Barbelith Underground > Creation > Collective Comics Project.

First off, one of the advantages this project has over the Barbelith Corpse is that you don't have anyone breathing down your neck. I will be cracking the whip a little when we start, but it will be more along the lines of a cheerleading, morale boosting nagging then anything else. If you start and don't finish, start and take three years, or don't even start at all, it's ok. Hopefully enough of us can get the ball rolling that we can involve other people. I know a few friends who would like a shot at something like this. Anyway, if you can't devote much time to it, work within your means. Do a two page quickie, or a one page gag strip. A pin-up even.

I strongly recommend you read the other thread. I will address your concerns here, because it ties in somewhat with both your questions, but for the most part we should try and keep them separate (or should we?).

Captain Zoom and I create our story. In the story is a farmer. He's seen milking cows in the background. Rizla has been dying to draw the adventures of a cow farmer all his life. So, he uses that farmer character in his own story, which takes place at the same time as the story Captain Zoom and I created, but from the farmer's viewpoint. It's that simple.

Now, if someone wanted to make it more complex then that, and have various stories snaking in and out of one another in weird ways, then they would either have to work it out with other teams, or create all the intersecting stories themsleves. So, Captain Zoom and I could do the Shifter's story, the Farmer's story, the cow's story, and the story of the guy who drank the cow's milk. This option is a little more complex, but again, not rocket science.

Meanwhile, Dekapot thinks we're full of nonsense and does a good old fashioned rip roaring adventure story that has nothing to do with our mini-epic.

Now, back to the example of Rizla and his appropriation of the farmer character. Let's say the farmer character is near and dear to the Captain's heart. He plans on doing his own self-published comic with the farmer. If Rizla used the character, he might be a little ticked off. So, let's say that Rizla asked him, the Captain agreed to this one time use, and Rizla created his story.

Here's the problem with this. Down the road Grant sees the farmer character being used by Rizla and thinks his take on the character is genius. So Grant does a story, without Captain Zoom's permission. He does this accidentally, believing that all the minor characters in the original story were copyright free. Captain Zoom calls him on it, Grant feels as if he's been misled because this project was supposed to be copyright free, and then there's all sorts of problems. And it might not be someone as agreeable as Grant. You could be dealing with a complete stranger. And in order to keep your rights, you have to deal with him.

To complicate matters even further, any concept created by the individual creators becomes the property of that creator. Say Dekapot makes the Shifter equivalent of the Fortress of Solitude. No one else can use that concept without his permission, even if it's considered an integral part of the mythos. If Dekapot gets snarky on us some day, he might end up pulling the rights out from under us. Sure, the project would survive, but it would sure suck.

The Shifter (and/or hopefully any other character created in the initial phases of this project) is public domain or copyright free, or shareware, whatever we decide is the best way to go. I created her, and goddammit, she's free.

My solution? Don't create anything you can't give up. Look at the paragraph above. I just did it. It's simple. I say we make it an established rule that anything that falls within the project is created under the same terms that the Shifter was created in. If you have a something that you want to keep, don't bring it to the table.

If you want to try and copyright various aspects of any story you create, be my guest. No one can stop you. However, don't be surprised if people accidentally use your ideas without premission and you're forced to take action against them. That isn't within the scope of this project.