Popeye

image of a cartoon sailor with large lower arms and huge fists smoking a corn cob pipe and wearing a sailor cap looking disgruntled

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”

Notes

  • Popeye’s strength didn’t come from spinach until 1931 which means thats a bit of a grey area whether that would be classified as a public domain aspect of the character or whether thats generic enough to fly. By 2027 that won’t matter though.
  • King Features Syndicate still owns the trademark Popeye so you can’t use that name to advertise your creation or product.
  • Popeye became public domain in Europe and most non-US territories by 2009 but didn’t become public domain in the US until 2025.

Links

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.

Links

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)