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NEWS AND VIEWS - MARCH 2026
WRITING NEWS No big news to report this month. I've been making steady progress on Hardcore -- I added nine chapters to it this month -- and I started writing a new Signalverse short starring Protectress last week, but that's pretty much it for writing news. I feel almost guilty spending so much time on Hardcore, because I think most of the people who are interested in my work would prefer that I devote my energies to the Signalverse, but having started this project, well, I feel obligated to finish it, and I don't have too much left to write anyway -- just the big finale, basically. Like I mentioned last month, Hardcore really got away from me -- I never expected it to run this long. I don't think it's my best work, either, to be honest. I know I shouldn't say things like that, because I don't want to discourage anyone from my reading my stuff, but partly because I was writing them as serials, my approach to both Hardcore and Lillandra was a little different than usual -- instead of writing up an extremely thorough outline for these stories, as I do for most of my projects, I basically just made stuff up as I went along. I'm capable of producing decent stories in this way -- I think Lillandra turned out all right -- but a good, solid outline would have made both of these books a lot tighter. As it is, they feel kind of "messy" to me. But as I've often said, I have a hard time evaluating my own work, so I'm not sure if this "messiness" is apparent to anyone else. * * * * * * * * WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE SIGNALVERSE I spent a lot of time working on the Signalverse setting before I started writing the first volume of The Adventures of Jack and Miracle Girl, so I knew a lot about Signal City and the superheroes and supervillains who lived there before I even began. I didn't know everything, though -- some characters, concepts, and ideas came to me later, as I was writing the subsequent books, and there were some aspects of the universe that I hadn't really thought through and had to sort of improvise on the fly. As a result, there are some things about the Signalverse that I'm not entirely happy with -- some improvisations that didn't really work and some decisions that I regret making, but which it's too late to do anything about now. Here's some of them: Metahumans. I really wish I had chosen a different term to describe those Signalverse characters whose powers have manifested spontaneously. At the time I wrote the first Jack and Miracle Girl, I assumed it was just a generic term for a super-powered person; I didn't realize how closely the term was associated with DC Comics (a DC "metahuman" is basically the equivalent of a Marvel "mutant"). It's too late to change it now, of course, but if I could go back and change any one thing, this would be it. One-Punch. One-Punch is a background character, a superhero, who was mentioned in some of the early novels. I invented the character long before I had ever heard of the Japanese One-Punch Man, and the characters aren't much alike anyway (except for having a powerful punch), but I don't like that they share a name; I worry that people will think I ripped it off. (That's the main reason One-Punch was killed off back in 2018.) Some character names. I have a tendency to smoosh together words when I'm coming up with heroes and villains: Batterypack, the Turboninja, Brainfreeze, etc. Some of these work, but some don't, and one I particularly dislike is Nightdragon, which really should have been "Night Dragon." I'm not wild about the 1940s-era "Superheroic Union," either, or the "Old Society," which is kind of generic-sounding. The Adventures of Jack and Miracle Girl. I kind of wish now that I hadn't started the series with Jack and Lia's story. The first book in this series probably should have been something a little more traditional; the fact that it revolves around a romance might be a turn off for those people who are more interested in straight-up superhero adventure. But I could be wrong about this. * * * * * * * * PUBLIC DOMAIN SUPERMAN? I was scrolling through X the other day when I stumbled across some folks who were excitedly discussing the kinds of Superman comics they're looking forward to making after the first few issues of Action Comics fall into the public domain in the 2030s. I hated to rain on their parade, but... Superman, the character, will never enter the public domain. He's not like Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, or Captain Nemo. Practically everything about Superman has been thoroughly trademarked: "Superman", "Clark Kent", the "S" symbol on chest, and probably a bunch of other things are all registered trademarks of DC Comics. Sure, Action Comics #1 will eventually enter the public domain, along with the serials, the TV shows, and, in the distant future, the movies, and you'll be able to sell your own copies of those (as long as you avoid mentioning "Superman" or any other trademarks in your advertising), but Superman, the character, belongs to DC, just like Mickey Mouse belongs to Disney, and legally they can probably prevent you from selling your own original Superman comics. If you slap that "S" symbol on his chest in one of your comics, which is an essential part of his costume and identity, you're using one of DC's trademarks and potentially "confusing" customers into thinking they're getting an official DC product. That means they can sue. Now, granted, it might be possible to navigate this legal minefield if you're very, very careful, crossing all your p's and dotting all your q's, but who wants to be the first one to risk the wrath of DC's lawyers? I'm certainly not going to try it. As a practical matter, you're probably never going to be able to use Superman in the same manner as those earlier literary characters. That's a shame, and personally I think our current trademark and copyright laws are ludicrous (especially where trademarks function as a kind of de facto copyright extension), but that's the situation. |