Category: Public Domain

Father Brown

Book cover of "The Incredulity of Father Brown" by G.K. Chesterton done as a painting depicts Father Brown, a priest wearing a black clerical outfit and a wide-brimmed black hat. He is looking thoughtfully to the side while clasping his hands together in front of him. The background features a muted landscape

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.

Links

Wikipedia

Ōgon Bat

Image of a man with a skull head and deep sunken eyes, brownish and white colors for the outline and off-white, with only a few teeth, he has a big puffed out color and is wearing a buttoned up suit, french-style. he's holding a rapier and has a red cape

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.

Notes

  • Later appearances such as the manga and subsequent anime adaptations are not public domain, only the paper theater version.

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“Thrifty Saver” Duck

Image of a duck character from a disney short that bears resamblence to Scrooge McDuck. He's wearing a plaid kilt and a tammie cap leaning on a cane

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.

Notes

  • Because this short was commissioned by the US government it was automatically public domain upon release.
  • While this is undoubtedly a prototype for the character, Scrooge McDuck is not public domain and is still copyrighted and trademarked by Disney.

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Jor-L

Black and white drawing of a man concentrating while writing with a pen on paper, wearing a buttoned shirt. He's using a geometry compass to measure something

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.

Notes

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.

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Garfield

black and white drawing of a chubby cartoon cat with large cheek

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

Notes

  • The modern iteration of Garfield is still under copyright as is any that was published after 1978.
  • Garfield is a registered trademark of Paws Inc. (subsidiary of Nickolodeon)

Dumbo

drawing of a grey elephant holding a brown feather, the elephant has green eyes and large ears

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.

Notes

  • The original book prototype did get registered for a copyright in 1939 but was not renewed therefore making its copyright expire after 28 years. Its record number is AA 296948.
  • The Disney film and any subsequent appearances and designs are not in the public domain and Dumbo is a registered trademark owned by Disney.
  • The image used on this page was drawn by Tinyel and has been released into the public domain.
  • The original book is now considered lost media.

Links

The Unknown

a purple ghost with brown buttons and a light orange tie. appears to be wearing a silver mask and has dead purple eyes and a neutral expression, their hair is gray and curly and they are holding a mirror with a brown frame
Drawing by Sasha Henriksen.. Image released into the public domain

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

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.

Notes

  • AI generated things do not have copyright attatched to them and this was an unlicensed event in the first place.
  • Obviously any actual Charlie & The Chocolate Factory characters are not public domain.
  • The image used in this article was drawn by Sasha Henriksen and released into the public domain in September 2024.

Links

MissingNo

image of a glitchy sprite composed of black,beige, purple and white squares in the shape of a key

MissingNo or Missing Number is a glitch appearing in the Pokemon franchise. First appearing in Pokemon Red & Blue in 1996. The glitch has become infamous for both its use in duplicating items in the game but also for corrupting data in the game.

The glitch occurs because the game is trying to access data that isn’t there in the buffer that would tell the game what wild pokemon to encounter and the edge of Cinnabar Island has no data for that buffer.

Its data classifies it as a “Bird” type pokemon, an unused type in the game.

Notes

  • Bugs aren’t inherently characters and not made by humans therefore are not bound by copyright. The name Missingno is in the code but it’s just short for Missing Number.
    • The UK and Hong Kong give some protection for computer generated imagery for 50 years after its creation, which in the case of MissingNo would be 2047 but that only applies to the image shown here to the right not the concept of MissingNo itself. Outside of those places it should be fine.
  • Pokemon is obviously copyrighted and trademarked so Missingno can only be used if its association with the franchise is filed off such as its cry being that of a Nidoran male.

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Casper

A cartoon ghost with a smile on his face walks around with arms outstretched on a starry night background.

Casper is a happy and pleasant ghost that depending on the media can be found in the cemetery or a haunted house. Despite being a ghost he likes to make friends with people.

Originating in the Noveltoon “The Friendly Ghost” he eventually became the subject of comics by Harvey Comics who eventually purchased the character outright.

In 1984 Harvey Comics sued Columbia Pictures for the Ghostbusters logo, feeling like it looked too much like Fatso, a side character of their Casper comics. The judge found that they had failed to renew copyright and therefore Fatso was public domain. Later research found this to be the case for Casper as well.

Notes

Dreamworks owns the trademark for “Casper, the Friendly Ghost” through its Classics Media subsidiary. Therefore any media using Casper can not be advertised under that moniker, but still can be freely used if trademark is respected.

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Hakaba Kitaro

image of a young boy with a disheveled hair, one bulging eye and one eye partially shut. his hands are claw like and he's wearing tattered clothing. he's in a cemetery in front of an officer with a sword. the image is in black and white

Kitaro originates from 1930s kamishibai, which were a kind of paper theaters where traveling storytellers would mix oral storytelling with illustrations.

Kitaro was born in a cemetery after his parents died and is an adaptation of earlier yokai folklore Kosodate Yūrei or “the candy-buying ghost” about a woman who appears for seven days and buys candy, turns out to be dead and when the shopkeeper digs up her grave she has a live baby in her arms.

This folklore is similar and most certainly inspired by the Chinese story of “the woman who buys rice cakes” which first appeared in print in 1198 in Yijian Zhi, a compilation of Chinese stories put together by Hong Mai of the Southern Song dynasty.

These days Kitaro is known primarily because of the manga and anime GeGeGe no Kitarō and also its crossover with Yokai Watch where he appears as a character in some games and other media.

Notes

Kamishibai stories were not registered for copyright at the time due to that just not being really a priority or due to the medium. Therefore they fall outside the parameter of the Uruguay Round Agreement Act of 1996 and are therefore public domain in the United States and everywhere else.

Any appearance outside of the initial Kamishibai appearance are still under copyright, such as the manga and anime.

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