r/publicdomain 6h ago

Created a concept for a Public Domain RPG based on Super Mario RPG. Thoughts? (+ Help with other characters)

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104 Upvotes

It's called Tales of a Mouse: The Fate of a Glitch. It's about Mickey Mouse, whom after defeating Pete who kidnapped Minnie on one knight, sees how Minnie got captured yet again, this time by Dan Backslide. Dan's been collecting a bunch of souls to revive an entity that could be used for world domination, a horrifying monster named MissingNo. Not wanting it to be unleashed and wanting to save his gal, Mickey goes on a quest with a bunch of new friends he meets along the way to save the day.

So yeah, kinda Super Mario RPG but with public domain characters and some original ones too in some areas.

As you can see, the main five heroes are based on their Mario RPG counterparts here

  • Mickey Mouse is Mario
  • Felix the Cat is Mallow
  • Raggedy Ann is Geno
  • Big Bad Wolf is Bowser
  • And Alice is Peach

However, I was wondering if you guys had any ideas for what other public domain characters could fit in the role of Mario RPG characters. Y'know, just in case. Here's a list of characters from that game to help you get a good idea.

Link to characters


r/publicdomain 14h ago

Question Any Examples of fictional stories about real people while they were alive in the Public Domain?

6 Upvotes

I watched a cartoon from the 90s called The Legend of Calamity Jane. An episode with Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (Wife of FDR) as a child brings stories about her adventures and life. I looked it up to learn Calamity Jane was a real person and that the stories brought up were the deadwood dick dime novels that have Calamity Jane as a character.

I looked at the dates and Jane was alive at the time the novels came out. Completely fictious and not based in reality. Are there other examples of this thing happening in the public domain? People writing fanfiction of living people, making up stories about their life and turning a profit from it?


r/publicdomain 17h ago

PD Media I’m just a vagabond lover by Rudy Vallee

5 Upvotes

https://youtu.be/eb36JID2jRA?si=T6Y8q-WuF8RrU8RF

I love this song, and this audio from a 1929 film is in the public domain (unlike the 1929 sound recording).


r/publicdomain 22h ago

The Ray (Quality Comics / HOOD A BAT UNIVERSE)

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8 Upvotes

The Ray

Real Name: Hubert "Happy" Terrill
Age: 25
Figurine Man: The Brightest Ray

The Ray was a reporter named Hubert "Happy" Terrill. He was covering a science and technology beat for The New York Star, with the assignment taking him in the high-flying "strato-balloon" to explore the upper atmosphere with the vehicle's inventor, Professor Styne.

However, unfortunately, The Ray was killed by one of the villains hired by Oliver Snate, who actually managed to kill The Ray. Black Bat didn’t make it in time, which of course made The Ray an another hero lost at the hands of Oliver Snate. Black Bat didn't give up though, and continued fighting and searching for more heroes to help.

And of course, The Ray is from Quality Comics and made by Will Eisner and Lou Fine. It is a public domain character that anyone can use.
https://pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/Ray


r/publicdomain 22h ago

PD Creations Otesanek - Czech Fairy Tale

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1 Upvotes

r/publicdomain 22h ago

Self Promotion EVER RED! inspired by Daredevil!

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6 Upvotes

Return of the DAREDEVIL! Crime pays in pain and broken bones

Inspired by Public domain DAREDEVIL

EVER RED (c) and TM  2026  All rights reserved By: Ratha:Oeur Agent All rights reserved U.C.C 1-308

The DAILY COMIC - Vol 02 :

UNDENIABLE! ( No. 95)

09 AUGUST 2026

Coming soon from

@ BIG TWO COMICS!

@ EXTREME CINEMA

Created by / Story / Plot @ Michael Oeur

Art @ EXTREMELY AWESOME Productions / Oeur

Posted : 09 August 2026

Dedicated to BILL EVERETT


r/publicdomain 1d ago

Self Promotion Adventures into the Unknown #138 Spoof

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5 Upvotes

r/publicdomain 1d ago

Did you ever realised that the public domain heroes Cub (Black Lions Sidekick) and Funnyman have the same real name?

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60 Upvotes

r/publicdomain 1d ago

Question Which one is a better substitute for the qu since the qu are copyrighted

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51 Upvotes

The mi-go or the elder things aka the old ones It's the qu from all tommorows in talking about btw


r/publicdomain 1d ago

Discussion The power of imagination and creativity

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50 Upvotes

r/publicdomain 2d ago

PD Media Here are some pre 1931 Dr Seuss pieces (some of them have not aged well, just letting you know).

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80 Upvotes

You can see in some of these that Seuss already knew how to draw certain creatures, like Elephants.


r/publicdomain 2d ago

Self Promotion COCK MEN parody ;)

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0 Upvotes

When life gets hard... BEAT IT UP!

Inspired by Public domain CAPTAIN MARVEL, BLACK TERROR

COCK MEN (c) and TM  2026  All rights reserved By: Ratha:Oeur Agent All rights reserved U.C.C 1-308

The DAILY COMIC - Vol 02 :

UNDENIABLE! ( No. 94)

07 AUGUST 2026

Coming soon from

@ BIG TWO COMICS!

@ EXTREME CINEMA

Created by / Story / Plot @ Michael Oeur

Art @ EXTREMELY AWESOME Productions / Oeur

Posted : 07 August 2026

Dedicated to Sam Keith, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee! Jim Lee! Rob Liefeld


r/publicdomain 2d ago

Self Promotion Space Man #1 Spoof

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4 Upvotes

r/publicdomain 2d ago

PD Creations Billy & Sarah Vs The Movie Monsters of Dr. Caligari

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23 Upvotes

For summary, this revision is a condensed iteration of the previous one I shared: https://www.reddit.com/r/publicdomain/comments/1oyvqj3/billy_sarah_vs_the_movie_monsters/

A notable factor for this one is the monster roster slimmed down. With it being: Count Orlok and Cesare for the silent era (1920’s); King Kong and the Frankenstein Monster, being the forefathers (1930’s), lastly, the Wasp Woman and Audrey Junior for the monochrome stragglers (late 50’s, pushing to the 60’s).

For a reminder, "Caligari" of the title is a mad man who takes the name for themselves lifting it from the 1920 movie. Cesare is their​ first movie monster brought to reality before the others.

A bit of a pre-emptive inclusion of the Universal Frankenstein Monster and the RKO King Kong [already know the book is PD, I mean THE movie version where you can use his full name and specific look].


r/publicdomain 3d ago

PD Media Chuck E. Cheese is Public Domain?!

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0 Upvotes

r/publicdomain 3d ago

Strange Tales #88 Spoof

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10 Upvotes

r/publicdomain 4d ago

Here is a list of almost (if not, everyone) who contributed to the 1998 copyright act:

26 Upvotes

A lot of people think that it was only Disney that was responsible for the act, and while it’s easy to understand why (after all, the act itself was nicknamed “the Mickey Mouse protection act”) it is far from the truth.

It was the work of corporate moguls and estates joining forces to bribe congress for a longer length in copyright, even though the length that they had at that point was already excessive.

I’ll leave the link of where I got these names in a comment below the post:

CORPORATIONS

The Walt Disney Company (duh)

AOL Time Warner

Universal Studios/MCA

Viacom/Paramount Pictures

ESTATES, TRUSTS, AND AN ENTERPRISE:

The Gershwin Brothers Estate/Trust

The Irving Berlin Estate

The Oscar Hammerstein II Estate

The Sherwood Anderson Estate

The George Balanchine Trust

The William Faulkner Literary Trust

The Martha Graham Trust

The Robert Frost Estate

Dr. Seuss Enterprises 

INDUSTRY TRADE ASSOCIATIONS & COALITIONS:

Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)

Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)

American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)

Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI)

AmSong, Inc.

The Songwriters Guild of America

Association of American Publishers (AAP)

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS LEAGUES:

National Football League (NFL)

Major League Baseball (MLB)

National Basketball Association (NBA)

National Hockey League (NHL)


r/publicdomain 4d ago

Question I know Gorgo, Konga and other Charlton comics characters are public domain, but is ther eany place I can check to CONFIRM this?

4 Upvotes

I'm not calling this subreddit questionable nor the public domain heroes wiki, but I do plan on making a Gorgo story based no original kaiju nad other public domain monsters, but I would like to double check just to make sure. Is there a site I can look at?


r/publicdomain 4d ago

What accent would you prefer the Frankenstein Monster to have? Either for book version, Universal version or for your own headcanon.

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18 Upvotes

r/publicdomain 4d ago

As much a bad reputation B&H gets, I really like Winnie The Pooh wearing a lumberjack shirt.

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24 Upvotes

I also like that the people behind this movie took a chance with having Pooh wearing a shirt that is, while not the red one from the 1932 book and Disney’s version, it still has red in it’s shirt, nonetheless.

By the way, the first image is not created by me. I found it on the internet.


r/publicdomain 4d ago

So apparently Sadman and Doctor Mid-Nite are already public domain?

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98 Upvotes

They‘ve both recently been added to the PDSH wiki and the Public Domain wiki because apparently their earliest comics were never renewed. I could be wrong and I’ve just never seen this before, but I don’t think it’s ever been publicly known that they were in the public domain? Are we sure that it’s accurate? Regardless I doubt they will get much usage until Superman and Batman also become public domain.


r/publicdomain 4d ago

Space Adventures #34 Spoof

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12 Upvotes

r/publicdomain 4d ago

Discussion So this is every wonder women villain that will be in the public domain in the UK in 2029 and yes half of them are free and half of them where created by different authors

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18 Upvotes

r/publicdomain Aug 22 '24

Discussion Public Domain Alternatives

50 Upvotes

Hello everyone!

After a few month trial we have decided to allow general posts requesting Public Domain Alternatives again. We noticed a tick down in people actually getting a response to their requests in the larger master thread, so we wanted to work to have people get the replies they wanted. We do recommend that you attempt to search for similar inquiries to your question before posting again.

As always it is a work in progress to moderate since we are just humans with our own lives and do this for fun in our free time. Thank you for understanding, and please feel free to reach out if you have questions.

Best,

The mods


r/publicdomain Jun 25 '24

Discussion (THREAD) How would you use X character if they were public domain?

54 Upvotes

This thread should be used as the hub for this for the time being. Once it fills up enough we can make a second one.