HOME STRETCH!!! possible help needed...

[SSTiger]

Originally Posted by Bishop

Ummmm, no. That isn’t how trademark works. Removing the “tm” doesn’t remove the trademark on the logo. We should just have Hellboy in the same font as the “Fanfiction anthology” text.

I agree if it were something that was for sale; but for a fan work that'd be enough.

Regardless; new font, sure, why not.

I actually have a decent collection of fonts since I do a little lettering too; here's a couple of "Demonic" style stuff (both are free-to-use):

(Bear in mind that I cannot do graphic design; if we go with one of these I can send the font to whoever's doing the cover and you'll need to do the rest.)



^ I especially like the first one.

[RobertS]

I’m a graphic artist by trade, so I am willing to help. That being said, I am now on holidays for the next 10 days. As far as the hellboy logo, if this is a fan fiction and not for sale, print or distribution, is it any different from using the character, who is also trademarked. I mean tones of people slap a Batman, Spider-Man,etc logo on their fan work and Hellboy isn’t Disney and is probably the most legally anal company out there.

Just my thought...but I don’t really know trademark laws.

[Scribbly]

I don't really have any concern about the typos we can use to substitute the original logo but about the use of the character's name itself. An Arial bold would make it.
I think that what is important is to keep well established that this is a fan fiction HOMAGE to Hellboy, made by members of the DW forums.
I will rather put the word Homage to Hellboy instead of Featuring Hellboy in the title.
Featuring sounds like we already have the author's or publisher's OK to do this. Which is not.
An homage is more humble and it express the meaning of this whole group project. IMHO.

I am graphic designer, illustrator and I do licensing material as well.
Comics not that much. Mostly for hobby nowadays.
A trademark means somebody use others IP without permission, ends on court.
But as a group's homage, without commercial purpose, only for the exposure, we have a great chance of make it well. I wouldn't hesitate. WE are already there.

[SSTiger]

The word "Featuring" does not carry any implication of official legal right or permission; it only means that a certain character is primarily featured in the story inside.

Also, using the word "homage" will not provide any legal protection, because, as RobertS pointed out, we ARE using Mignola's IP without permission. Same goes for every other character from every other franchise that we are using in the book. Legally speaking, these are all Trademark/Intellectual Property violations that can be taken to court.

If you absolutely have to call it an homage to Hellboy, you'd also have to call it an homage to the Fantastic Four, Devil May Cry, Hulk, etc. etc. and list every single franchise we've used on the cover.

"Fan fiction featuring Hellboy" is a more accurate description, since that puts its non-commercial nature front and center (check out any number of fanfic sites and "fan fiction" is the official phrase used in titles for stuff like this, not "homage").

Any further disclaimer we add should be detailed inside, not on the cover. I remember author Steven Brust once wrote and distributed a Firefly fanfic called My Own Kind Of Freedom, with an ownership disclaimer & a Creative Commons License on the inside. That's a known and established author, writing unauthorized fanfic of another known and established author's work, without any legal ramifications. Something like that should work fine for us, too. All this obsessing over the legalese doesn't get us anywhere because there's really no fancy lingo that can shield us 100%, so I'd rather not restart the wording discussion.

The big question here was whether and how to add DW's name to the title, and EDuke has made his views clear on that. So it'd be best to pick the logo/font and move forward.

[12013]

just an update guys... I know its been quiet and people are probably wondering when the hell we will see this thing. I'm still working on getting my pages lettered. but besides the cover, that's it. hopefully this will be all finished soon.

as for the cover, again I'm not sure if our cover guy will have a chance to do something for us, so...in the face of possible extreme personal embarrassment, I drew something that is in the process of being colored that MAYBE could be used as a cover...in case there is nothing else. when its done, I will see if you graphic designers will put the titles/logos that we came up with on it and we can see if its something worthwhile.
gotta admit, makes me nervous to say "hey, heres MY art to be the cover for the whole thing " but..there will be an option. unless its deemed to sucky, and then we can come up with something else if needed.

anyway..just a quick update.

[12013]

hey....!!! that looks awesome SCRIBBLY. maybe that's a way to go if nothing else comes up.


this is the black and white to the art I was doing for a possible cover option. curious to know if people think this wouldn't work at all.... id LOVE for anyone to put some lettering on it to see what it looks like..kinda like scribblys up there..
I also have some coloring options coming for my art here.





OH...and also..the awesome RobertS lettered my pages and they are DONE. the book is ready to be seen, minus cover designs. SSTIGER. you said you could do PDF formatting for us? is that still a possibility?


ALMOST DONE GUYS!!

edit...WHY CANT I GET MY IMAGE TO SHOW?!?! gah!!!

double edit.. figured it out. DUH. thx Bishop

[Bishop]

Fixed

Originally Posted by 12013

hey....!!! that looks awesome SCRIBBLY. maybe that's a way to go if nothing else comes up.


this is the black and white to the art I was doing for a possible cover option. curious to know if people think this wouldn't work at all.... id LOVE for anyone to put some lettering on it to see what it looks like..kinda like scribblys up there..
I also have some coloring options coming for my art here.




OH...and also..the awesome RobertS lettered my pages and they are DONE. the book is ready to be seen, minus cover designs. SSTIGER. you said you could do PDF formatting for us? is that still a possibility?


ALMOST DONE GUYS!!

edit...WHY CANT I GET MY IMAGE TO SHOW?!?! gah!!!

[SSTiger]

Yeah, I'm still up for it - I got your PM and I've sent you a reply; we can start hashing out the details.

That image looks cool, Rob! I love the shadow of the horn falling over his eye.

Would it be possible to do a bunch of silhouettes of the characters that Hellboy is meeting, and put them underneath/around the face, so as to emphasize the team-up nature of the book?

(I don't know how much extra work that would take though; so just floating an idea.)

[Bishop]

Seriously can't wait to see this thing posted!

[12013]

Originally Posted by SSTiger

Yeah, I'm still up for it - I got your PM and I've sent you a reply; we can start hashing out the details.

That image looks cool, Rob! I love the shadow of the horn falling over his eye.

Would it be possible to do a bunch of silhouettes of the characters that Hellboy is meeting, and put them underneath/around the face, so as to emphasize the team-up nature of the book?

(I don't know how much extra work that would take though; so just floating an idea.)

hey man just wrote you back. sent you the dropbox link so you can have access to the whole project so far. so feel free to get started. maybe we can use SCRIBBLYS cover type image up there for the inside cover, or BACK cover or...Something.. whatever. it just looks awesome.

as far as your suggestion for adding the other characters to the cover around the face..i cant do that and I don't know if someone would be willing to try. I am also worried that it may make it look to cluttered? never know unless we can see what someone can do.

also...considering the book is basically done... and I'm asking all of you guys.. should be share the dropbox link here for all of us to be able to read it. once we have a downloadable pdf link we can share that all over the universe when its done. but as far as us all reading it... should we make it available?

rob

[Bishop]

I think it would be more fun to post it all in a thread here do we can see comments and stuff. If everyone goes to Dropbox we won’t get the dialog going as much.

[12013]

Originally Posted by Bishop

I think it would be more fun to post it all in a thread here do we can see comments and stuff. If everyone goes to Dropbox we won’t get the dialog going as much.

Thats true...good point. I figured people would come back and talk.

I guess the pain in the ass would be finding some poor sap who wants to go to the whole effort of uploading and linking each and every image. Ugh.

[12013]

Originally Posted by Scribbly

So, inside cover or back cover for my cover?
OK. Here you are.



Please, let me know if you need the full size image.

DUDE!!!! I LOVE this. Holy crap... seriously

[SSTiger]

I guess the pain in the ass would be finding some poor sap who wants to go to the whole effort of uploading and linking each and every image. Ugh.

I'll be the sap then. I'll be resizing some of the images anyway and imgbb will let you upload the whole thing together and list out the links. Shouldn't be too hard.

BTW I just read through the whole thing and it is REALLY cool! I think everybody managed to get HB's wisecracking personality down perfectly well. There's some really funny lines that made me laugh out loud.

Also, yeah, I think that portal-and-Hellboy image would work better as the cover. SCRIBBLY, can you upload the highres version (1080p jpeg, not bigger than that) and send me the link?

[Scribbly]

Originally Posted by SSTiger

. SCRIBBLY, can you upload the highres version (1080p jpeg, not bigger than that) and send me the link?

Sure. Let me compose the image with the lettering design provided by RobertS and I send you the high res tonight.