Short-Circuit Signs

July Worlds in Panels

This month's column looks at ideas of the self in Joe Kelly's and JM Ken Niimura's I Kill Giants.

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Blogging my tape review

I have been posting short notes and reflections on my review of the tape I recorded last summer for my documentary on comics creators in Portland, Oregon to my filmmaking blog, Mediated Worlds.

Go to the diary.

A small thought on citizen apathy in The Wire

Anne-Marie and I have been rewatching The Wire from the beginning. We just started season four, and I have been thinking about a few shots near the end of "Soft Eyes" where characters from "The Street", Dennis, Namond, are shown tuning out the mayoral debate between Carcetti, Royce, and Gray. I'm not sure what these shots are meant to signify. The irrelevance of the election? Apathy? And, if so, deserved or irresponsible?

Obviously, all of these are fair readings, but in the context of the series they are particularly complicated to interpret. David Simon and Ed Burns appear to argue simultaneously that no one is bigger than the system, or the game, but also that individuals do matter. In that case, caring or not caring about this election is virtually equal in consequence. Yes, a "good" mayor would be good for Baltimore, but electing that person isn't going to fundamentally change anything in the neighborhoods. Radical change is fleeting and unlikely to come from people invested in their career ladders. Mostly, life grinds on, getting better in small ways, and probably worse in bigger ways, but remaining largely the same.

So, again, how to read those shots? Should Dennis have stayed tuned in? Or does he really have better things to worry about, so why bother?

Post-script: In watching "Margin of Error" and talking to Anne-Marie last night, I was reminded that Dennis ("Cutty") can't vote (nor can Namond, who is too young). That raises the possibility that the shots of the TV debate could be a comment on how the system marginalizes people like Dennis, and also suggests that whatever apathy he has is at least understandable. On the other hand, given the pointedness of these scenes, and the extended montage of Dennis running past polling places in the later episode, it seems unlikely that the purpose is to merely denote that Dennis (and Namond) aren't legally able to vote.

Blogging my filmmaking

As hard as it may be to believe, this is the blog that I actually keep updated in some fashion on a regular basis. However, I have separate blogs for my filmmaking. Mediated Worlds on Vox is where I write about my film projects in a wide ranging and personal kind of way. I also have a site set up to "officially" track production of my documentary on comics creators in Portland, Oregon USA. Both of these moribund blogs are being reanimated this summer now that I have time to work and create.

Go to Mediated Worlds.
Go to the Untitled PDX Comics Doc blog.

 

Catching up with DVD reviews at PopMatters

Since my last update, I have had three new DVD reviews post at PM:

A Film is a Burning Place: Works by Enid Baxter Blader
Inside Ouside: Vandalism, Art and Vandalism as Art
RiP: A Remix Manifesto

Cross-posted on Spout.

Emily the Strange and the problem with American copyright law

Late last year a controversy erupted over Emily the Strange and a late 1970s children's book, Nate the Great and the Lost List. As shown on this post at you thought we wouldn't notice, Emily bears a number of similarities to Rosamond, a character from Nate the Great.

As you can see here (link found via the post at you thought we wouldn't notice), the resemblance between the two characters has been noted before, but the recent discussion, and allegations that Emily is a “rip off”, has generated enough attention elsewhere, including at Comics Worth Reading and BoingBoing, that there are now two lawsuits pending (link via Comics Worth Reading). One, filed by Rob Reger and Cosmic Debris, the license holders for Emily, asking that Nate the Great author, Marjorie Sharmat, and illustrator, Marc Simont, refrain from asserting that Emily violates their copyright to the characters in their book, and a second, filed by Sharmat and Simont, formally alleging said violation.

A few days before learning of the second suit, I had watched RiP! A Remix Manifesto (2009) and  the coincidence of those two events got me thinking about how the Emily/Rosamond dispute serves to punctuate the flaws in American copyright law.

Here's my quick digest of U.S. copyright history. Over time, American copyright has evolved into a system of protection for creative works based on the idea that such works are “properties” with owners who enjoy, or should enjoy, exclusive rights to their use. “Use” in this context primarily means “for commercial purposes”, or, at the least, that is considered to be the ultimate value of a work. Originally, copyright was designed to protect creative expression with a limited period of exclusive rights for commercial purposes over a particular work, but not to all possible permutations of, in whole or in part, of that work. As corporations, not actual creators, came to “own” the copyright to various works, from books to music to characters from film, tv, and comics, the notion of art as property began to take over, both through material changes in the law, and intimidation through threats of lawsuits over the smallest alleged infractions, which, in fact, may or not actually be violations of the law.

In the case of Emily and Rosamond, you have two sets of creators now seeking to assert exclusive rights to, essentially, the image of a girl with long, dark hair in a dress and mary janes (or some similar kind of shoe) who hangs out with cats and is identified as “strange”. It did not have to end this way, but that it has, goes to the extent to which Americans have been socialized, or scared, into seeing creative expression as a kind of commodity instead of as, well, creative expression.

I think that this discussion would be very different if people had encountered Emily not as a licensed character at Hot Topic, etc., but as part of, say, a student art exhibit or, even, as graffiti. In that context I suspect that even someone who knew Rosamond, would focus on Emiy as art – how clever they found her, whether the artist was meaning to reference the other character or not, etc. - and not as commodity.

One part of the actual discussion of Emily and Rosamond has followed this track, but because Emily is a commercial product, as is Rosamond, it was perhaps inevitable that artistic evaluation would morph into legal allegations and expressions of outrage over the money that has been made off of Emily. Ultimately, even in my imaginary scenario above, talk would no doubt turn to legality and money. And if Rosamond were the property of, say, Disney, my hypothetical student/street artist would unquestionably be sued.

The problem here is that even if one were able to draw a straight line between the commercial success of the newer character and the existence of the prior character, you would still be falling into the trap of making copyright about profit rather than expression.

However unoriginal her figure maybe, Emily is not a direct copy of Rosamond. She is an adaptation. Most importantly, the two characters exist in entirely different contexts. The fact that Rosamond is a supporting character in someone else's narrative while Emily is at the center of her own storyworld, is, or should be, the most salient point in this discussion (again, to suggest a circumstance without the apparently competing financial interests at stake, how many people rushing to defend Rosamond against theft would do so if we were talking about freely available fanfiction or fanart featuring the actual character, rather than what we are talking about, which is a commercially available character with a strong resemblance to Rosamond?).

Scanning through the online discussion, it's hard not to think that many of Rosamond's supporters would be happy just to hear Rob Reger break down and exclaim, “Yes, yes. I love Nate the Great. Emily is totally based on Rosamond. I have just been too embarrassed too admit it”. And, if true, I would love to hear it as well, but, once again, what keeps this from happening is the commercialization of copyright. In the current legal environment, such an admission is far too freighted with financial consequences to be made.

But, of course, no one except Reger or Nathan Carrico, noted by Reger as the originator of Emily, knows what the relationship between the two characters is. While it seems unlikely that they are wholly unrelated, artistic inspiration is complicated, and rarely linear. You see, read, or hear something, and it burrows in your brain only to come out later for whatever reason, the initial connection obscured by time and more immediate forms of inspiration.

Or maybe Emily was made with Rosamond right in front of Reger or Carrico. It shouldn't matter. A hundred or so years ago it would have been perfectly legal for Cosmic Debris to begin printing and selling their own editions of Nate the Great and the Lost List at this point. For Reger et al to begin making adaptations of the characters for their own use wouldn't have caused anyone to bat an eye.

While commodification is one spectre hanging over this discussion, another is the ideal of originality. Culture is not made from whole cloth. It is always made from already existing pieces (indeed, Sita Sings the Blues (2009) creator Nina Paley, who has made her film available with a Creative Commons ShareAlike license, argues in a recent interview that simply working in the English language makes her work something other than singular, let alone her more specific influences and inspirations).

Copyright should afford people, and notably the actual creators of a work, protection against actual plagiarism, or at least a right to proper attribution, but that is a far distance from being able to lock up all references to, pieces of, or derivations of a work, especially in, or something very much approaching, perpetuity. The fact that creators and other copyright owners feel compelled, and empowered, to assert such rights is a threat to continued creativity.

Consider, for example, what the result of a successful lawsuit against Reger and Cosmic Debris might look like. Emily could stop being produced. Cosmic Debris could be put out of business. Even if you aren't a fan of Emily, is the world really a better place if those who are, are no longer able to enjoy new productions featuring the character? What do Sharmat, as a writer, and Simont, as an artist, gain if Emily is declared to be an illegal copy of Rosamond? More to the point, what does Rosamond gain? Will the people who love Emily suddenly be seeking out all things Rosamond? Will the people who love Rosamond love her all the more with Emily out of the picture? Is Rosamond a better work of art/fiction without Emily?

To me, the answers to the above questions are pretty clear: from the vantage point of creative expression, nothing good really comes from Emily being declared a violation of copyright (the lawsuit against Sharmat and Simont is such a perverse product of the current copyright environment that it hardly merits comment; in addition, that suit, as I understand it, is directed at what Sharmat and Simont can say about Emily, and not at their creation).

In fact, an argument can be made that the existence of Emily has enhanced the value of Rosamond and Nate the Great. To retun to the blog entries and related comments, it seems as if one result of this controversy is people going back to the books and rediscovering Rosamond, finding new ways and reasons to appreciate her.

And from a commercial standpoint, I don't think that there is a clear answer to the above questions either. Yes, in an immediate sense, Rob Reger and Cosmic Debris may end up owing money to Sharmat and Simont, but in terms of sales of product, the dispute around Emily maybe doing as much good as harm to Nate the Great. More importantly, it seems highly doubtful that Emily's sales over the years have traded off with sales of Nate the Great books. In fact, Nate the Great appears to be doing just fine right now.

Indeed, the ability of both characters to succeed financially despite the existence of the other suggests much about the real artistic differences between them. Furthermore, the amount of time it's taken for the resemblance of Emily to Rosamond to become much of an issue or of any kind of public interest implies that there isn't much of a shared audience between the two.

Questions of copyright shouldn't be subject to a profitabilty test in any case. Whether Emily is a student art project, a graffito, or a character licensed for t-shirts, stickers, books, comics, movies, etc., the question of her, or Rosamond, making or not making money for her creators/owners should be beside the point. Like her or not, Emily is not Rosamond, and that's all that should be at issue. If Reger and Cosmic Debris were actually passing Sharmat's and Simont's character off as their own, rather than one that merely shares a likeness, however striking, especially in certain guises, then that would be another issue. But in terms of creative expression, even the minor differences between the two are all that matter. Superficial similarities while making it easy to charge “theft” or “rip off” are just that: superficial.

(For the record, I am not a particular fan of either character. I have vague memories of Nate the Great from when I was a kid, but if it was ever an important book to me, I have lost that sense. I remember noticing Emily in the early 90s, and thinking that she was kind of cool, but it wasn't until recently that I bought anything from her product line. I own two of the comics, more because they read like fun and twisted variations on kid activity books than because of any intrinsic appeal of the character. Both were impulse purchases. It's been probably a year since I bought the second book. I would be perfectly fine with my nephews, niece, etc. getting into either Nate the Great or Emily).

For quick history of Emily and the controversy, go to her Wikipedia page.

Follow-up to the failed experiment

As this term winds down, I think that I will be ending my experiment with “advance reading”. Previously, I focused on student responses and behaviors, but I think that this year has also shown the idea to be impractical for other reasons. Specifically, as I mentioned briefly before, is the problem of me consistently working “off syllabus”, complicating the execution of the idea. Students, quite reasonably, became frustrated by gaps of one or even two days between assigned reading and what we would actually be talking about in class. I also occasionally lost track of the relationship between where a class should be versus where we actually were. The honors students this term weren't reluctant to point these problems out to me, no doubt because many them were actually trying to keep up with the reading.

My honors section has also highlighted that there is an issue not only with student preparation and participation, but also in the fact that many students, especially, though not exclusively, at the intro level, need guidance in how to read texts like an academic. The more I can assist students in their reading of a text the better. Maybe what I need to do is divide class sessions more clearly between review of what students just read and more formal discussions of prior material. Finding the time each day, or each week, to do that strikes me as a major constraint, especially if I am constantly falling off schedule.

Or maybe the issue is the very idea of a schedule in the first place. I would love to teach in a way that was highly extemporaneous, and I often am in my upper division classes, but I also think that students, especially in the intro course, need and reasonably expect structure from me. Bridging the gaps between what students want and where they are academically and what I would like to do and where I want to be is always a difficult challenge.

And another Worlds in Panels (so soon)

A new "World in Panels" posted today. I look at the implications of The New York Times Graphic Books Bestsellers Lists.

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(With Spring ending and summer upcoming, I promise that this blog will become more than a big link to other things I've written).

May Worlds in Panels

My monthly comics column for PopMatters posted for May yesterday. I look at meaning and landscape in G. Willow Wilson's and M.K. Perker's Vertigo series, air.

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Free Comic Book Day (without a local shop)

As some of you will know, this past Saturday was Free Comic Book Day. Being able to have fun on this day is but one of the reasons I regret not having a truly local shop to frequent. Of course, even if we did have such a place, there is always the risk that it would one of those stereotypical unwelcoming dungeons of clutter that say “keep out” to all but the most in the know when it comes to the latest Marvel or DC cross-over, etc.

This is kind of a problem with the local-y shops we do have in Corvallis and Salem-Keizer (or at least the two of the three we've actually been to; there's a new store in Keizer we haven't checked out yet). Boxes everywhere. Stuff stacked more than displayed. Monthly racks only semi in order. TPBs in better shape organizationally, but maybe not physically in some cases. Staff/ownership who may or may not be welcoming and helpful. If we go to one of these shops, it is usually Matt's Cavalcade of Comics in Corvallis, and that's where we were this past Saturday.

Last year, Free Comic Book Day at Matt's was a dismal experience. No attempt to be inviting. The free books were laid out, but no guidance was given as to how many they expected you to take. No other sales or related activities to make the place festive. It almost put us off on going at all this year.

But, fortunately, we were running errands in Corvallis in any case and the general pull of the day won out. And it was nice. The guy working the floor was friendly and helpful. Best of all there was a local artist in attendance selling and signing books and other paraphernalia. I don't think that it's an accident that we came out of there with more books and other stuff than we did last year, by a lot, I think.

As to the free comics we had to choose from, Oni's Resurrection #0 did its job to raise my interest in the series. I love the Top Shelf all ages collections. We also picked up a few things for our (younger) nephew. I was disappointed not to find a better offering from Dark Horse, but the sampler headlined by Star Wars: The Clone Wars was a good catch for our nephew.