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Lovely piece, Deva. I spent the time walking to, from and at work thinking over fan fiction, something I have never actually given a second glance to.
The only thing that I can think to add is that your definition of fan fiction is left somewhat hazy. Grant Morrison writing the Doom Patrol. Frank Miller on Batman. Shakespearean scholars writing about homosexual subtexts. I couldn't imagine these works as fanfic, not in the way they're presented. The last example because it is a non-fiction interpretation of an established piece. A better comparison would be made if you mentioned an examination of Blake's 7 subtext, which seems to me to be a little different from an outright piece of fiction.
The other examples are a little trickier, and it all depends on one's notion of Canon. The obvious way to look at it would to say Canon is by the original author and/or the current owner of the property. I think Canon can be a little more difficult than that. I feel that Canon is determined by viewpoint of the majority. A few examples.
A book of amateur fiction set within the Star Trek universe was released not long ago. This book, composed of what would be considered "fanfic", is now Canon simply because it is accepted by the entity that "owns" Star Trek in the public mind.
I have friends that swear that the Star Wars novels and comics are Canon and that Lucas was going to make the third trilogy based on these works. I figured this idea was garbage, and that Lucas was too much of an egomaniac to base his movies on anyone else's work but Kurosawa's. To me, the Star Wars Canon is the film, to them, it's anything Star Wars (except the Marvel comics and the Holiday Special, which I consider Canon). But the truth is, until Lucas says otherwise, I have to accept that these stories are Canon.
Grant Morrison's run on Doom Patrol, and any mainstream comic writer not working on an imaginary story or comic that is "retconned", is working within the Canon.
Now, these are all owned, legally, by the entity publishing them. But let's look at the case of Miracleman. There are three eras of Miracleman, and most everyone seems to feel that only one version is Canon. The majority seem to feel that Gaiman should be given the rights to Miracleman, not because he created it (Mick Anglo did), or because he owns it (Todd McFarlane does) but because his version, to them, is Canon. The viewpoint of the people has made the Moore-Gaiman Miracleman run Canon, no matter the legalities of it. Very few people care about the Anglo comics, and it will take McFarlane a long time to replace Gaiman's Miracleman from peoples minds, if ever.
Sorry to ramble, but this all seems to tie into various other discussions popping up, like the Public Domain superhero and Continuity, although maybe only I see that.
By the way, if something is Retconned, that is, considered by the Authority of the Canon as non-Canon (think Pre-Crisis DC) is that now considered Fanfic? |
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