Ugly Popeye and ugly Tintin. In the US specifically. A lot of these public domain announcements tend to be a bit too vague.
this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2025
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Yeah I’m guessing you can retell “in the land of the soviets” if you wanted and use Tintin’s design from those first strips, but every other story is likely still off-limits. Would have to be a completely original story using the character.
And some of the favorites like Captain Haddock, etc, weren’t in Soviets.
Yeah, you still have to wait over a decade to use him in the US, which is a pretty big deal.
You do get to use Tintin with an all-new look as long as you don't use the newer blue sweater and long coat design, though.
To be fair a Popeye beat em up could be a lot of fun. Quite good mobile phone fodder, if have thought.
I'd be interested in a Tintin game more than Popeye, personally.
I'm not sure what that would look like, frankly. I guess you could go for a narrative Telltale-style thing? Making an Uncharted game with a Tintin skin would be missing the point. And you´d have to come up with almost entirely new story ideas anyway, the only story in the public domain in the US is the original version of In the Land of the Soviets.
But hey, I would have said the same thing about Indiana Jones and there it is, so... maybe somebody has a clearer picture in their heads than I do. I genuinely doubt the license was what kept something like this from happening, though.
Maybe more of a mystery story? Just take the "investigative reporter" angle and run with it.
No idea whether they're any good or not, but there are already at least two Tintin games.
The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, based on the film
and
Tintin Reporter - Cigars of the Pharaoh, based on a book.
There are more. The most famous are a duology of side scrolling action adventure things in the 16 bit era. They adapted Tintin in Tibet and Prisoner of the Sun.
They look great for the time, but frankly, they're both a chore to play.
Worth taking a look if you haven't heard of them, though.
That sounds a lot like the Prince of Persia series.
Gasp. How dare you, my good sir/madam?
No, seriously, I get it, but no. PoP, Flashback or Another World are way more playable. They look worse, though.
I can't comment on the comparison, as I didn't play most of those, but I will comment on Sands of Time:
The premise of the game is that the protagonist is recalling a story. He narrates your actions as you play, but you can fail. If you fail, you can die. If you die, the narrator says things like "and then I died. No, wait, that's not right" and you can rewind time.
I always thought that was pretty funny.
Popeye might lend itself nicely to a cuphead like game.
Was Popeye's spinach the first catch-trope powerup?
Rules are consistent with the Pac-man powerup
The spinach part isn't public domain yet. It came much later.
Is there a chance that Popeye movie might get released now?
Ive heard of an upcoming popeye horror spoof where popeye is haunting an abandoned spinach canning factory or something.
I saw a trailer the other day. It's real.
Does this mean we can freely distribute Tintin in Thailand now? Outstanding piece, everyone should read it!
I don't think so, since a lot of the content in that one is from late tintin stories.
This would only be the first Tintin story, and the contents therein, that are free use... Which would be what, land of Soviets, Congo, America?
Soviets. And that early version of Tintin is rough.
Yea, god they are hellishly racist. Still love them as a product of their time.