Very nice. Pretty much anything can be mapped over the Simpsons cast, simply because it's so big; but the Bart-Milhouse dynamic looks like a really good fit for Kaneda-Tetsuo. And the trailer is gorgeous - I particularly liked how it arcs back to the underground look of the very first seasons.
> The team needed to tread carefully. Harvey knew that Otomo and his son, Shohei Otomo, were fans of Bartkira, and for a while Shohei was interested in getting involved with the project. James Stacey, a friend of Harvey and the owner of Tokyo, Japan-based comic publisher Black Hook Press, had been in touch with Kodansha, the company behind Young Magazine. Eventually, he received a letter that said Kodansha would never be able to endorse the project but was aware of its existence. A Bartkira book could be printed but never with the pages in sequential order, because this would create a direct competitor to Akira and give readers another, potentially cheaper way to consume Otomo's story.
> "Which was, I feel, forward-thinking of them," Harvey says.
> It was a similar situation with Matt Groening. The Bartkira organizers knew that he had seen a copy but to date have never received a cease and desist order. As an extra defense, Harvey decided to donate all of the book's profits to charity. Some went to the OISCA Coastal Forest Restoration Project in Japan's Miyagi Prefecture, where Otomo grew up. The rest went to Save the Children, a charity preferred by the late The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon.
The work involved is awe-inspiring but WHY — with this much effort something wholly new and original and most importantly.... SAFE from copyright lawyers could have been put into the universe.
Sometimes "true" wholly original creativity can only blossom after people cut their teeth by experimenting with fanworks. Few people truly start with their magnum opus.
It's also the case that most successful mass market "original" works are thoroughly inspired by other work and exist as careful synthesis of influences with bits of inspiration and new ideas worked in.
Yeah. Pretty much any writer, painter, musician, or performer, will gladly tell you that, when they started, they were really doing something in the style of X as best as they could. In some cases we even have proof (youthful manuscripts, recorded schoolplays, early works). That's effectively fanwork. It takes time to modulate one's original contributions to any art.
I don't understand the extreme amount of work that people put into works like this that could be shut down forever at the whim of the copyright holder.
"There is ongoing debate about to what extent fan fiction is permitted under contemporary copyright law. Some argue that fan fiction does not fall under fair use, as it is derivative work. The 2009 ruling by United States District Court permanently prohibiting publication in the United States of a book may be seen as upholding this position." [1]
Unless we can greatly reduce the length of copyright terms and/or clarify that fan fiction is allowed, you might as well create only original works so your months or years of work doesn't go to waste.
Update: From the link another HN user found, it says, "The Bartkira organizers knew that Matt Groening had seen a copy but to date have never received a cease and desist order. As an extra defense, Harvey decided to donate all of the book's profits to charity [including] Save the Children, a charity preferred by the late The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon."
So the creators are walking on eggshells, making sure they don't earn a cent and hoping the copyright holders don't sue one day.
Much as the hoarder inside me wishes we could preserve everything, I’m grateful that we can enjoy these temporary works even if they do just become fleeting experiences.
People have interests/things they like and want to show appreciation for. Hence fan fiction, fan videos, games, mods and hacks, reanimated videos, animations, etc.
Also it's worth noting that despite the memes online, the vast, vast majority of fan works are left alone and survive online for decades. The chance of a fan project actually going to waste is incredibly low, since a decent percentage of creators either like, support or don't care about fan projects based on their works, and even those that dislike them or try to shut them down only do so a minority of the time.
It just sometimes doesn't appear to be the case because 'fan project in development for 10 years shut down by [large company]' is an easy to write/attention grabbing news story, in the same way 'plane explodes in mid air, no survivors found' is for the mainstream media (with similar effects on people's perception of plane safety vs car/train/whatever safety).
Without examples of why these laws are bad, they'll just continue to exist.
> To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
The current copyright not only does NOTHING to progress science and the arts, it actively STIFLES innovation.
We need to move back to 10 years of copyright with an optional 10 year extension.
It's posted on the internet. Someone will always have a copy. It will always exist. And if it doesn't exist online, it will exist offline for people to look at away from the eyes of angry copyright holders. Art is eternal.
Practice and exposure. Having fun with your friends.
If you look at the spreadsheet at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Tn3PNewzF4t2nT9etXeq... then you'll notice that there's about four hundred people involved, most of whom did a mere two pages. That's really not a ton of work for any one artist.
If you go to a comics convention you will find a ton of stuff along these lines, at a smaller scale - here's two or three things you like, put together in a funny way, maybe you'll buy that, maybe that'll draw you in to a person's table to look at their original work and become a new fan of theirs. Batman but it's Adventure Time? A DeLorean driving out of the TARDIS? Portal but it's the Muppets? Whatever.
Clearly this isn't the case here, but even having the work available for a short time might achieve the creator's goals. I'm thinking of Dudesy and their "AI" George Carlin impression. It certainly generated a lot of press for the podcast.
Because it's awesome and fun to do. And rare copies will exist for a select few to share to select parties who would absolutely love to experience the contraband underground work.
>I don't understand the extreme amount of work that people put into works like this that could be shut down forever at the whim of the copyright holder.
Fun, passion, love, creativity, curiosity, so on and so forth.
