?! There are superheroes you can freely use and not just hercules and all that?" then i researched alot about public domain heroes and found the public domain superheroes wiki and this is how i came to care and being facinated with public domain characters espcially superheroes since i found so many cool and obscure characters where i see so much cool ideas for stories and all.....

u/Weak_Reading6397 — 3 days ago
▲ 81 r/Publicdomainsuperhero+1 crossposts

All-Star Comics #1-4 never had their copyright renewed, meaning #3 where the Justice Society debuted is public domain. This means you can actually use the team name for your own group of superheroes even if you can’t use most of the original members.

u/Greybishop_PDSH — 8 days ago