Fin Fang Foom is an ancient dragon being that can shapeshift that is awakened to attack the Communist Party thanks to some herbs by Chan Liuchow when his homeland of Taiwan is under threat.
Strange Tales #89 was not renewed 28 years after publication as was standard at the time so copyright would’ve expired in 1989.
They specifically did not renew issues 85 to 99 so those are all public domain now.
Popeye is a sailor character created by E.C Segar for his 1929 comic strip Thimble Theatre. Popeye has an unusual manner of speaking, always is seen smoking a pipe and has super-human strength.
Generally considered a simpleton due to his lack of worldly knowledge he still has a good heart and tries his best to overcome challenges he faces, often to save his friends from foes.
Popeye throughout the years has dealt with many people such as meeting Sinbad the Sailor, another nautical themed public domain character in the equally public domain Fleischer cartoon “Popeye meets Sinbad the Sailor”
Father Brown is a Roman Catholic priest who uses intuition and understanding of human behavior to solve crimes, usually murders in the small community around his parish.
He uses the fact that he doesn’t really seem like the typical detective to his advantage and has a rather soft demeanor.
Father Brown first appeared in G.K Chesterton’s 1910 story “The Blue Cross” and went on to be a prominent character in pop culture well into modern times, in no small part due to the successful 2013 BBC TV series.
He has been cited as the inspiration for another unassuming detective character with a soft personality, that being Detective Columbo. Who sadly is not public domain but Father Brown can fill the same role rather well.
One of the earliest superheroes in Japanese media, originating in Kamishibai or paper theaters around Japan in the 1930s. Ogon is an ancient warrior who awakened from slumber to defeat the evil Dr. Naizo. He has a red cape and a rapier sword.
Often called Japan’s first superhero he possesses super strength and can fly. He lives in a castle in the mountains of Japan’s northern region.
Ogon bat has been adapted to manga, anime, live shows and more and has had a great influence on pop culture in Japan with modern versions still appearing from time to time to this day such as the manga in Champion RED magazine serialized from February 2023 to August 2024, so its relevance is still felt today.
This character is from a Donald Duck short called the Spirit of ’43. This was a WW2 propaganda short about paying your taxes to support the war effort at the time.
The character here isn’t really named but has a Scottish accent and is on the side of saving your money and paying taxes.
The character was designed by Carl Barks and is the prototype for what would become Scrooge McDuck.
Jor-L is the father of Superman and was a scientist on the planet Krypton discovering the upcoming catastrophe that led to the destruction of it early enough to send his infant son to a different planet.
While his son remains copyrighted for another decade or so, Jor-L the father of Superman is public domain because the first appearances of him and his wife Lora in the 1939 Superman newspaper comic strips did not have proper copyright notice on them at a time that was a requirement.
This also extends to their home planet Krypton.
You’ll notice I’m not using the later spellings of Jor-El and Lara as those are trademarked as is the term Krypton. But Jor-L is not trademarked.
Mazza Oshkosh is an inhabitant of the Backrooms and has lived there for a long time, having set up a marketplace for people who appear there. In lieu of money they accept favors in exchange for goods.
Their voice is different from what one would expect them to sound like and they seem to be able to influence people once they make a deal with them, a sort of way to guarantee that the favor is actually done.
They either refuse to leave the Backrooms or can’t, that’s up to interpretation. As is a lot of things but that’s the general idea behind them. They generally use they/them pronouns and are nonbinary.
Mazza Oshkosh first appeared in the Jenny Everywhere Day ’24 story Jenny: Out of the Backrooms by me.
Garfield is a lazy and irritable cat who always wants food. He belongs to Jon who is a cartoonist.
The comic strip Jon was a strip that Jim Davis created before launching the now famous Garfield comic strip. Jon focusing more on the titular cartoonist and his social life rather than being focused on Garfield.
This earlier iteration of Jon & Garfield from the 1976 comic strip was unearthed by youtuber Quinton Reviews who made the scans available online which showed that these comic strips did not have copyright notice on them at a time where that was a requirement
Dumbo is based on a book that was made and illustrated by Helen Aberson-Mayer, Harold Pearl before the now famous movie came out. This book, published by Roll-A-Book Publishing is actually considered lost media since it was made as something akin to a prototype for an interactive toy where you’d scroll through the story with a lever.
Dumbo is an elephant with big ears and can fly, at first seemingly due to a magic feather but then he finds out he was able to fly by himself.
The Unknown, is a character created for the 2024 Live Event called “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” an unauthorized event based on the popular Charlie & The Chocolate Factory book and subsequent movies. In the script ,which was generated with AI the Unknown is described as “an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls” in the event they were given a silver mask and a mirror that they gripped onto. In the script they try to get McDuff’s “Anti-Graffiti Gobstopper” but is eventually sucked into a vacuum and therefore thwarted.
Willy’s Chocolate Experience was an unlicensed event based on Roald Dahl’s Charlie & The Chocolate Factory that occured in February 2024.
The event organizer scammed people with AI generated art on a promotional site to attend a lackluster event where the script was also generated using AI. This quickly became a meme online and negatively compared to other disaster events such as Dashcon or Fyre Fest.
