I have a question.
I want to write some stories for halloween that won't fit in the contest. My dilemma is, all of these stories (about 4 of them) are ones that were previously published as old comic book stories (a few from The House of Mystery, one from Plop!, another from a Robert E. Howard short story). I want to re-write them with a TG twist. How do I do this without plagiarizing, or at least avoiding the appearance of plagiarizing? I don't have these comic stories in book form; they exist mainly in my memory. So I don't have writer credits for them, except the Robt. Howard one. How do I do this the right way - do i post a disclaimer, and if so, what should it say??
Help!
Comments
Make a notation at the beginning
This story was inspired by "..." It would be similar to FanFiction.
You won't be plagiarizing unless you take whole parts of the story verbatim and stick them into your work.
{{Hugs}}
House of Mystery
I don't know if it would help or not ... but, there is a DC comics Wiki for House of Mystery
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/House_of_Mystery_Vol_1
Might be kind of a pain to search through, there were 321 issues, and a lot of them don't seem to offer synopsis details.
The data on Plop seems a bit less comprehensive, but ... there's at least some stuff here:
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Plop_Vol_1_1
New Season
Erin and the Closeteers
It's Morphin Time!!!!
Now where did I park that Zord?
I was thinking "Captain Planet", myself...
"We're the Closeteers! You can be one, too! 'Cuz changing your gender is the thing to do!"
(Aaaaaaaaand that's going to be stuck in my head the rest of the night...)
Not much different
Sounds a lot like fan fiction to me, or even less objectionable. You can say where the inspiration came from but that is not really plagiarism unless you quote extensive parts of the dialog. It probably comes under the same sort of fair use exemption that Mad magazine used.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Ditto on the notice up-front...
Like I did with my Center story, which was influenced rather heavily by a music video.