If you just want to check it out, most libraries have them I think — sometimes on hoopla. And also I know they did just really big paperback collections a while back, which were much less Expensive. Greta way to see if you’re into it.

Oh totally. I figured it was something like that.

For example, I heard that Ed Brubaker gets more money from his cameo in Winter Soldier than he got for writing the storyline the movie was based on.

Sure thing. I only know because I looked into it a few years ago, and really struggled to find much info. As a big fan of the film and the animated series, I just wanted to check it out. All I could get were crappy scanned PDFs and I gave up.

Speaking of the animated series, I feel like it captures more of the tone of the comic. It’s no where near as dark or violent because it was meant for kids on Saturday mornings, but it has a bit more of a cynical bite to it.

And speaking of crazy comic adaptations — if you’re at all interested in indie comics and haven’t checked out the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles run, it’s a blast. (The new stuff from IDW is really good too. )

As many have posted already, it’s called The Men in Black. Any adaptations of the movie drop “the” and it’s just Men in Black.

To answer your next question, and one I struggled with previously — it’s super hard to find. They have not reprinted it, it hasn’t been collected. Most likely it’s a lot of publishing rights issues, given that it started as an indie comic and then eventually became part of Marvel (now Disney) through a series of mergers.

The original creator hasn’t done much since. I hope he got paid though. The movie is very different, but it does owe a lot to the original comic.

Yes. And it’s actually a Marvel comic, since Marvel bought Malibu comics sometime in the late 90s I think? Maybe it was early 00s.

The original comic has aliens, but it has a lot more general paranormal stuff. Ghosts, demons, stuff like that.

I have a feeling MGM also trademarked the shoe design as well, which would likely make the red color too close. Many times with IP they do both, trademark and copyright, to cover their bases. Trademark does not expire as long as you continue to use it and continue to defend it.

So for example, eventually, inevitably, the copyright for Superman will expire, at least the portions of the character present in Action Comics #1. But since the S shield is trademarked, it will not be in the public domain. So you could technically adapt that original comic, but could never show the shield. I bet DC comics trademarked elements of the character design itself too.

I’m sure Disney holds some trademarks for visual elements of Mickey Mouse’s design as well.

Now I know some people will come at this and claim “that’s not how trademark works”, but it totally is. It’s not what it was originally intended to do, but that is what it does in modern America.

Three real world examples that show what you can do using trademark to its fullest:

I’m sure many people are familiar with those baby bottles that have the hole in them, which are supposed to be easier for baby to hold and prevent gas bubbles. So the original idea for that was patented, of course. And what was patented was the idea of a hole in a bottle. I saw the original drawings in class — it looked like a donut. Not at all what we think of. And that patent gave the inventor 20 years before it became available to everyone.

So then the inventor took the shape that actually worked the best and trademarked it, as a silhouette. And really it’s the only shape that gets all the benefits. And trademarks never expire, so every bottle in that classic shape is licensed from this guy.

Second example, sticking with bottles. The shape of the Coke bottle is trademarked. So even if they had patented the formula and now it was public (they never did so they never had to reveal it) you would never be able to bottle coke in the classic coke bottle. In fact, that trademark technically means you can’t re-sell those bottles either. Like you couldn’t refill them with homemade coke and sell them.

And last example I feel like giving: the Empire State Building is trademarked. Not just the name (of course that is) but the shape of the building. And some of the architectural details too I think. Because of that, if you want to use the ESB in a movie or tV show, you have to get permission and/or pay them. And any movie that features it will have at the end a little “used with permission statement”.

Trademark can be used to cover a LOT of things. It can make things really murky as some of these stories enter the public domain in the coming decades.

Of course they would have gotten sued by MGM. MGM invented the ruby slippers (or at least the idea of the magic slippers being ruby), so they have exclusive rights to that idea. The only source material that Wicked pulls from is the original books, and only what is public domain.