Lost Girls

June 26, 2006 2:58 PM

The hospital that owns the copyright to Peter Pan is not very happy about a graphic novel by Alan Moore depicting the sexual awakening of Wendy [NSFW images].
posted by brundlefly (73 comments total)

fuck them.
posted by beerbajay at 3:04 PM on June 26, 2006

Earlier this year, Great Ormond Street announced plans to publish the authorised sequel to Barrie's children's classic called "Peter Pan in Scarlet", set for publication in October.

Ugh. What is it with 'Scarlet' and estate-sanctioned sequels?
posted by bingo at 3:08 PM on June 26, 2006

Luckily though, Wendy's drawn hawt so its all good.

I always knew that "sword" in Peter's pocket wasn't made of steel.
posted by fenriq at 3:10 PM on June 26, 2006

Did Moore find Melinda Gebbie in some Elfquest fan-art zine, or what?
posted by interrobang at 3:11 PM on June 26, 2006

I always knew that "sword" in Peter's pocket wasn't made of steel.
posted by public at 3:13 PM on June 26, 2006

interrobang: harsh but fair.
posted by GuyZero at 3:18 PM on June 26, 2006

Tell the hospital to be patient. In a couple of years, Moore will pick a fight with the publisher, throw a fit, and have his name taken off the book.
posted by Ian A.T. at 3:18 PM on June 26, 2006

At least it's being released in one volume. It'd be unusual and disappointing for the first sixth of the book to be released and the rest of it never published.
posted by solid-one-love at 3:22 PM on June 26, 2006

So Great Ormond Street Hospital is unhappy. I, on the other hand, have already preordered my copy of Lost Girls, glad to pay $75 for Moore's latest. So it all balances out in the end.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:23 PM on June 26, 2006

Lovely, yet another piece of work ripped off by Alan and made darker and oh-so-much-more edgy. Can someone please stuff him and American McGee into a tube and then bury them somewhere? Please? I'd like to read something original (Like Moore used to do) not a rape of someone else's efforts.
posted by Vaska at 3:24 PM on June 26, 2006

The hospital seems like it's being pretty reasonable to me, actually. They didn't say they weren't going to let it happen, only that they're not entirely comfortable letting someone who've they've never been contacted by publish sexually explicit material involving their IP.
posted by Alex404 at 3:28 PM on June 26, 2006

I'm still going to read this. But Gebbie's drawings suck balls.
posted by interrobang at 3:30 PM on June 26, 2006

Is that not the point?

I'm still going to read this. But Gebbie's drawings suck balls.
posted by Captaintripps at 3:36 PM on June 26, 2006

It's not that great at all, but a wonderful concept. I'd be happy if i were the estate--Moore has opened up a whole new area for them to profit from (and at least it's better than shitty straight-to-video Disney crap sequels)
posted by amberglow at 3:36 PM on June 26, 2006

Yes, because there should only be one interpretation of any work of art.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:36 PM on June 26, 2006

Yah, Alex404, did anyone actually read what they said?

Great Ormond Street hospital spokesman Stephen Cox said the hospital had yet to see the novel in question, but was responding to media reports on its content.

Asked whether direct action to have Moore's book banned was a possibility, he replied: "That is one option open to us. We are not rushing to judgement."

Man, that's like one step away from a book burning!
posted by freebird at 3:37 PM on June 26, 2006

I like sexy comics.
posted by adgnyc at 3:38 PM on June 26, 2006

"Moore insists on calling the work 'pornography'..."

God bless him, the ornery curmudgeon.
posted by mr_roboto at 3:40 PM on June 26, 2006

Looks like he's ripping off Henry Darger more than Peter Pan.
posted by bardic at 3:44 PM on June 26, 2006

I didn't see no dicks on those chicks.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 3:53 PM on June 26, 2006

The Peter Pan hospital owns the copyright until 2007, which is when we can take this almost 100 year old work and do anything we want with it.

The hospital has been known to do some saber-rattling whenever anyone wants to do anything creative with the Peter Pan story, and their defense is that many dying children rely on the profits from Peter Pan and they must control any and all stories related to it.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some awful law change before it rightfully and finally goes into the public domain, like how Disney magically gets our copyrights extended in the US every time the mouse gets on the chopping block.
posted by mathowie at 4:00 PM on June 26, 2006

Great Ormond Street has actually commissioned a Canadian author to pen a sequel to Peter Pan to continue its copyright. It hopes the new book will be so popular for the next 100 years it will continue. I think any organization that can subsist from the royalties of a single idea is doing something right. But it's time to get Peter Pan out into the open, even if it means something lacivious like this comic. But hey, erotic comics have their place. GF and I are fans of Shadow and Light. Anyone know that one?
posted by parmanparman at 4:04 PM on June 26, 2006

Alan Moore.

Whoa. Just whoa.
posted by taursir at 4:07 PM on June 26, 2006

Lovely, yet another piece of work ripped off by Alan and made darker and oh-so-much-more edgy. Can someone please stuff him and American McGee into a tube and then bury them somewhere? Please? I'd like to read something original (Like Moore used to do) not a rape of someone else's efforts.

You're thinking Todd McFarlane, not Alan Moore.
posted by Ryvar at 4:09 PM on June 26, 2006

No, American McGee would benefit from that treatment as well. Or rather, the world would.
posted by CRM114 at 4:11 PM on June 26, 2006

The Wikipedia article on Lost Girls suggests that some retailers are afraid that selling it or owning it might open them up to child pornography charges. Is that really a possibility? I love Alan Moore's work and would love to read this, but would hate to be labeled a sex offender for it.
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:12 PM on June 26, 2006

So is this really a viable business model? Take a children's classic, toss in some pornography, generate some canned controversy and then PROFIT!? I'll be watching closely to see how much Moore rakes in on this. If this works then I can finally start shopping around my The Secret Life of Tiggers.
posted by nixerman at 4:14 PM on June 26, 2006 [1 favorite]

What's next? The sexual awakening of Mowgli? Calvin & Hobbes? TinTin?

This barely rises above the level of slash fanfic. Though I see the principle invoked by Mathowie - eternal copyright is inherently a bad thing, maybe - the artwork shown in the links isn't all that inspiring. I guess we have to defend the right to mash up, or remix, or extend. It would be easier to defend better art, though - both better conceptually, and in it's execution.
posted by dash_slot- at 4:14 PM on June 26, 2006

Example: his (NSFW) treatment of the Wizard of Oz (yes that's Dorothy).
posted by Ryvar at 4:15 PM on June 26, 2006

Great Ormond Street has actually commissioned a Canadian author to pen a sequel to Peter Pan to continue its copyright.

IANACL, but I don't think that's how that works.

When their copyright expires on Peter Pan then anyone can use the character and the material in the book in whatever way they want. The hospital can obviously commission whoever they want to write whatever they want, but that's not going to somehow reset the copyright on the work.
posted by bshort at 4:17 PM on June 26, 2006

How can the work be condemned if no one outside the artists and publisher have seen it in entirety?

I'm reminded of when Catholics vehemently decried Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ, even though they had never seen it.
posted by Mr. Six at 4:18 PM on June 26, 2006

If you're really a glutton for punishment, you can wadet hrough this thread wherein comics legend/asshead John Byrne fulminates about Lost Girls and proves he doesn't really understand copyright law.
posted by COBRA! at 4:28 PM on June 26, 2006

Interview with Melinda Gebbie.
Review of the books.
Lost Girls and Zizis, by Melinda Gebbie, from the book, Inappropriate Behavior. [NSFW]

Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie.

posted by nickyskye at 4:33 PM on June 26, 2006

Reiterate: Alan Moore != American McGee, any more than Shirley Jackson = Dean Koontz.
posted by cortex at 4:33 PM on June 26, 2006

What's next? The sexual awakening of Mowgli? Calvin & Hobbes? TinTin?

I can see the value in allowing creative riffs on other people's work because sometimes some true gems come out of it - funny spoofs, or something that actually improves on the original.

Sometimes though, I wish the derivative artists would excercise some restraint, particularly when it comes to the sexual or the scatalogical. It's a case of, geeze, didja have to go there with my favourite character?

Just like it cheeses me off every time I see some yahoo in a pickup around here with a pissing Calvin sticker on his back window. Dude probably never even read the original strips. Grr.
posted by Zinger at 4:38 PM on June 26, 2006

Brings to mind the "Disneyland Memorial Orgy."
posted by ericb at 4:48 PM on June 26, 2006

Heh. More from the John Bryne forum on why Alan Moore is evil and why the UK is some kind of blasted uninhabitable wilderness since Thatcher left...
posted by Artw at 4:49 PM on June 26, 2006

This brings hope to the thousands of slash fanfiction writers: Yes, you too can have your drivel published, as long as you first build up a reputation with a few excellent works.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:57 PM on June 26, 2006

I'm still not sure if I like Alan Moore or not. I loved From Hell, but Watchmen? I could hardly read it. V for Vendetta was solidly alright, but really, I thought the movie was a lot better.*

I guess I'll wait until all my friends have read Lost Girls before reading it, though I will say that attractive drawings of naked ladies make (almost) anything better.

*I know, I know. Commence the stoning.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 4:57 PM on June 26, 2006

What's next? The sexual awakening of Mowgli? Calvin & Hobbes? TinTin?

Doesn't look like it's going to happen to Tintin.

Acquired growth hormone deficiency and hypogonadotropic hypogonadism in a subject with repeated head trauma, or Tintin goes to the neurologist.
posted by porpoise at 5:02 PM on June 26, 2006 [2 favorites]

Porpoise, that deserves its own FPP.
posted by Mr. Six at 5:08 PM on June 26, 2006

No kidding. I just posted that on my own blog. Thanks, Porpoise!
posted by brundlefly at 5:11 PM on June 26, 2006

I've seen better art by high schoolers. The publisher would do well to shrinkwrap copies so potential buyers can't see horrid it is drawn.
posted by mischief at 5:19 PM on June 26, 2006

I'm pretty sure I saw the original link to that article either here or on metachat, posted by docpops iirc, but my googlefu fails me. Or perhaps I'm thinking of the super-soaker ear-canal drainer.
posted by porpoise at 5:34 PM on June 26, 2006

DRE:
Would these sessions with Alan, talking about the book or doing sketches lead to sex?

MG:
I think the answer is, yeah as often as not. It was exciting for us and we were very pleased by it so we did have a physical response to it. We didn’t always because it’s only within the last year or so that Alan has become not under a huge burden of pressure. He’s not someone who has had as much leisure time as most normal human beings. But relationship-wise, both personally and physically, I think we’ve come through this brilliantly. I don’t think most people could do what we did because the book is very self-revealing. If you have any problems, if you have any shadows, if you have any self-consciousness about your psychological relationship with sex or your emotional or physical relationship with it, then these things will be patently clear to the public. I think we’re hoping that the public will have the same response to it that we had. As we worked through these things, we laughed or were amazed or a bit spooked by the story because we’ve been really open with who we are about it on a personal level. You have to be, because if you don’t show what it is you enjoy and what you like and what you revel in, this thing is not going to have any juice is it.

Barf.
posted by basicchannel at 5:34 PM on June 26, 2006

The sexual awakening of Tintin?

That's almost been done.
posted by DragonBoy at 5:42 PM on June 26, 2006

Illegal art



Naughty Disney in color.

Oz à la Freud.

Tin Tin never grew up. Neither did a number of others.
posted by nickyskye at 5:43 PM on June 26, 2006 [1 favorite]

I mean, I realize she's his wife and all... but first Mr. Rogers naked, now this. :(
posted by basicchannel at 5:44 PM on June 26, 2006

Yeah, Alan Moore just isn't a man you want to picture naked.
posted by graventy at 6:11 PM on June 26, 2006

If you actually go through Neil Gaiman's Journal you can see he goes over some of the actual IP issues. This is not the Wendy that adventured with Peter Pan, this is the Wendy who may have inspired Barrie to write that character, so League of Gentleman comparisons are less than apt. This kind of thing goes on all the time - c.f. P.J Farmer's use of Alice Pleasance Liddel in the Riverworld series.

The complication arises from a hospital which has been given Perpetual Rights (regardless of time limits) to particular items of Barrie's output by the British government. As this isn't any of those items, and thus not their IP, their case is pretty weak. Though I'd imagine they would be pretty horrified and vocal because it's pr0n, it's doubtful they have a leg to stand on.

Of course, IANAL, though I do enjoy sounding as if I know what I'm talking about.
posted by Sparx at 6:20 PM on June 26, 2006

How can the work be condemned if no one outside the artists and publisher have seen it in entirety?

it's already been torrented. many have seen it.
posted by amberglow at 6:22 PM on June 26, 2006

I've read a couple parts of it thanks to bittorrent. It's better than ordinary pornographic comics, but it's not as good as Moore's other works.

The art is, as others have said, pretty bad. There are some nice touches, but it's generally a sort of unskilled impressionism. Figures tend to be inappropriately indistinct for the focus of the frame - you'll have a bush with all the leaves detailed on it at the same depth as messy blobbish looking characters.

In the parts I read, they didn't seem to be making much use of the characters' backstories either - if I hadn't been told, I wouldn't have noticed that they were the characters from those stories (Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Wizard of Oz). There are also some clumsy attempts to replay certain scenes from multiple perspectives that read like rejected ideas from Promethea. Overall, I'm rather disappointed with what I've read so far.

This is all, of course, distinct from the copyright issues.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 6:30 PM on June 26, 2006

Bad art + shamelessly boring, egotistical purpose for doing it = meh.

Ah, well. At least we still have the legacy of "The Watchmen" & "V for Vendetta".

*sigh*

(even Elfquest fan-art is usually better than the panels I'm seeing...unless there are some incredibly wrought pieces that have just not found their way around yet, I'm thinking it's much ado about nothing in a desire to sell crap to slavering fans)
posted by batmonkey at 6:42 PM on June 26, 2006

There are romantic themes in the story and the fight with Capt. Hook who’s (theatrically) usually the same actor playing Wendy’s dad, I mean c’mon, Freudian sexual overtones galore.
This is not to say I approve or oppose, just saying they are there. And an exploration of that element of the work can be worthwhile (depending on it’s execution).
It doesn’t mean we should denegrate the work with salacious commentary.

...I’d totally do that crocodile though.
posted by Smedleyman at 6:53 PM on June 26, 2006

Christ. Lost Girls.

Some of Alan Moore's stuff is fucking brilliant. V for Vendetta and Watchmen were amazing. Other stuff . . . Dude has some beliefs about sexual freedom that go waaaaay beyond what I'd consider ethical. I mean, Miracleman starts out fantastic, exploration of the effect of superpowers on the common man and whatnot, and ends up with presenting a whole bunch of aliens fucking each other nonstop as diplomacy, and a hyperintelligent three-year-old getting it on with as many people as possible.

Eeeeeh.
posted by schroedinger at 7:02 PM on June 26, 2006

"That there are people who would defend Moore on any grounds just adds to my overall sense of having wasted 30 years of my life."

Wow, never knew John Byrne was such a dick.
posted by Tenuki at 7:41 PM on June 26, 2006

schroedinger: I'm torn trying to figure out if some of Moore's treatments of sexuality are taboo breaking just to draw attention (rather like some of Anne Rice), or advocacy, or just playing around with genre. (Other examples include bestiality and incest in Top 10, and some elements of Promethia.) Also, in V for Vendetta, wasn't Evey raped as part of her simulated imprisonment? (I don't fully remember.)
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:06 PM on June 26, 2006

I don't think I've ever read anything that clarified the issue of 'pornography' w.r.t. this sort of work as well and succinctly as Gaiman does, in the third link:

It is one of the tropes of pure pornography that events are without consequence. No babies, no STDs, no trauma, no memories best left unexamined. Lost Girls, however, is all about consequences. It's also about more things than sex – war, music, love, lust, repression and time, to pick a handful of subjects (I could pick more). It's the kind of smut that would have no difficulty in demonstrating to an overzealous prosecutor that it has unquestionable artistic validity beyond its simple first amendment right to exist.

posted by George_Spiggott at 8:20 PM on June 26, 2006

we have a guy in St. Augustine, FL who climbed to the top of the lighthouse in a tiger suit to protest cartoon character porn... . People took him just a little bit seriously until he called the cops to report someone cut the head off his dog... and then the cops found the head and he admitted to doing it. Our local alt weekly is obsessed with getting an interview before he does something even more batshit insane and gets put away forever.
posted by trinarian at 8:22 PM on June 26, 2006

My impressions of John Byrne have been fatally damaged by the few times I have read the Byrne Robotics board. He behaves unpleasantly to those he disagrees, often resorting to name-calling (in the Lost Girls thread, his first post calls someone an asshole for anticipating the book. That's it; just calls someone an asshole, with no other comment.

I find his board to be an unfitting way to remember John Byrne, so I take pains to avoid it.
posted by JDC8 at 8:38 PM on June 26, 2006

...also Byrne made Superman do porno.
posted by Artw at 9:19 PM on June 26, 2006

I've read some of Lost Girls, and didn't care for it one whit, and Moore's claim that it's pornography makes me a mite embarassed; I know pornography, pornography is a friend of mine, and this, Mister Moore, ain't pornography.

Lost Girls is erotica, in the dullest, most pretentious sense of the word. Gebbie's art is damn weak, and her attempt to use an archaic style of drawing to excuse/cover it up is fails miserably by making her shortcomings that much more obvious.

That being said, Moore is still the greatest comics writer of the last 25 years or so.
He wrote a dull comic book, but I have a shelf full of reasons to forgive him.

The folks wringing their hands and moaning "Is nothing sacred?!?" should take a look at pornographic and risque literature from a couple of centuries ago. Slashfic is nothing new; hell, novels featuring the erotic adventures of Napoleon Bonaparte were published while he was emporer, if memory serves.

And Vaska's comment is hilarious - yeah, he sure raped Marvelman (Itself a rip-off/replacement for Captain Marvel after DC closed Fawcett down), Len Wein & Bernie Wrightson's efforts, and Charlton Comics.
Raped them right into greatness.


PS. It's my personal belief that the membership of John Byrne's board is completely comprised of sockpuppets and bots controlled by Ol' Johnny Redbeard himself. The guy has the time, since he doesn't draw backgrounds anymore, and hasn't had a monthly exceed 25 issues since bloody forever.

How the dude hasn't yet been plugged by some Mark David Chapman/Valerie Solanas who has 50 copies of Babe #1 festering in a long box somewhere is a mystery to me.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:31 PM on June 26, 2006

Alan Moore news. Sweet. This is what MetaFilter is for!
posted by scarabic at 9:31 PM on June 26, 2006

Of course this isn't the first time Alice has appeared in porn. (Best Music/comedy porn I've seen.)
posted by Tenuki at 9:46 PM on June 26, 2006

How is this an issue now? I was repugnated by Lost Girls back in like '92 or '94. Someone who has complaining rights must have seen this back then.
posted by DonnieSticks at 9:54 PM on June 26, 2006

solid-one-love: stone cold ZING!
posted by samh23 at 10:13 PM on June 26, 2006

I have a bootleg pornographic Tintin. It's been done.

And done pretty well, I might add.
posted by interrobang at 10:42 PM on June 26, 2006

Great, more comics. Even if they are not ones that I would buy (having seen a preview).

Everyone write a comic about how they feel about the Lost Girls comic and it's characters.

Then i shall sue you for using my idea ; >
posted by asok at 1:59 AM on June 27, 2006

(yes that's Dorothy).

I've been to Kansas, and I can tell you they don't dress like that in Kansas.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:35 AM on June 27, 2006

How in the world can anyone still hold a copyright on Peter Pan?

It's not as old as I thought it was, but the author who wrote the original play died in 1937.
posted by Target Practice at 5:20 AM on June 27, 2006

How in the world can anyone still hold a copyright on Peter Pan?

Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988, Schedule 6, Section 301: Provisions for the Benefit of the Hospital for Sick Children.
posted by jack_mo at 7:16 AM on June 27, 2006

Disney's going to have tio get itself a special law like that someday...
posted by Artw at 7:56 AM on June 27, 2006

Is it just me or is it a little creepy that Peter Pan always forgets everyone he’s killed and anyone who’s died, etc?

Seems like Moore is riffing on that concept through the romantic/sexual aspects of Peter Pan.

....not having seen it directly, I can’t confirm that or tell how well he’s executing it.
posted by Smedleyman at 9:50 AM on June 27, 2006