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> So let’s look back; all the way back. The first comic printed in America is The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, which appeared as a newspaper supplement in 184
by furyofantares 2y ago
> So let’s look back; all the way back. The first comic printed in America is The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, which appeared as a newspaper supplement in 1841 and a book in 1849. At eighty pages of continuous picaresque story,2 it’s certainly a novel. But it is immediately disqualified for not being American. It’s an unlicensed ripoff of an unlicensed British ripoff of a Swiss comic by Rodolphe Töpffer! You can’t just make your Eurocomics American through translation and crime!
No argument re: translation, but crime? Was there international copyright at the time? Not at all an expert but it looks to me like there wasn't before this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention
- Nevermark 2y ago> No argument re: translation, but crime? The bar is clearly set to “no caveats”, and European sourced or copied or adapted from are all more European than “first American” is allowed to bear.
- Waterluvian 2y agoThat kind of turns this into a subjective semantic pursuit.
- Nevermark 2y agoOr it always was that? Someone wondering when things “like A” “first” morphed into things “like B” is going to get involved in a lot of discovery driven judgement calls along the way.
- furyofantares 2y agoMy question is only if it was a crime. It's OK to question evidence without being for the thing being evidenced against.
- WillPostForFood 2y agoand according to that wiki page, the US didn't join the Berne Convention until 1988! The United States acceded to the convention on 16 November 1988, and the convention entered into force for the United States on 1 March 1989