Popeye can punch without permission, and Tintin will be able to roam free starting in 2025. The two classic cartoon characters, who first appeared in 1929, are intellectual property. public domain This means you can use and reuse them without permission or payment to the copyright owner.
Newly unveiled artwork this year lacks the groundbreaking feel of last year Mickey Mouse’s entrance into the public domain. But they contain a deep well of authentic works that are beyond the 95-year copyright cap. And the Disney icon’s public domain presence will expand.
“It’s a treasure trove! More than a dozen new Mickey cartoons, Mickey speaking for the first time and wearing the familiar white gloves,” said Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke University’s Center for Public Domain Research. “We have masterpieces from Faulkner and Hemingway, the first sound films by Alfred Hitchcock, Cecil B. DeMille, and John Ford, and great music by Fats Waller, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin. It’s pretty exciting! ”
A closer look at this year’s crops:
Popeye the sailor, with his bulging forearms, foul-mouthed speech, and penchant for fistfights, was created by E.C. Seeger and first appeared in the newspaper strip “Thimble Theater” in 1929, where he spoke his first words. Are you a cowboy? ” when asked if he was a sailor. What was supposed to be a one-time appearance became permanent, and the name of the strip was changed to “Popeye.”
However, only the oldest versions can be reused for free, like last year’s Mickey Mouse and 2022’s Winnie the Pooh. The spinach that gave the sailors superpowers did not exist from the beginning, and is the kind of character element that could cause legal disputes. And the animated shorts featuring his distinctive raspy voice were produced until 1933 and are still under copyright. Robert Altman’s 1980 film was similar, starring Robin Williams as Popeye and Shelley Duvall as his much-quarrelsome lover Olive Oyle.
The film was initially received lukewarmly. So was Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin in 2011. But its inspiration, a comic about a boy reporter created by Belgian artist Hergé, was one of the most popular comics in Europe for much of the 20th century.
A simply drawn teenage girl with dots for eyes and bangs that resemble sea waves, it first appeared in the supplement of the Belgian newspaper Le Ventième Siècle and became a weekly feature. .
This comic was also first published in the United States in 1929. Its signature bright colors, including Tintin’s red hair, would not be made public until years later and, like Popeye’s spinach, could be the subject of legal disputes.
And in many parts of the world, Tintin does not become public property until 70 years after his creator’s death in 1983.
The books published this year are like the syllabus for an American literature seminar.
Perhaps William Faulkner’s quintessential novel, with its modernist stream-of-consciousness style, The Sound and Fury became a sensation after its publication, even though it was notoriously difficult for readers to understand. Ta. The novel, which uses multiple non-linear narratives to tell the story of the fall of a prominent family in the author’s home state of Mississippi, would lead to Faulkner winning the Nobel Prize.
And Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms” joins his earlier “The Sun Also Rises” in the public domain. This partly autobiographical story about an Italian ambulance driver during World War I cemented Hemingway’s place in the American literary canon. It has been frequently adapted for film, television and radio, but can now be done without permission.
John Steinbeck’s 1929 first novel, “A Cup of Gold,” also enters the public domain.
Also on the list is British novelist Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, a landmark feminist essay by a leading figure in modernist literature. Her novel “Mrs. Dalloway” is already in the public domain in the United States.
There will be a number of truly major films released over the next decade, but for now we’ll suffice with the early works by some of the key figures of the early sound era, which weren’t exactly great.
Alfred Hitchcock made “Blackmail” in England a decade before moving to Hollywood and making films such as “Psycho” and “Vertigo.” The film began as a silent film, but during production it was changed to a sound film, resulting in two different versions, one of which became Britain’s first and Hitchcock’s first sound film.
John Ford, who would go on to become one of the most prominent western film directors, also ventured into the sound field for the first time with 1929’s Black Watch. The epic adventure featured Ford’s future chief collaborator John Wayne as a young extra.
Cecil B. DeMille, already a big name in Hollywood with his silent films, made his first talkie film with the melodrama “Dynamite.”
Groucho, Harpo, and the rest of the Marx Brothers made their first film starring roles in 1929’s The Coconuts, a precursor to future classics such as Animal Crackers and Duck Soup.
“Broadway Melody,” the first sound film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and the second film known at the time as an “outstanding film,” will also be released, but among the Best Picture winners, “Broadway Melody” is also scheduled for release. This is a work that is often ranked as the worst.
And after “Steamboat Willie” gave the earliest public view of Mickey Mouse, more than a dozen more of his animations would achieve the same status, including “Carnival Kid,” where Mickey Mouse first voiced his voice. Become.
Songs from the final years of the Roaring Twenties are about to become public property.
Highlights include Cole Porter’s song “What Is This Thing Called Love?” and the jazz classic “Ain’t Misbehavin'” written by Fats Waller and Harry Brooks.
“Singin’ in the Rain,” which would later be forever associated with the 1952 Gene Kelly film, debuted in the 1929 film “Hollywood Revue” and is now in the public domain.
Sound recordings are regulated by various laws, with the new public domain dating back to 1924. These include future star and civil rights icon Marian Anderson’s recording of “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” and Marian Anderson’s performance of “Rhapsody in Blue” . Its composer is George Gershwin.
