Tag: Comic Book

Gorilla Grodd

Gorilla Grodd is a staple character in the Flash’s Rogue’s Gallery. He’s a superintelligent gorilla from Gorilla City, a highly advanced metropolis and he has the ability to use telepathy and is super strong.

Gorilla Grodd is public domain due to a failure to renew Flash #106 from 1959, meaning the copyright expired in 1988.

Barry Allen and other Flash characters remain under copyright. I also could find no trademark for Gorilla Grodd, but maybe i just didn’t search thoroughly enough.

Links

Wikipedia

Fin Fang Foom

Image of an orange dragon ripping apart a vehicle with people shooting at it with the name Fin Fang Foom above it in big letters
Fin Fang Foom as they appear in Strange Tales #89 (1961)

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.

: image of copyright renewal listings for various issues of Strange Tales but it jumps from number 84 to 100 omitting several ones in the renewal process

They specifically did not renew issues 85 to 99 so those are all public domain now.

Notes

  • Marvel used to own the trademark for Fin Fang Foom but it has since lapsed as seen here

Links

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.

Links