Fables creator places Wolf Among Us universe in public domain amid clash with DC over Telltale adaptation

[John Elden Ring]

US author and artist Bill Willingham has rather dramatically announced that he is placing the Fables comicbook property in the public domain, including all Fables spin-offs and characters. This means that - pending a judgement from third-party legal experts, anyway - anyone can now create art of any kind set in the Fables universe.

"What was once wholly owned by Bill Willingham is now owned by everyone, for all time. It's done, and as most experts will tell you, once done it cannot be undone. Take-backs are neither contemplated nor possible."

You might recognise Fables as the universe in which Telltale's The Wolf Among Us is set. It's a grubby noir fairytale world in which bedtime story characters like Snow White and Prince Charming live discreetly among regular humans, aka Mundies, having been driven from their homelands by a mysterious Adversary..

 

[Would_you_kindly]

Forgot they were doing wolf among us 2 wonder if we'll finally get a definitive answer about who the girl at the end is

 

[KiryuRealty]

Makes one wonder what’s keeping Alan Moore from doing the same, given his attitude toward DC being shady with Watchmen.

 

[Arc]

I don’t know the details, but something about a creator getting to stick it to one of these (presumably) exploitive mega companies is pretty satisfying.

Basically, try to greedily squeeze the money out of it now, assholes.

 

[Zzero]

Makes one wonder what’s keeping Alan Moore from doing the same, given his attitude toward DC being shady with Wwtchmen.

He doesn't own Watchmen, does he?

 

[KiryuRealty]

He doesn't own Watchmen, does he?

The contract with DC was that the rights to the property would be given to Alan Moore once the trade paperback collection of Watchmen went out of print.

Watchmen has NEVER gone out of print, officially. If Moore wanted, he could easily sue over the amount of different editions that DC/Warner publishing have put out over the years while claiming the original version never stopped production.