I want to be heads. We're *both* heads.
Jun. 20th, 2006 01:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thehefnerFor those who have enjoyed reading my comic scans before, have I a treat for you. I went through the painstaking task scanning the entirety of one of my very favorite comic stories of all time, the ultimate Two-Face origin, "Eye of the Beholder" from BATMAN ANNUAL #14. It's a brilliant story that has fallen into obscurity, while many of its elements have been co-opted by later and inferior writers who end up taking credit for this story's greatness.
So here you go, please, read and enjoy. BATMAN ANNUAL #14: "Eye of the Beholder."
After I posted this, Bloo and I proceeded to have a two-hour long conversation dissecting every aspect of the rich, complex character of Harvey Dent. Not just the character as he stands, depicted so powerfully in that above story and in comics for over 65 years, but also how he could be handled in that Two-Face/Typhoid Mary fanfic I've been threatening to do.
What started off just an excuse for violent smut has slowly been evolving into much, much more. During our conversation, it became increasingly apparent that this story could be an excellent, ground-breaking way to explore this character in ways that have never really been done before, and to give him real character growth and development, which the laws of "status quo" of superhero comics would never allow for him. And maybe, possibly, even redemption.
If I can produce a story as powerful and moving as these ideas we've discovered, I cannot just let it be fanfiction. I just can't. Nor could I really change much of the names or the elements to make it a thiny-veiled homage; no matter what I called him or what I changed, the two-headed coin is absolutely essential to Two-Face. It's his crutch and his addiction; it's Harvey's real enemy, not Two-Face.
And I wonder, if I were to try to write this for publication, how much could I get away with? The obvious answer would be "you can't, they're copyrighted characters," and yet David Brin wrote a novella entitled "Thor Meets Captain America" and Tom De Haven wrote a Superman novel, and neither one, as far as I can tell, is in any way accredited or involved with the copyrighted characters of Marvel and DC comics.
How did they get away with it? Did they get away with it at all? If I were to include this ultimate Two-Face story in a collection of other stories, perhaps, and write an introduction where I explain its origins and the writers who influenced it and how it's a tribute, could I get away with it?
I might just have something amazing here. My head is so abuzz with ideas that I'm trembling. I don't know how I'll be able to sleep tonight.
It's not as much that I was to profit off the work of others as much as I want this story (if it truly works) to have a life and legitimacy that being an online-only "fanfiction" would never have.
So here you go, please, read and enjoy. BATMAN ANNUAL #14: "Eye of the Beholder."
After I posted this, Bloo and I proceeded to have a two-hour long conversation dissecting every aspect of the rich, complex character of Harvey Dent. Not just the character as he stands, depicted so powerfully in that above story and in comics for over 65 years, but also how he could be handled in that Two-Face/Typhoid Mary fanfic I've been threatening to do.
What started off just an excuse for violent smut has slowly been evolving into much, much more. During our conversation, it became increasingly apparent that this story could be an excellent, ground-breaking way to explore this character in ways that have never really been done before, and to give him real character growth and development, which the laws of "status quo" of superhero comics would never allow for him. And maybe, possibly, even redemption.
If I can produce a story as powerful and moving as these ideas we've discovered, I cannot just let it be fanfiction. I just can't. Nor could I really change much of the names or the elements to make it a thiny-veiled homage; no matter what I called him or what I changed, the two-headed coin is absolutely essential to Two-Face. It's his crutch and his addiction; it's Harvey's real enemy, not Two-Face.
And I wonder, if I were to try to write this for publication, how much could I get away with? The obvious answer would be "you can't, they're copyrighted characters," and yet David Brin wrote a novella entitled "Thor Meets Captain America" and Tom De Haven wrote a Superman novel, and neither one, as far as I can tell, is in any way accredited or involved with the copyrighted characters of Marvel and DC comics.
How did they get away with it? Did they get away with it at all? If I were to include this ultimate Two-Face story in a collection of other stories, perhaps, and write an introduction where I explain its origins and the writers who influenced it and how it's a tribute, could I get away with it?
I might just have something amazing here. My head is so abuzz with ideas that I'm trembling. I don't know how I'll be able to sleep tonight.
It's not as much that I was to profit off the work of others as much as I want this story (if it truly works) to have a life and legitimacy that being an online-only "fanfiction" would never have.
