Sometimes a comic strip will show characters from other strips. Liō, for example, seems to do this a lot (such as today’s strip).
Sometimes this is a tribute, sometimes it makes fun of the other strip.
Is this legally allowed under Fair Use? Or do comic artists have some sort of unwritten rule that this is OK as long as the characters aren’t abused (such as used in pornographic depictions or denigrating the character by using bad language)? Or is it just not worth the effort to complain? Clearly the publishers just publish whatever is submitted so either they are not concerned or bear no liability.
Might be more of a GQ than a question about the arts.
Arguably the biggest case of this was Sam’s Strip, a short-lived strip by Jerry Dumas and Mort Walker (who does Beetle Bailey and Hi and Lois). Sam’s Strip was “the comic about comics”, and Walker tried to meticulously research and draw each “guest” character accurately. One comic panel had a plethora of “guests” – more than 48, I think.
Since copyright violations are a civil matter, a cartoonist isn’t going to bother to sue, even if the parody exclusion didn’t exist. Most cartoonists know each other and have no problem if another one uses their work.
Of course, many cartoonists are friends with each other, and get permission. There’s no legal issue at all if you have permission. In particular, I know that this is the case for Stephen Pastis (Pearls Before Swine) and Jef Mallet (Frazz), who often make fun of each other.
Then, of course, there are special days ( sometimes April 1) when a bunch of famous cartoonists will trade strips for a day or a week. For that time, Stefan Pastis may do " Beetle Bailey" while Mort Walker does “Pearls Before Swine.”
Pastis also of course hammers on Family Circus. When Family Circus strikes back, Patis reacts like someone has questioned his cousin’s television career or something.
Let me see… Did I just say "Keep issues with other posters out of this forum? Yes, I did. And I’ll also add “keep discussion of moderation actions out of this forum”, even though that should be clear from the rules already. If you want to discuss this, there’s already a thread in ATMB about it.
Any further discussion along these lines in this forum will result in a Warning.
One of my favorites was Wren from Baby Blues chewing on a dead *Pearls *Croc the week after The Crocs were trying to eat the Baby Blues kids in Pearls.
While trying to find a copy of the strip, I foundthis Baby Blues blog post which describes how the whole thing went down.
It really did run as an episode of Peanuts. I remember when it first appeared.
I’m sure it was “payback” for the many times that Mad had run parodies using the Peanuts characters – showing them as hippies, doing “Uptight is when…” as a parody of “Happiness is…”. Showing what would happen when the characters got old. The feature “The Adventures of the Red Baron”, and so on.
They’re still running Peanuts parodies, of course (they just ran an “updated” “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”).
That’s a pretty early Peanuts from when Walt was still alive. He had much more of a sense of humor than the Disney Corporation has. I’m sure he took well if he even was aware of it.
Francesco Marciuliano does this occasionally in his on-line strip Medium Large. Here’s one where he uses Peanuts characters, and another where he borrows from Family Circus.
Marciuliano is also the author of the newspaper strip Sally Forth. He sometimes uses Sally Forth characters in Medium Large, although I’m not sure I would call this “borrowing.”
He’s still doing it. Charlie Brown was in Bloom County a few weeks ago around Christmas (with his tree). The storyline was temporarily suspended when Breathed had to relocate due to the wild fires.
There’s also the idea that by showing another cartoon’s characters, you’re effectively giving them more exposure / free advertising.
I mean, if you averaged 10,000 readers per day and a guy with 3 million reads per day shows off your characters, are you going to be anything but thrilled?
As an aside about that Pearls/Baby Blues/Zits crossover, it might be worth noting that Zits and Baby Blues have an author in common. I was amazed when I noticed that; the two strips have such completely different styles, both in art and in humor.
