Welp, the glorious copyright checkers over at the Public Domain Super Hero combed through the list of the comics DC didn't renew (as few as there were). It's official, the list of non renewels checks out. Golden Age Sandman Wesley Dobbs (as he appears in a handful of issues including his debut) is public fucking domain for anyone in the United States to use. No idea if non-renewel makes it okay outside of America, but still. Also Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen because the 1939 radio show scripts never renewed.
>Marvel can legally have this guy show up without their permissionOooooof!www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD-E-LDc384
>>154856867>SpoilerHow many Superman related things got into Public Domain by accident before him?
>>154857407Everything from the Fleischer shorts, both of those Christmas Adventure comics (Linkara did the first issue), the villain Metalo, Krypton, both his parents with an L as the last name instead of El, and.... Would Gorilla Grodd count? I know he's a Flash villain but still.
>>154857474>Linkara did the first issueWho the fuck cares.>the villain Metalo,Not John Corben
>>154856867>Jimmy OlsenI thought the older stuff was 95 years? Or is it different because it's a radio show?
>>154857532Radio show never renewed copyright.
let's see...
You know what thing should DC make Public Domain?The Wildstorm Bleed.
Here is the full list for anyone that might care:https://pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:VeryCuriousIndividual/Complete_List_of_DC_Comics_in_the_Public_DomainThe main reason research took a while is because a ton of Archie books also didn't get renewed:https://pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:VeryCuriousIndividual/Complete_List_of_Public_Domain_Archie_Comics
>>154858082Here's the Marvel one, comment section pointed out more issues not on the main list.
>>154858105WTF I know I linked it. Weird:https://pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:Crimsoncrusader/Marvel_Comics_That_Weren%27t_Renewed
>>154856867Yeah, no shit, Plastic Man and Captain Marvel (Billy Batson) are also PD.People just don't care.
>>154857532>>154857624For clarification, there was a time when you had to renew your copyright to extend it past 28 years. Pieces that renewed would most of the time get caught up in later extensions that pushed them out to the full 95 years, ones that didn't have already fallen out of copyright. Renewing involved fees and paperwork, so often pulp or throwaway media wouldn't be renewed because it wasn't worth the trouble. That's why Project Gutenburg/Standard eBooks have a lot of random pulp stories, even from famous authors, because those particular stories didn't do well so the authors never bothered with renewing them and they fell into the public domain.
>>154857407The Fleischer/Famous cartoonssome comic strips from 1939 because the syndicate doing the comic strip forgot to put the correct copyright notice on them (this would bring in Jor-L and Lora, Metropolis being in New York)The Superman stories from World's Fair ComicsSupposedly World's Finest #6-8, 35-38Possibly the Superman radio show (but I'd have to check if this is for real or not)IIRC there was also a PSA or two as well
>>154858645>IIRC there was also a PSA or two as wellThis was definitely one of them:https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_1071750
Another hero joins PD status! This time Dr. Mid-Nite!https://pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/Dr._Mid-Nite
>>154858282If you don't care, don't post in the thread. It's that simple.
>>154858282>Captain Marvel (Billy Batson) are also PD.Captain Marvel is where things get a little complicated cause while a bunch of Fawcett's stuff fell into the PD, not all of their comics did(for example Black Adam's debut story is supposedly one of the ones that is still under copyright), or at least that's DC's claims on the matternotably DC's never really tried to contest the PD status of anything they got from Quality or from Charlton(at least for anything Charlton published through December 1967, as apparently from 1968 onward Charlton finally got their act together in regards to doing proper copyright notifications for their stuff, though not much of their Superhero stuff got published after that cutoff aside from the last two issues of Charlton Premiere and 11 of the 13 issues of their version of Hercules, as well as a few miscellaneous stories published in the mid 70's and early 80's)
