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

rockpapershotgun.com:

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," the author wrote on his Substack. "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. I confess I've not read any of the original comics - I've only ever played the Telltale adaptation, which I enjoyed. I feel guilty about that in hindsight, because Willingham seems to have a pretty dim view of Telltale's work, though that's partly to do with what he considers to be his longstanding unfair treatment by Fables publisher DC Comics.

In an extended account, Willingham discusses various conflicts that arose during his 20 years of working with DC Comics. Some of these were "smaller matters", like neglecting to ask his opinion on artists for new stories, and late reporting or under-reporting of royalty payments to Willingham. But in recent years, the author feels that DC Comics have been trying "to strong arm the ownership of Fables from me", describing how (in his view) legal negotiators have attempted to subtly recast Fables