Monday, November 9, 2009

Apology and Nighthawk vs Green Skull

As it has been brought to my attention that my time lines made heavy use of copyrighted material, they are being taken down. To do them properly for publication in a true scholarly fashion would require revising them from the start. Maybe someday. When I started working on them, it was meant to be more of a tool than anything else, putting various stories, characters and legends into context with some actual history, something many of the time lines don't really do. I thought the end result was kind of cool and that others might get a kick from it. The prevalence and variety of the Wold Newton Time Lines with overlapping and duplicate information with little documentation led me to seeing it as being a bigger game among fans than anyone claiming specific ownership. I was wrong and I apologize. And, so these are coming down and back into my files as a personal tool.

In their place, I am going to put up various text stories taken from public domain comics, a couple of them of some very obscure characters. I think people will get a kick from them.

This one is the first adventure of the Nighthawk vs. the Green Skull. It's from Dynamic Comics #3, 1942 published by Chesler. The two characters would later appear in an actual comic story published by Harvey. Scans of Dynamic Comics #3 can be found at http://www.goldenagecomics.co.uk. The scans of this particular comic came from fiche so for readability's sake, I re-typed it. Enjoy.

Nighthawk

“Oh,” yawned Jane as she stared at the planes that lined the airfield of the Curry Airplane Company. “Dad,” she asked, “how much longer must we stay here?”

“Another hour,” replied her father. “The British officials will soon arrive to take the planes.”

Suddenly Jane laughed. “Dad,” she said, “will you do me a favor?”

“Sure,” he replied.

Jane gulped, and then a silly grin gathered at the corner of her lips. “Let me write good luck on the motors of the planes?”

“Alright,” laughed her father.

Jane, her Father, and Jack Filan, in reality the Nighthawk, the most feared enemy of crime, walked over to the plane.

Jack watched Jane as she began to write on the hoods of the motors. Suddenly he chuckled to himself. “What a silly kid. SHE’S USING LIPSTICK!”

As Jane was busy writing, other hands were working near the northgate. A heavy club crashed down on the watchman’s head, and a silent band of men entered the airfield. Silently they made their way to the hangar nearest the plane.

“What the!” exclaimed the Green Skull, leader of the intruders as he saw Jane writing on the planes. “We got to work fast! The Nazis are waiting for the planes.”

“Okay baby,” he yelled, “school is closed. Put down that pencil.”

Jack turned and saw the Green Skull and his gang. One of the thugs tried to hit him with a club, but Jack ducked and sent a terrific blow to the gangster’s jaw, sending him spinning into the others.

For a moment, Jack’s sudden attack startled the thugs and in that second Jack swiftly raced past them. “Don’t worry Jane,” he yelled, “I’m going fort the police.”

Jack dashed into a hangar, and quickly changed into his Nighthawk uniform.

As the thugs were about to board the planes and take off, there in front of them stood a husky, masked figure.

“It’s Nighthawk!” yelled the Green Skull. “Get him!”

Instantly, Nighthawk charged into the gangsters sending a steady stream of blows into them. When suddenly, a heavy club crashed on his head.

It was about an hour later, that Jack came to. The planes and all were gone. “They’ve kidnapped Jane,” he cried. “I’VE GOT TO FIND THEM!” Jack was worried. It was almost impossible to decide which way the thieves had gone when suddenly he spied small red spots on the concrete runway. More and more of them, all heading north.

He began to run in that direction. Every once in a while he stopped on a concrete roadway, saw what he wanted on the roadway and raced on.

Suddenly Nighthawk stopped. Below him was a valley. He looked carefully and saw a well camouflaged hangar in the valley. Slowly, he crept toward it.

Inside the hangar stood the planes. Near them a Nazi officer was talking to Jane and her father. “Mr. Curry, you and your daughter will soon leave for Germany where you will manufacture planes. Refuse and your daughter dies!” The commander turned to the only orderly in the hangar and said, “Get the flyers!”

The orderly walked out and made his way toward a cave nearby. As he entered, Nighthawk slipped up the entrance and looked inside. “What luck,” he exclaimed, “the whole Nazi gang is here.” Quickly he looked around and saw a huge boulder. He rolled it over to the entrance of the cave and sealed the Nazis inside.

Nighthawk turned and raced to the hangar. A well aimed blow easily took care of the commander.

As soon as Jane could catch her breath, she asked, “How were you able to follow us?”

“Well,” grinned Nighthawk, “when you wrote ‘Good Luck’ you used lipstick. When the planes took off, the motor got hot and slowly melted the lipstick which left a trail for me to follow.”

“Well, I must go after the Green Skull,” and with that he raced into the woods.

THE END.

7 comments:

Win Scott Eckert said...

Would you mind terribly not copying blocks of text whole cloth from my online -- and clearly copyrighted -- "Crossover Chronology."?

You haven't even bothered to credit me.

Thanks.

Sean Levin said...

Cash, I have to support my buddy Win on this. He ought to be given credit where credit is due, and you really shouldn't just copy other folks' copyrighted material without their permission.

James Bojaciuk said...

Seriously? You think it's fine to go about ripping off Win's copyrighted reseach for this?

This is just madness...

Henry Covert said...

Dear 'Cash',
If you want to play in this sandbox, you should try coming up with your own theories rather than lifting whole cloth Win's copyrighted online material. You've also lifted from others' essays from another copyrighted source - a book Win edited called Myths for the Modern Age (which was also authorized by the estate of Philip Jose Farmer, who created a number of characters you mention here).
You could at least mention by name Win, Mark Brown, Mr. Farmer, and others whose work you've purloined for this.

Unknown said...

I find it curious that four different people have called you out on your use of the Wold Newton website and that you haven't bothered to defend your actions or to publicly apologize.

Dennis E. Power said...

At the outset of your blog you state
"As this was originally meant to be for mine eyes only, I didn't really cite the various sources. Along the way, I decided to also incorporate various Wold Newton timelines (a simple web search will take you to several." however when you publish on the web, even in a blog it is no longer for your eyes only. If that were the case you should have left it on your personal computer and not shared it with the world. Since you have published it online, even, if only in a blog, and have not cited your sources you have become a plagiarist.

Citing and separating the various sources in some fashion would actually be to your benefit because your specific annotations would thus be highlighted and easy to determine. In this way your viewers could quickly ascertain your contributions to this great timeline.

cash_gorman said...

I apologize for the long delay in replying to these concerns. Until Mr. Levin told me about it on another blog, I was unaware that I had made a mistake in the settings so I was not getting any alerts that comments had been made.

It was never my intention to step on any toes. As there are so many Wold Newton sites with overlapping data and information with little direct citations to copyright holders and including Farmer's original work and timelines, I figured that it would be looked upon as akin to an open source project and just in spirit of fun.

However, I see your points and I am sincerely sorry for all offense this has caused. I'll take steps to remove the offending information ASAP.