Posted by Malthus at spider-wg042.proxy.aol.com on October 24, 1999 at 21:38:21:
In Reply to: A question about super heroes. posted by bardok on October 24, 1999 at 18:27:39:
: Hey,
: I figure if anyone knows an answer to this, it would be Kevin Smith & Co.
: I am working on a short screenplay about a super hero of my own creation. I don't read many comics lately and wanted to know if there was an online resource that lists every super hero known to man. I want to proceed with my original idea, but I do not want to step on anyone's copyright. Do you guys know if there is such a site?
: Thanks for your time,
: Kevin James
Consider this: in today's world it is damn near IMPOSSIBLE to come up with something original without stepping on SOMEBODY's toes. BUT there are certain rules that apply to copyrighted charachters. One of which is that if you have a Captain Light, and I have a Captain Light but he's noticably different than yours, it's okay. (I don't think this applies to Trademarked names though, like Superman, or Batman, or anything that's been trademarked.) Also, if your character looks similar to my character, but my character hasn't been heard of or seen in multiple decades than it shouldn't be too big of a problem. Just look around the current comic universes to see what I mean. Marvel's Trident/Eric Larsen's Savage Dragon (Actually, just look at almost ANY of Eric Larsen's characters! And he never gets sued!) Rob Liefeld's Fighting American/Marvel's Captain America In fact there have been literally dozens of flag wearing superheroes that could probably trace their roots to Captain America, like DC's Captain Liberty. I guess what I'm trying to say is just do your mainstream research, don't worry about the small guys or the old guys who aren't around anymore, and should something ever come up in the future, it's pretty easy to work costume changes or even continuity changes into your story. Just look at Frank Miller's Return of the Dark Knight to see what I mean. Basically, the only way you'll ever get yourself in trouble is if your character is almost exactly like somebody else's both in design and in story. Plus, if you ever get to publish it, there should be some type of promotional work put into it so any real copyright issues will be dealt with before the book ever sees print. I'm writing several comics that I hope to publish sometime in the future and from what I've seen, copyrights, while definately imporatant, aren't usually a problem.