richardmurray

Contrast craft 09/27/2021 Contrast submission, can you describe the story Contrast submission - The Orange Mold by HDdeviant on DeviantArt For the complimentary colors invitational below. The idea is two complimentary color pairs, black/white side orange/blue. Women are solid black. Men are silhouette white. The space for men is orange. For women is blue. Can you answer the following questions: How many people are in the room? What is going on outside the window: who is in danger, who is not? https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Contrast-submission-The-Orange-Mold-893100306?ga_submit_new=10%3A1632719198 Original Post https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1635&type=status EMBED CODE

Dexterity Test/Story Challenge/Comic Book Superhero/Kloir DYIS/Monster Cutie/One Light Source/OC Pet 09/21/2021 Some art to enjoy Here is the Dexterity test:) The sleeping princess, can you tell the story in the image? I was working on my submission for the levar burton fiyah and thus, I was too late for the competitive aspect, but not to late for the invitational aspect. The prompt is Leaves sing atop ancient trees - rustling, whispering, teasing the senses - telling a quiet tale of one taller than, gentler than, the oldest oak. I figured I will tell a tale in an image. I will give you some questions to help you. What planet is this? What is the craft the female is working on? What does the text in chinese say? What is the robot telling her to do? Who is the signal on the wall for and what does it say? What is the statue in the hallway behind the princess? https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/DAStory-challenge-post-competitive-entry-892543224?ga_submit_new=10%3A1632227117 The Teleman- Issue #1 - gifcomic is linked in the description was working on my submission for the levar burton fiyah and thus, I was too late for the competitive aspect, but not to late for the invitational aspect. For a superhero, I admittedly wanted something simpler or galactic. My imagination sprouted Teleman. I even made him a comic you can enjoy as pages or a gif in the following links. Teleman Issue 1 page 2 https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Teleman-issue1-page-2-892546119?ga_submit_new=10%3A1632228867 Teleman Issue 1 page 3 https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Teleman-issue1-page-3-892546229?ga_submit_new=10%3A1632229088 Teleman Issue 1 page 4 https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Teleman-issue1-page-4-892546546?ga_submit_new=10%3A1632229258 Teleman Issue 1 gifcomic https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Teleman-gifcomic-892546728?ga_submit_new=10%3A1632231022 https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Teleman-cover-page-892545782?ga_submit_new=10%3A1632228657 The ancient town of Dalila- what is going on!?:) I was working on my submission for the levar burton fiyah and thus, I was too late for the competitive aspect, but not to late for the invitational aspect. Dalila is an old robot, battered or bruised where it lay , eons ago. But, its mechanical heart remain a source of nourishment for life and its body, like a pyramid or temple of earliest times from kemet, has preserved to still be useful. But all is not so easy in the town. The bug pit is not what it was, and outsiders have brought a new level of violence. I will place the original source image in the comments Source image of Dalila... isn't she cute and the oscar goes too.... https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/The-Ancient-Town-of-Dalila-892549276?ga_submit_new=10%3A1632231916 Microcalligraphy based on Kloir I was working on my submission for the levar burton fiyah and thus, I was too late for the competitive aspect, but not to late for the invitational aspect. The poem I created based on the image is the following: Title: The Trees before what you see If a tree has no shadow, it is the darkest breed Gatekeeper to secrets, doorway... to fantasees The magic need the trees Not to live, to be seen The light need the leaves Not to live, to careen When one walk where magic, the Elders say The trees are above the doves soiree While you will see castle balconies The squirrel dare the oldest tree top, where winds can catapult any to doom For the sight is a gift, see nature in full bloom Beward the princess at the sweetest tree She see you coming, she see you need But she know the forest, better than you think Talk to an oak, and you will get a joke Talk to a kapok... and you will see free folk Talk to a boabab, and a sweet to your gob Talk to a ginko, and remember what you sow Talk to a yew, and catch a brand new Talk to a mulberry and ripples from your mind's ferry Talk to a tree and see... something The last of the tree guard, has no leaves Performs the magic you will see... Look up! the purple cork floats or corral the leaves A bed in the sky to cover the scene For this piece I continue the design style from the last calligraphic work of not using the entire poem in the calligraphy. This time I am particularly happy cause I used new colored inks. I like how the inks came out but I need to get smaller widths. The widths did not allow the finesse I achieved with my pencil. So, this ink does not have the intricacy of the pencil. Calligraphy version1 The Trees before what you see Gatekeeper to secrets The magic need the trees The light need the leaves When one walk where magic The squirrel dare the oldest tree Beware the princess, at the sweetest tree ... Talk too a tree and see... something Performs the magic you will see Calligraphy version 2 The Trees before what you see <what was used> Gatekeeper to secrets The magic need the trees The light need the leaves When one walk where magic The squirrel dare the oldest tree Beware the princess ... Talk too a tree and see The magic you will see the post competitive invitational https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Microcalligraphy-based-on-Kloir-892550129?ga_submit_new=10%3A1632232969 Dexterity Test - about 3 hours- I had to use my left hand, the right hand, it is over too quickly...:) I was working on my submission for the levar burton fiyah and thus, I was too late for the competitive aspect, but not to late for the invitational aspect. I am fortunate that I know what I like to create as an artist. That is poems/short stories/graphite drawings. I can do these three things forever, no pay needed. As it is, for the dexterity test I decided to do something I hadn't done in a while and that is draw with my left hand. As a kid I wrote or drew with either hand, but environments do manipulate folks. I timed myself, and I used only a graphite pencil/an eraser, and my smudger plus a white sheet of paper. My left hand had some serious issues smudging or erasing. The penciling was just about getting muscle memory back. I think halfway through I got some of the memory back. I will have to remind myself to draw with the left hand exclusively to reject such rust in the future. My times: 3:42 pm to 6:04 pm an Errands OR watermelon break 6:15 to 6:45 pm I recall only one time near the end did I use the right hand and it was for two eraser motions, not large ones, and I recovered the left hand. My desire to go faster is what pushed it so a lesson is in that folks. Slow down , keep the pace slow and that will aid in going from hand to hand. https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Dexterity-Test-892551259?ga_submit_new=10%3A1632233707 Nurse Leechman - isn't she cute I was working on my submission for the levar burton fiyah and thus, I was too late for the competitive aspect, but not to late for the invitational aspect. Nurse Leechman Her probiscus is covered to not alarm anyone and to be sanitary. She walks upright and carries anticoagulent which is always important to those whose blood is acting irregular or unhealthy. And she makes it herself. As she is pregnant, though you can't see it right now. She is carrying the micromarsupial daily, the must have magazine for any young Siamensis needing guidance or tips on caring for their upcoming child. Edited by legendary Mrs. Roo. Isn't this nurse cute! This was quite interesting for me research wise. That word monster meaning disgusting or not cute, isn't in my mentality. Monsters can be cute... anyway. In my search to find something not thought of as cute or pleasant or safe to be around. I thought of a leech. But which leech? I learned of the leech Siamensis Placobdelloides of the glossiphoniidae. Now like all leehces her saliva has anticoagulents which stop blood from going to gel from liquid and so I automatically thought nurse. But, this particular breed of Leech has another great attribute. They carry their young. https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Ms-Leechman-PPPMonstercuties-892552269?ga_submit_new=10%3A1632234592 The Night Table- can you guess some of the references in my film noir short:) I was working on my submission for the levar burton fiyah and thus, I was too late for the competitive aspect, but not to late for the invitational aspect. I had two ideas for the one light source originally, the first one I finished all but the chiaroscuro. I was pondering between doing a single street lamp or doing an inverted one light source. But I was undecided so I went on to the second idea. I haven't shared the first one, it is merely cause I want rest. I will in the future. but I see this idea as the first scene and the first idea as the second scene, a little film noir couplet. Enjoy https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/The-Night-Table-892553358?ga_submit_new=10%3A1632235077 Original post https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1629&type=status EMBED CODE EMBED CODE EMBED CODE EMBED CODE EMBED CODE EMBED CODE EMBED CODE

fire tutorial 09/01/2021 fire tutorial What else would you draw in a picture with a dragon? I made a headless dragon for my idea, so my dragon was holding its head but I can also see a pearl or some objectanything can be held by a dragoneven luck What tutorial would you like to see next? Anything is fine. The key for any artists is to look at competitions or tutorials as invitationals. Either invite the artists to create, so do so technique can always be judged but contentment is something the artist must learn to have to their work gardless what others say or do. https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Make-Fire-Tutorial-890526278?ga_submit_new=10%3A1630467215 ORiginal Post https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1619&type=status EMBED CODE

Dragon tutorial: steps/headless/1960s 09/01/2021 Tutorial for a dragon What story made you fall in love with fantasy? difficult. The earliest fantasy tale I can think of is high john the conqueror or anansi. In my household my parents loved telling stories. the earliest I will say is, high john the conqueror. What dragon character is your favorite? Well, what determines a dragon is complicated. Does a dragon need wings? need to have blood, can it be a robot? so, I will answer this question in parts. my favorite dragon from antiquity is the Dragon that Ra or Horus depending on the telling rides on the Nile. I love that blue color. My favorite dragon in cartoon world is smog in the rankin bass lord of the rings. The first film/live action dragon I saw was falcor and yes, I have to get to that museum in germany where you can ride him. My favorite dragon villain is... Mecha Godzilla, the original Toho or the modern. What tutorial would you like to see next? For me, any. I see myself as a mature artists. I like the way I draw. I am satisfied. No artists can do it all. So, any tutorial is great. For me, I collect it all and maybe a story or two will come from them one day ... I used only one tool. I find with tutorials, artists like to use too many tools. the common child in humanity does not have a computer. Computer's cost money. Does not have food. Food costs money. so, I try to do tutorials intentionally with one affordable tool. I have a computer and equipment to act through electronic art processes. But, that isn't something that can translate to a kid with one crayon or pencil. So, I made the dragon, I used thicker lines for definition. I used line drawing or shading to represent different colors. In each step I followed the prior steps, growing the character. https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Make-a-dragon-tutorial-in-steps-890524814?ga_submit_new=10%3A1630465943 headless horseman dragon I am thinking of fall already and I thought what about a headless dragon. I used a similar style as in a deviantart tutorial, cited in the image below. I want to add as in my version of the tutorial. YOu can use draft lines to create different intensities which can depict foreground background, light ,shadow. A closer look to the image will show different lines about the body, you can use that to show differentiation of color absent multiple colors. https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Headless-Horseman-Dragon-890525581?ga_submit_new=10%3A1630466561 1960s fashionable dragon Me and FlapperFoxy talked about fashion on one of her pieces. https://www.deviantart.com/flapperfoxy/art/1960-s-Foxy-599962182 and it made me think in concert to the dragon tutorial, what if a dragon had a similar dress. So like the tutorial, I used only one pencil, one page, draft lines representing different colors. I didn't make a second version, this image was scanned from the only attempt. I mirrored some of Flapper's style with her work above. But we talked about a proper back out for a female with tale. On closer inspection you can see the dress has a zipper from top to bottom, and something in my mind is similar to a sewing hoop that allows for adjustment to suit her whenever she needs. Since it is a zipper skirt I figured it will have a pattern perpindicular to the pattern flapper used in her work. One side is a block color while the other side is multicolor or shaped. https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/1960s-Fashionable-Dragon-890525831?ga_submit_new=10%3A1630466918 Original Post https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1618&type=status EMBED CODE EMBED CODE EMBED CODE

happy 21st birthday deviantart 09/01/2021 Happy 21st birthday, deviantart https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Birthday-Deviant-Submission-890524465?ga_submit_new=10%3A1630465518 Original Post https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1617&type=status EMBED CODE

What if What if 08/21/2021 Was asked by someone online, the following is my answer Its fine. I rarely hate any art. I never say any art is bad. No artists is trying to make bad work. So, an artist may fail to achieve what they wanted in terms of audience response or I may dislike a works aspects but it wasn't for lack of trying. .... I will specify a question. IF the question is, how does the what if series settle into the modern media of comic book story discussions? I think it settles into a pit. Modern media is for many the nonviolent warzone. How many black characters? how many female characters? how many white characters? how many christian characters? how many muslims characters? how many young characters? how many old characters? How many hetero characters? how many lgbtq+ characters? how many atheist characters? and then once people get past the quantity of representation. Now the condition of the characters. He is black, but do black people like him? she is fat, but do fat people like her? They are lgbtq+ but do the lgbtq+ like them? The couple are bdsmers but do the bdsmers like them? Number of characters and then how are the characters portrayed. What If is a pander to those questions. People sadly think, that when a character has their traits it means something. I have said this in the past and I will say it now and I will say it in the future. No artist is blockaded to creativity, in my view, but I look at the originators of characters as important to how I define their essense. Give me a black written /black drawn character and I will associate them to being black. I have always been a storm fan. Always will be. But, Storm wasn't designed by a black person. and, a black artists later manipulating what a white artist created. While in no need of validation as art, I do not see or will accept as a black character. What if captain america is a woman? What if Thor is transgender? What if Iron Man, a fiscally spoiled rich kid engineering genious, is Black? What if will have many lovers cause it gives visual form to a small set of infinite possibilities. What if is in my view, a video form of what comics originally were. We forget, before characters became so popular they had their own comics, and became rigid or cultural identifiers, most comics were what ifs? Most comic characters started out in what ifs. A writer has an idea and pitches it to the audience. If the audience like it you will see them in another edition. Original Post https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1608&type=status

My intial reply to the video nina simone was a polymath... the problem with black people when we gather in public is, for events meant for music or community, march on washington/summer of jazz/ jazzmobile/million man march/black film festival.. black people don't produce violence. But, we do produce violence when the tipping points are reached. ... I disagree with both of you. I don't think the lack of media outlets wanting to display the Summer of Soul is a shame. Ownership matters folks. You both mentioned how Gil Scott Heron or the Last Poets were not on the bill. But that was and is part of the problem. White people own media outlets that allow all spectrums of the white community to speak. Name me one Black owned media outlet that serves five unique black segments in the black community? Yes, my parents remember that concert. To be blunt, Harlem has a long history of similar events. That famous photo at Duke Ellington's house is not a joke. Harlem between the 1920s -1970s had the greatest collection of black entertainers for a region in any city in the usa. The recording of the concert was a surprise for my parents. ... Don, no one is a complete encyclopedia:) Someone somewhere in the internet stated the Black community ended the great era of Black Music in the 1970s, I oppose that position. The following is my reply We didn't end it. All musical eras end. To be blunt, the black community in usa had many great musical times after the war between the states. The st louis/to harlem slide jazz era. The big band era. The R&B initial era. Motown. Many great black songwriters in each of those eras. We didn't end , we changed. Black people in the usa's music changes as we change. The reason why we made the blues is cause right after the war between the states, many of us had a sadness, a blue mood. When we started growing more financially positive, actually getting whites to allow us to own businesses or get paid to do ork while still being nonviolent <not saying all black people wanted that but I comgress>, we turned the blues into rhythm and blues. After world war II when the black community oddly enough had large financial growth for individuals, we created rock and roll from R&B which is from the Blues. We created Funk as a blues version of the motown sound. Where motown was manicured black music for the white audience, in the same vein as scott joplin's minstrel music, which he did alongside his ragtime works. Ragtime was in my view, a piano version of jazz, which was started with horned instruments in new orleans. Jazz progressed from the northern expansion. Starting from the storyville's of new orleans to St Louis, to Chicago to HArlem, to every bar from Shanghai to Berlin to Rio de janeiro to calcutta to Cairo all around the earth, jazz was played at one time, a rare achievement for one art form. So much so that colleges throughout humanity teach jazz. Many surviving jazz musicians were able to financially survive being the first jazz teachers in schools where only white jazz teachers may exist today. No, black music changes as black people change. House Music comes from the urban black community, which in the vein of funk fuses all the many prior musical forms from Blues or Jazz. But with a larger technological capability than Funk, which began using tech in unique ways for music. We didn't end it. Today you can hear way too many excellent black blues musicians under 50, black jazz musicians under 50. White owned media companies dominate the industry and they prefer pop music, which is hat Motown or the Ragtime was. All three are intended to appeal to mass audiences, be good to sell. All three evaded or try to evade cultural friction. So, all is good, the black musical heritage lives in the black community for me, and continuous to grow or change, becoming more global, having more linguistical width than in the past, more cultural variance. All is good. Movies That Move We video Review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L1bNVo8gYU Original Post https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1587&type=status

audiobook narration styles future 07/19/2021 “I Probably Modeled Him on Something I’d Heard on The Wire” The audiobook industry is collectively squirming through the cultural debate on representation and casting. BY LAURA MILLER Twenty years ago, Grover Gardner began narrating a series of comic mysteries whose title character is a white lawyer named Andy Carpenter. In the series—written by David Rosenfelt—Carpenter also has a partner, Willie Miller, who’s a Black ex-con, which means Gardner had to voice Miller too. Back then, he hardly gave any thought to the fact that he was a white narrator voicing a Black man. “I probably modeled him on something I’d heard on television, on Hill Street Blues, or The Wire,” Gardner said. Today, 14 books later, he’s still voicing Willie—but he’s changed his approach. “I’d think very hard about doing that kind of accent now,” he said. In an era of heightened sensitivity to issues of representation and misrepresentation, it’s no longer acceptable to cast a white actor as a character of color in a movie or TV show. But audiobooks play by different rules. It’s customary now in the audiobook business to try to match a book’s narrator to the gender, race, and sometimes sexual orientation of a novel’s author or main character. Yet most novels feature characters with an assortment of different backgrounds, and this can require narrators to voice characters with identities very different from their own. When audiobooks first rose to popularity in 1980s, the field was overwhelmingly white. Gardner, who has been an audiobook narrator for four decades and also works as a producer, recalls that, for the first couple of decades of his career, “the whole industry was geared toward middle-aged white businessmen” who listened to “books on tape” while on the road for work. There were hardly any narrators of color, and few female narrators back then, Gardner said. “I recorded Scott Turow’s [1990 novel] Burden of Proof. The narrator of that book is a Latino lawyer,” he told me. “I did it. We did whatever they sent us back then. But I wouldn’t do that book today. You would find a Latino narrator to do it.” Apart from the amused response to the cartoonish accents Ronan Farrow rolled out when narrating the audio version of his 2019 exposé Catch and Kill, the audiobook world has so far been largely free of the sort of scandals that have triggered reckonings about representation in other creative industries, like magazine publishing and television. This is partly because it’s a low-profile, unglamorous field that doesn’t attract a lot of attention from the press. But many who work in the industry still feel the tensions around casting acutely. Amid a publishing boom in literature by writers of color, nonwhite narrators are being offered more work than they once were. Meanwhile, like most narrators, they find themselves getting asked to voice marginalized characters from backgrounds that bear no resemblance to theirs. January LaVoy, a biracial narrator who identifies as Black, said that cross-cultural audiobook narration is freighted in different ways for white narrators and narrators of color. “For many white narrators, it’s difficult because of fear [of backlash]. For many narrators of color, it’s difficult because of the weight of responsibility.” The industry is grappling with these issues daily. “It’s difficult for everyone,” LaVoy said. Although some publishers have audiobook divisions, they usually function separately from the print division, and the audio rights for many titles get sold to separate companies such as Brilliance or Blackstone. The producer of an audiobook, who is employed by the publisher, acquires the rights and oversees casting and other big-picture decisions, such as opting for multiple narrators on a novel that often switches points of view. Michele Cobb, a producer and the executive director of the Audio Publishers Association, told me that she and her colleagues have tried to figure out how they can sensitively ask narrators to provide producers with information about their backgrounds—such as gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability—that can be helpful when casting. Cobb explained that it’s an ongoing challenge to cast appropriate narrators for books by authors of color, while avoiding typecasting. In her own company, which publishes romance audiobooks, “I’ve definitely had authors come back and say, ‘Well, this character is white so I wouldn’t go with a Black narrator,’ ” a choice she feels obliged to respect. Traditionally, both a director and an engineer, usually both freelancers, work on the recording with the narrator. Director Simone Barros outlined an exhausting list of tasks to me, from making sure the narrator doesn’t skip or add words to researching accurate regional pronunciations and maintaining continuity. “You can get to the last page of the book, and it will mention that a character had a German accent the whole time,” said Barros, speaks with the mile-a-minute lucidness of a person whose job is anticipating every contingency. Barros is of Cabo Verdean descent and identifies as Black.* In the case of some first-person narrators, such as the one in Charlie Kaufman’s Antkind, an audiobook Barros directed, the book is “written so much within the perspective of the first person that the ethnicity of other characters are specifically heard from the narrator’s perspective of them. More specifically in Antkind, the author’s very point is this shifting, mutable and even unreliable perspective, to shine a light on how too often minority characters go unseen, or only seen or heard through a bias cipher.” But with a book written in the third person, she and her narrator will work up a full voice profile—a cache of recorded dialogue and biographical information—for each speaking character. That way, if, say, a villain appears in a novel’s first few pages only to disappear for several chapters, the narrator and director can remind themselves of what he sounds like. Such profiles are particularly helpful with recurring characters in sequels and series, which may be recorded years later. In the past, it was largely left up to the professionals behind the scenes to anticipate and head off any problems. Ten years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for a book’s author—the person most intimately acquainted with a title—to have no input at all in the audiobook production. But as audiobooks became a more mainstream and high-profile format, authors began seeking more oversight. Today, writers often get the final say on casting, and are often invited to choose a narrator from a selection of sample recordings and encouraged to provide crucial information about how characters ought to sound. Nathan Harris, a Black writer whose debut novel, The Sweetness of Water, is set at the end of the Civil War, knew the accents of his multiracial cast of characters, who include freed slaves, would be a challenge. “You can go down a very precarious road with how they sound,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t want to do it myself.” His publisher presented him with an audition recording by William DeMeritt. “They told me they could go in all sorts of different directions if that’s what I wanted,” Harris said. “But he just nailed it.” Over the past few years, the crew of professionals who work on a given book has increasingly been whittled down to a bare minimum, putting greater pressure on narrators’ judgment—even though a narrator, who is in most cases a freelance contractor, doesn’t have much time to carefully screen a book for potential stumbling blocks before agreeing to the job. The exploding demand for audiobooks with the advent of digital downloads and, most recently, an increasing number of home studios built during the pandemic also means that more narrators have ended up doing most of the production work and key decision-making on their own. Some narrators say they now turn down jobs when they feel unsure about voicing major characters. Cassandra Campbell—narrator of, among other things, Delia Owens’ bestseller Where the Crawdads Sing, a novel featuring several Black supporting characters—recalled narrating the first two in a series of books, which made her the automatic choice for the third. But when she discovered that the third book was told from the point of view of a young Burmese boy, Campbell, who is white, bowed out. “I just didn’t feel comfortable with it,” she said. A multitude of minor characters can turn an audio book into a minefield for its narrator. Edoardo Ballerini, who was profiled in the New York Times Magazine last year as “a go-to voice for intelligent, subtle but gripping narrations of books,” says he’s now most often asked to narrate books requiring European accents. (His father is an Italian poet, and he was raised in New York.) Still, challenges do arise. “Take a James Patterson book,” he explained. “Let’s say it’s set in New York City and the detective is hard-boiled, an Italian-American. I can do that. His partner is a feisty woman and I think I can handle that.” But then the minor characters start showing up, sometimes slotted into uncomfortably stereotypical roles: “They get in a cab and there’s the cabbie, or they run into a perp who happens to be Black, or whatever it is. You have to voice them as well. And there’s really no way for anyone to say, ‘Well, I’m not going to do this book because there are a handful of lines by an Indian cabbie.’ ” Meanwhile, many narrators of color—extra-conscious of the weight of representation—find themselves engaging in a lot of extra, unpaid work researching characters and voices that they may ultimately decide they can’t do justice to. Recently, LaVoy bowed out on a title in a children’s series she narrates about a group of middle school students who travel the world with their eccentric professor, encountering mythical creatures from the cultures they visit. “When we did one that took place in the Pacific Northwest,” she said, “we got a Native American linguist from the Muckleshoot tribe to work with me. I felt really comfortable,” she said. “But this one particular book took place in Cuba, and it was very heavily written in Spanish,” a language LaVoy doesn’t speak fluently. When she got to a part where the whole group begins singing the Cuban national anthem, she decided to pass. “They needed someone with a different mouth,” she concluded. A character’s accent can be an evocation of her origins and identity, but it can also be—as was the case with Apu, the Indian-born convenience-store clerk on The Simpsons, voiced by white actor Hank Azaria—a mocking caricature. (Azaria recently announced that he would no longer voice Apu and expressed a desire to “go to every single Indian person in this country and personally apologize.”) “Actors love to do accents!” Campbell told me. “It’s fun to do vocal gymnastics, but we have had a moment of recognizing that there are certain accents where you’re appropriating someone’s culture.” The one motto that nearly every audiobook professional I interviewed repeated to me when I asked about their strategies for dealing with accents is “less is more.” Kevin R. Free—a Black theater actor who began narrating audiobooks 20 years ago and has become the voice of both a soap opera–addicted cyborg in Martha Wells’ Murderbot series and of Eric Carle’s iconic picture books (The Very Hungry Caterpillar, etc.)—laughingly recalled reporting for his very first recording session armed with a set of theatrically bold character voices, only to be told by his director: “I don’t want you to think of doing this book as doing a solo show. … There’s no reason for you to go all the way there.”* That holds especially true for cross-cultural accents. If Ballerini feels that “maybe I’m not the right person to give a voice to this particular character, let me just do it as plainly and as simply as I can. I think that’s a general trend that’s happening in the industry.” Campbell explained that when voicing characters of color, she uses an acting technique that focuses on the character’s intentions rather than on more superficial markers of identity like accent. “What does the character want from the other person in the scene? What is the conflict of the scene? Play that fully without relying on cultural stereotypes.” In Campbell’s recording of Where the Crawdads Sing, she audibly dials the rural North Carolina accents of the Black characters further down than the accents of the white characters they interact with. Sometimes, however, an accent shouldn’t be underplayed, because it serves a crucial role in the story. That can create conflict with the production or postproduction staff, if they’re not familiar with or sensitive to the cultural context of a book. Barros directed the audiobook of Simon Han’s 2020 novel Nights When Nothing Happened, about a family of Chinese immigrants living in Texas. The wife in the book becomes annoyed when her husband leaves an outgoing message on their answering machine pronouncing the family’s surname as “Chang,” as the Texans around them say it, rather than using the Mandarin pronunciation, which is closer to “Cheng.” When narrator James Chen’s recording went through a postproduction process called quality control, or QC, Barros and Chen received orders for “pickups” (short rerecordings edited into the final audiobook to correct errors) on every instance of the family’s name, instructing them to pronounce it the Anglicized way—as the Texans do. This was, as Barros put it, “not only totally wrong,” but a literal replication of the assimilation that so bothers the main character’s wife. In that instance, the producer backed Barros and her narrator, but that’s not always the case; January LaVoy wincingly recalled the time that, at a director’s insistence, she recorded pickups replacing her correct pronunciation of Latinx with latinks. Deciding whether to use the Anglicized or loanword pronunciations can be fraught for bilingual performers. Emily Woo Zeller, a Chinese American narrator, has sometimes clashed with directors and QC over whether to Anglicize the pronunciation of words taken from other languages, such as tofu or kung fu. She is also one of the few narrators I spoke with who took the step of contacting the author of a book that she found objectionable. “I won’t name names,” she told me, “but it was a white author,” and the scene involved what Zeller called “misplaced comedy,” in which the author “mixed up Chinese and Japanese culture, and the comedy was about the way characters looked and the fact that wanted to do kung fu and they were Communists.” Deciding “this can’t come out of my mouth,” Zeller brought her concerns to the author, who, she said, was “very apologetic and willing to change it.” Hers was an unusual move. Audiobook narrators tend to see their role as strictly interpretative. Their job is to convey the book from the author to the reader in a way that remains true to the author’s intent. This includes texts like classics, books whose authors can’t be appealed to for changes, and books that contain words, passages, and characters that are now deemed offensive. There also remain plenty of contemporary authors who, as Cobb tactfully put it, “haven’t caught up yet,” and narrators will continue to have to figure out how to perform those books. For Grover Gardner, four decades in the audiobook industry have taught him that “where there’s ignorance, you fall back on the only things that you’ve seen or heard, and chances are very good that, if you’re an older person, you’re drawing on a stereotype.” He’s had to work to transform some of his ongoing roles from vocal clichés into full characters. In the case of the former convict Willie in the Andy Carpenter mysteries, for instance, he has consciously tried to lean less on an exaggerated accent as an actorly crutch. “I’ve tried to focus more on attitude,” Gardner said, “on the real person.” Correction, June 23, 2021: This article originally misstated that Simone Barros is Black. Barros is of Cabo Verdean descent and identifies as Black. Update, June 23, 2021: This article has been updated to add additional comments by Barros about the narration and perspective in Antkind. Correction, June 22, 2021: This article originally misstated that Kevin R. Free began narrating audiobooks five years ago. Free began narrating audiobooks 20 years ago. ARTICLE https://slate.com/culture/2021/06/audiobook-narration-race-accents-casting-racism-representation.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Lit%20Hub%20Daily:%20June%2022%2C%202021&utm_term=lithub_master_list How Stories Change When They Move From Page to Voice Laura Lindstedt on the Different Ways We Read a Book By Laura Lindstedt, translated by David Hackston June 14, 2021 To all intents and purposes, a psychoanalyst’s couch is in fact a bed—after all, it lacks a back and armrests. And yet, this item of furniture must be called a couch. Nobody would offload their traumas on a psychoanalyst’s bed unless, that is, they were in a relationship with said psychoanalyst. In October 2019, I found myself sitting in the Silencio recording studios, headphones over my ears, reading aloud my novel My Friend Natalia, which had been published in Finland six months earlier. “‘Natalia’ was one of my first clients to lie on her back without prompting,” I read and continued: “When I showed her round my office, which I had rented in an apartment next to my house, I told her about the couch.” These two consecutive sentences are from the opening chapter of the novel. Reading these sentences aloud irrevocably sprained something in my brain. When one reads a book aloud as an audiobook, the visual aspects of the text all disappear. Of course, one could read the word couch, which appears in italics, in a slightly different way, perhaps by holding a short, artistic pause before the word. But this is not the same thing. Italics are not the same as a short pause. The therapist, the book’s narrator, gives the patient the code-name “Natalia.” Under the cover of this anonymity, the therapist then proceeds to divulge intimate details of Natalia’s life to the reader, then at one point removes the inverted commas from Natalia’s name “as I might remove the safety catch from a gun”. When read aloud, this sentence is absurd: the listener cannot hear the inverted commas around Natalia’s name. * Let’s be clear: I am very skeptical about the practice of turning works of literature into audio recordings. If audiobooks become the primary way in which we interact with books, it would be strange if at some point this did not have a direct impact on how people write literary works. Will writers—either consciously or subconsciously—start writing books so that they sound good when read aloud? The succinct speech between Me (the writer) and You (the reader) works well when spoken aloud, so the current appetite for autofiction is unlikely to dwindle any time soon. A linear narrative, in which we already know (or think we know) something about the end point, is also easy to listen to. For this reason, celebrity autobiographies and so-called true stories make for successful audiobooks. However, complex narrative structures, shifting perspectives, narrative polyphony, long, meandering sentences and the visual aspects of a text find themselves increasingly under threat from a medium that relies solely on hearing. If linear narrative becomes the only acceptable form of complex literary expression, our thoughts will be the poorer for it. Imaginary worlds and possibilities will shrink because such worlds and possibilities are not “content” that can be detached from “form,” they are not statements, suggestions or questions isolated from their rhetorical devices. * That being said, I’m not a militant opponent of audiobooks. To my mind, it is simply important to recognize that there is a significant difference between the printed book and the audiobook. Written material turns into vibration, letters become sound waves. They always come from a concrete source that guides our interpretation, a source that is completely different from the reading process heard through our “inner voice.” A new element appears between the book and its recipient: a voice that shapes how we receive the text. It is a sound born of a human body in a unique way and that is (generally) readily identifiable as the voice of a man or a woman. In the audiobook of My Friend Natalia, this unavoidable fact becomes a poetic problem in its own right. Throughout the text, I have scattered conflicting clues as to the sex of the therapist, the novel’s first-person narrator, but I was careful never to define the therapist as either a man or a woman. With certain exceptions, in many languages a writer and a translator can easily disguise or at least avoid the matter of the narrator’s sex. A writer can also play with this ambiguity, as is the case in my novel My Friend Natalia. Some readers have been convinced that the narrator is a man, others have considered the therapist a woman. Several readers have told me that their perception of the matter changed as they were reading. Readers always read a text through the prism of their own experiences, preconceptions and cultural stereotypes. For this reason, I wanted to read the Finnish audiobook of My Friend Natalia myself. I am a woman, but because I am the book’s author my voice is above all an authorial voice, and in this way I feel I managed to resolve the dilemma described above. But my relief was somewhat premature. I was once again forced to confront this matter in early 2021 when Penguin Random House Audio began to produce the English-language audiobook of David Hackston’s translation of My Friend Natalia (W.W. Norton/Liveright). PHR Audio’s producer kindly sent me a number of audio samples to listen to. All these samples were very professional and of the highest quality, but still they were unsuitable for my novel’s narrator. I started to lose hope. Was it at all possible to find an actor whose voice was neither that of a man nor a woman, a voice that wasn’t too young as it should be a voice that conveys the therapist’s wealth of professional experience? The voice also needed dash of pompous embitterment, stemming from the fact that nobody seems to value the therapist’s subtle genius. But we were lucky, and eventually we found an excellent voice, that of the actor TL Thompson, who identifies as non-binary and whom I chose as the English-language reader for My Friend Natalia. Thompson’s voice is characterful, mesmerizing and unforced. To my own ear, Thompson’s voice sounds more masculine than feminine, or perhaps it’s the whisky baritone of an elderly lady. However, the voice is not remotely “gender-neutral,” a voice-type that we tried to look for at first and whose very existence I have seriously begun to doubt. Thompson’s voice made every sentence oscillate between the two. I have not written such oscillation into my novel, let alone a gender-neutral narrator’s voice: the question of the therapist’s identity opens up—if, indeed, it opens up at all—when readers find themselves indulging in assumptions that the text does not affirm. I can say quite whole-heartedly that I love Thompson’s reading. Yet in the same breath, I must reiterate what I have already said: an audiobook is a different entity from a printed book. * For me, the act of interpretation is specifically that of thinking with the book. It requires stops, pauses, flicking through the pages, making notes in the margins. The book takes on markings, layers that are missing from digital products, which are perpetually new. We can browse with our eyes but not with our ears, as my partner, who works with sound, would put it. The ear is more sensitive to chaos and clamor than the eye. Sound operates like a one-directional timeline, a surge that is hard to control. A detailed auditive perception of a large space is simply impossible. It is to these very layers that I return when trying to form an understanding of the kind of book I am reading. I can easily locate markings I have made by flicking through a book, even if it is a book I read 20 years ago. The various temporal strata of my home library provide a shadow story of what has touched me and who I have been throughout my reading life. Last summer I awoke to the immeasurable value of these little scribblings when going through my grandmother’s estate after she died at the age of 100. From the collection of religious books, treatises and notebooks, I saved those in which my grandmother had left some kind of mark—and exclamation mark, a line under a section of text, or a Biblical verse in the margin. These markings reveal not only what touched her and who she was; they also say a lot about where I have come from, what kind of supra-generational reality I carry with me. ARTICLE https://lithub.com/how-stories-change-when-they-move-from-page-to-voice/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Lit%20Hub%20Daily:%20June%2014%2C%202021&utm_term=lithub_master_list New works from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s archives will finally be published, starting next year. By Dan Sheehan June 23, 2021, 11:21am The publishing giant HarperCollins has reached an agreement with the estate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to acquire world publishing rights to the late Civil Rights leader’s entire archives—a collection which contains some of the “most historically important and vital literature in American history.” As reported by Publishers Weekly earlier today< read below > , the mega-deal gives HarperCollins world rights “to publish new books from the archives across all formats, including children’s books, e-books, audiobooks, journals, and graphic novels in all languages.” Given the significance of the books in question, it seems strange that a deal like this one wasn’t made sooner, but this is welcome news nonetheless. More welcome still is HC’s assertion that it will hire a dedicated archivist to oversee the project, and “engage prominent Black scholars, actors, artists, performers, and social activists to help bring Dr. King’s works to life.” Way back in 1958, HC’s predecessor company Harper & Brothers published Dr. King’s very first book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, which detailed the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott and described the conditions of African Americans living in Alabama during the era. The first MLK titles to be published by HC are scheduled to drop in January 2022, to coincide with Martin Luther King Jr. Day. ARTICLE https://lithub.com/new-works-from-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-s-archives-will-finally-be-published-starting-next-year/ HC Inks Deal with MLK Jr. Archives By Rachel Deahl | Jun 23, 2021 In an agreement with the estate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., HarperCollins has acquired world publishing rights to the archives of the civil rights leader. The publisher said the collection features some of the "most historically important and vital literature in American history." Judith Curr, president and publisher of HarperOne Group, negotiated the deal with Amy Berkower, president, Writers House and agent for the King estate; and Eric D. Tidwell of Intellectual Properties Management, manager of the King estate. The deal gives HC world rights to publish new books from the archives across all formats, including children’s books, e-books, audiobooks, journals, and graphic novels in all languages. HC said it plans to hire an archivist who will oversee the material in the archive and make it "available to all HarperCollins editors globally." HC added that it intends to "engage prominent Black scholars, actors, artists, performers, and social activists to help bring Dr. King’s works to life." HC also has history with King. A predecessor company to HC, Harper & Brothers, published King's first book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, in 1958. All current his King titles, including those published by Beacon Press, will continue to be publishing by their current rights holders. “We are thrilled to be the official publisher of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s archives,” said Curr in a statement. “We view this as a unique global publishing program." The first King titles to be published by HC are scheduled to drop in January 2022, coinciding with Martin Luther King Jr. Day. ARTICLE https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/book-deals/article/86731-hc-inks-deal-with-mlk-jr-archives.html SOURCE ARTICLE Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, Books for Palestine, and an Intro to Booktok: This Week in Book News https://kobowritinglife.com/2021/06/25/kobo-emerging-writer-prize-books-for-palestine-and-an-intro-to-booktok-this-week-in-book-news/ Original Post https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1579&type=status

Artist Be Like 07/19/2021 My , Artist be like, three panel comic https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/My-Artists-be-like-886143892 Amidst the hustle or bustle from humanity, if you can focus, and focus some more, you will see an artists, stopping the hustle or bustle for the moment to create can not be stopped for anything Spider man tutorial https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/My-Tutorial-Spider-man-886143284 For my version, I went through all the steps PAtrick Brown showwcased but in my own way. it is all in one panel and you can see drawing upon former steps for each progression. Not every artists has various pens or pencils or a computer to do these tasks. Most children in humanity have one crayon, how can they make complex drawings, well they can use various draft lines or other techniques to show variance in color, it may not be acceptable in some circles, but it is affordable for all circles. Original Post https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1577&type=status EMBED CODE EMBED CODE

THE PROBLEM HUMANITY HAS WITH RICHARD MATHESON'S "I AM LEGEND" 07/17/2021 THE PROBLEM HUMANITY HAS WITH RICHARD MATHESON'S "I AM LEGEND" To be honest, the video poster below has flaws. I read "I am legend". MAtheson in the video said the real problem and I amend it is with most of the movies; said problem is, it isn't his story. The last man on earth The Omega man The potential Arnold swartzenegger I am legend Will smith's I am legend Of those films only the last man of earth actually resembles anything to MAtheson's story. The question is, what is matheson's story? the cheap reader thinks the story is about Neville. the wise reader knows the story is about humanity. Matheson's story post a simple question. What if a Virus kills or makes extremely sick all of modern humanity save one. Modern humanities technology fails to undue the affects from the virus . Modern humanities technology fails to stop the deaths from the virus. One human being is left alone amidst two other human being types, the dead or the infected. Charlton Heston/Arnold Swrzenegeer/Will Smith saw in the story, idolatry to the individual, perseverance to modern humanity. But the truth is, Neville for all of this loneliness has one great flaw. He is convinced humanity is doomed. He is convinced humanity will die. He sees himself as the last man. The loneliness /his culture/the human society he was born or raised in can't comprehend the simple truth. Humanity survived. A fourth type of human exists in the book, slowly growing in number. The civilized. Neville, the dead, the insanely infected, the civilized carriers, are the four human being types at the end. And Neville who has become completely uncivilized through years or loneliness plus deadly habit plus negative culture he was raised in, can not exists side the civilized carriers. Moreover he is feared by the civilized carriers, plausibly. I will restate but I will go to the three films that miss this. HEston's film like Will smiths negate the idea, the primary concept, that Neville is the last human like myself. Sequentially, the big failing in telling the story from the book. A main plot point is that modern human society failed, completely. It tried, it worked hard, and it failed. BUT, Nature is greater than human technology, I didn't say GOD , I said Nature, and humanity as a child of nature adapted through natural means. I imagine ridley scott wanted swrazenegger to be killed by the victorious vampire-esque infected people. A somber thought that the studios did not like. But, scott or the studios have it wrong. Humanity survived. You see, one of the problems with human beings and the idea of apocalypse is the myth that if humanities technology fails, all is doomed. but all isn't. Women , even infected with various ailments, have children. Some people will act undifferent while carrying a virus that will make others incomprehensible. NEville is so convinced as is most of the producers of the films that humanity is finished when technology fails against a virus that they forget humanity is very old. A virus can kill many, most, but no virus ever killed all humans. No virus has ever killed the entirety of humanity and after every single viral spread the humans who lived... lived... that is what I am legend is about. It is a creation story told from the angle of the last person from the old community. In my mind I can see Obatala/Zeus/Amatarasu/Quetzecoatl as human beings from an old community that are legends that have been given godhood, a controller of nature, a very human mental construct. Matheson could had told the story from the angle of Ruth, who is a child born from the infected who is infected herself but can live with the virus. But he didn't want that, the trick of the story , is we are getting the creation story from the angle of the last of the old community, the one who is legend. ... One of the finest lines in the book, is when NEville asks ruth , to guide the future humanity, don't let them make the same mistakes. NEville comprehends the technology he needed to change, to improve, was his culture. Culture is what you want to grow. He realize at the end, his heritage, what you carry was the technology that was lacking. Not, epidemiology or biology or the scientific method. His culture. His ability to accept change he can not control or escape from or immigrate from. Change that will destroy the community , the humanity he knows. A culture that can accept that a new humanity will exists, it will survive through what the old could not. And lastly, NEville realized what all the movies, including even, the last man on earth, fail to show. NEville had a chance to teach, he had a chance to guide the new humanity but he was busy being angry at the death of the old community that he is the last representative of, angry that he was alone, angry that no one else shared his similar experiences, that he spent all that time killing or hunting or treating the coming new human community as villains, merely for living with a virus, overcoming the failing from the virus, he hated. IN AMENDMENT Many humans last year, 2020 , and many humans this year, 2021, are just like Robert Neville. From the beginning, I said everything will be alright last year. Not cause I am a mental expert or am wise but cause I think toward the uncomfortable sometimes. I have learned to that through experience. But most people were not communicating that experience. They were having the same inner monologues NEville had. Communicating the same fears NEville had. My grand mother died, my grandfather died, my mom died, my father died, my wife died, my husband died, my daughter died, my son died,my granddaughter died, my grandfather died, the stores went out of business, I lost my job, I'm scared! we need a vaccine, we need social distancing, we need masks, we need remote learning, we need remote labor, we need government assistance, we need the businesses to reopen, we need global trade to begin again, people who don't act like me are stupid, people who don't act like me are traitors, people who don't act like me are murderers, people who don't act like me are dangerous... all of that talk is Neville speak. Neville is preoccupied with who has died, what vaccine or scientific assessment or tools he can derive, how different the infected act compared to him. NEville has no thought that everything is alright. NEville can't simply live his life peacefully, calmly, unafraid. Why can't neville accept that if he can live with the virus absent masks, absent vaccines, absent anything even companionship, that maybe others can too, that maybe humanity can. The lesson in the story is what hollywood is too afraid to tell. what most in the paying audience, which is not most in humanity, are afraid to see. What if human technology or human communities all over the earth fail completely and humanity survives and thrives? from Richard Murray Original Post https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1575&type=status

Character Copyright 07/16/2021 COMMENTS IN ARTICLE Fan fiction is a hot button for many professional writers. Broadly speaking, if the fan fiction is written by a non-professional and is non-commercial then it is more likely to be considered fair use, an exception to infringement. However, even if the work is not professional and not commercial, many writers consider fan fiction an infringement. My purpose in writing this post is to make writers aware that their characters can have individual protections. It is a concept that should be considered when licensing the work, in an option agreement for instance. I have seen requests from producers to option not just the work, but certain characters in the work. Writers need to consider how they want to deal with those requests when they come. You do not need a multi-million dollar franchise to start thinking about it. I will say one thing first, lawyers always reveal the most interesting legal battles in various subjects. I knew of none of these incidents. Thank you Ms/Mrs Goldman and as always thank you Jane Friedman for sharing. I admit I wanted to have my first fan fiction this year and I failed. I like to create something I never did before each year. But this article made me realize I made two errors. My first error was my inability to make a fan fiction. I am an original creator and every time I tried i kept making a world or characters that have no plot connection to the source fiction or characters. Imagine a story supposed to be set in the same world as harry potter but is primarily concerned with a magical detective agency in calcutta during the mughal era where the magicians don't use wands and the plot never goes to europe or the usa or mentions any spells in harry potter or any of the references of the movies or books. Is that fan fiction? or merely fiction that a writer has to say is based in the harry potter world? But after this article, I made a second. I didn't put enough thought into the whole activity of fan fiction, especially to work that is not in a public domain. I am glad I failed to continue the use of the world or characters in the material I wanted to make fan fiction for. I still will like to try it. but I will start with a better dialog with the author. that is first from Richard Murray Are Fictional Characters Protected Under Copyright Law? July 14, 2021 by Kathryn Goldman Today’s post is from intellectual property attorney Kathryn Goldman (@KathrynGoldman) of the Creative Law Center. Jack Ryan, the analytical, yet charming CIA analyst, made an appearance in federal court in Maryland earlier this year. The heirs to Tom Clancy’s literary legacy are fighting over him. Unlike in the movies, he’s not in a great position to fight back. It all started when Clancy signed the publishing deal for The Hunt for Red October where Jack Ryan made his debut in 1984. In a departure from common practice, Clancy transferred his copyright in Red October to the publisher. A few years later, Clancy realized his mistake and was able to negotiate return of the copyright for the book. He immediately transferred the reverted copyright to his company. Here’s the crux of the current court battle: When Clancy mistakenly transferred his copyright in the book Red October to the original publisher, did the copyright to the character Jack Ryan go with it? Or did Clancy retain the character copyright? In normal practice, the sale of the right to publish a copyrighted story does not stop the author from using its characters in future works. If Clancy retained the rights to the character when he signed the initial publishing contract, then the rights that reverted from the publisher would not have included the copyright for the character. The reverted rights Clancy turned around and transferred into his company would not have included the character rights. All of which means that the character, Jack Ryan, is part of Clancy’s estate and not controlled by the company he set up. Jack Ryan is a valuable character with his own copyright separate from the copyright in the book. Everybody concerned, the owners of the company and the heirs to the estate, wants a piece of him, or all of him. And it’s not clear where Mr. Ryan currently resides. Fictional characters are not listed in the copyright statute as a separate class of protectable work. There’s no application at the Copyright Office for them. But over the years, the law on character protection has evolved. Courts have held, in certain circumstances, that fictional characters are protectable in their own right. This is important because characters with independent copyright can be licensed separately from the stories in which they originally appeared. It’s another way for authors to divide their rights to create multiple income streams. That’s the beauty of copyright. It’s divisible. An author can keep some rights and license others. It’s what Clancy did and his company/estate is still doing with the Jack Ryan franchise. Not every character can be protected by copyright. Stock characters cannot be protected—a drunken old bum, a slippery snake oil salesman, a hooker with a heart of gold, a wicked stepmother, a gypsy fortune teller, and so on. They are essentially ideas for characters, vague and lightly sketched. Copyright does not give anyone a monopoly on ideas. Protecting stock characters would prevent as yet untold stories from being told. Depriving the world of new stories is exactly the opposite of what copyright is intended to promote—the creation of more stories, more art. A character must be well delineated to be protected. It must have consistent and identifiable character traits and attributes so it is recognizable wherever it appears. Think James Bond and his distinctive character traits: his cool demeanor; his overt sexuality; his love of martinis “shaken, not stirred”; his marksmanship; his “license to kill”; his physical strength; and his sophistication. Bond is protected by copyright. The Bond character is identifiable regardless of who depicts him. Defining the well-delineated character can be difficult. Characters that are central to a story tend to change. They evolve. They are built up throughout the book until they are fully formed in the mind of the reader. Without character transformation there is no hero’s journey, no story. Characters can become more delineated and more protectable over the course of a series of books. Bond developed over the course of 14 books written by Ian Fleming and continues to develop on film. Characters that are less developed are less likely to be protected. Those characters are less expression and more idea. There’s a gray area that needs to be navigated when balancing the protection for original characters but leaving character ideas in the public domain free for all to use. Public domain characters cannot be protected But new characters created from public domain works can be protected. Consider Enola Holmes, the younger sister of Sherlock. The Sherlock Holmes stories have been slipping into the public domain for years now, to the chagrin of the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle. The creative elements of Sherlock Holmes stories that are in the public domain can be used by others to build new stories. Enola Holmes was introduced to readers in a series of young adult books written by Nancy Springer. Enola does not exist in the Conan Doyle canon; she was created by Springer. She has distinctive traits (high intelligence, keen observational skills and insight, skills in archery, fencing, and martial arts, an independent thinker who defies Victorian norms for women) that combine to make her well delineated and protectable. Another wrinkle: “The story being told” test The “well delineated character” is the most widely accepted legal test used to decide whether a fictional character is protected by copyright, but it is not the only one. The other is “the story being told” test. Sam Spade is responsible for this test. Dashiell Hammett created Sam Spade when he wrote The Maltese Falcon. Hammett licensed the exclusive rights to use the book in movies, radio, and television to Warner Brothers. Hammett later wrote other stories with Sam Spade. Warner Bros. complained that it owned exclusive rights to the character and Hammett couldn’t write about him anymore. Ironically, the court protected Hammett’s right as the creator to use Sam Spade in future stories by deciding that the character was not protected by copyright. Sam Spade is just a vehicle for telling the story and is not the story itself. He is the chessman in the game of telling the story. It was the story that was licensed to Warner Bros., not the chessman. A character is protected under the “story being told” test when he dominates the story in a way that there would be no story without him. This test sets a high bar for character protection. To protect the character, the story would essentially have to be a character study. The Maltese Falcon is not a character study of Sam Spade. An example of character protection using the “story being told test” is the Rocky franchise. A screenwriter wrote a story on spec using the characters Rocky, Adrian, Apollo Creed, and Paulie. The work was considered to be an infringing use of the characters. The characters were protected because the movies focused on the characters and their relationships, not on intricate plot or story lines. The characters were the story being told. The writer could not avoid the infringement touchpoint of substantial similarity when he took the characters and used them in a new storyline. In summary Fictional characters can lead a new and independent life completely separate from the original work in which they appear. They are an additional creative asset in a writer’s intellectual property portfolio. There is no straight forward way to register for character protection with the Copyright Office other than as part of the larger work. Authors will be well served to think about protecting the rights in their characters when signing publishing contracts and licensing agreements. Kathryn Goldman Kathryn Goldman is an intellectual property attorney and Editor-in-Chief at the Creative Law Center. She represents, writes for, and teaches creatives and entrepreneurs about copyright and content protection, trademark basics and branding, and business building. She can be reached at Kathryn@creativelawcenter.com. ARTICLE LINK https://www.janefriedman.com/are-fictional-characters-protected-under-copyright-law/ COMMENT ON FACEBOOK POST Wiley Saichek Jane Friedman My client Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (we ran an excerpt from her book on writing a few years ago) is one of those writers who are extremely protective of her characters and does not grant anyone the usage of her characters in fan fiction, even in amateur publications, not for profit outlets. From her point of view and her lawyers at the times, distribution is a key factor, not whether the infringing fan writer makes any money off of it. My personal suggestion is if anyone wants to use a character they did not create, ask the copyright holder's permission and respect their decision. I.e. Quinn has written stories in the Holmes universe but got permission from the estate and had rules to follow. Quinn's most serious case of infringement happened in the 1990s, she wrote two essays about it in a SF publication in 1992. In her case she was asked and said no, and the fan writer wrote it anyway and it ran in a fanzine with a note acknowledging CQY declined permission but they were going to run it anyway and hope she will forgive them. I think they actually used three of her recurring characters. Many fans and writers disagree with how she handled it, but she has zero sense of humor about it. FACEBOOK Link https://www.facebook.com/jane.friedman/posts/10159604823112417?__cft__[0]=AZXv6tqLEho3qt9e6ECOp5g8Bm4JmEefiGUqUC07rvEpR6crPews6VYpt6oZ--49mda_yRlyZRU7ZZzwkjlNy5dcdppQGrPoVf3IqR2fe0CYcoVHMDkNisftkhyxdUO_YtU&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R Original Post https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1572&type=status

Wantagh's Cat 07/14/2021 Animal BFF Title: Wantagh's Cat I hear on the beach the following whisperings Asunal Oolihkmbuyal Asunal Wiipongweewal Wantagh Nzuksew I made a graphite drawing, developed a poem based on that drawing, and then an ink and then colored the ink. I wanted to use the indigenous language of NYC which is Muscee, of the original inhabitants of NYC, where we get the words Manhattan, Wantagh, Montauk from. I do not know Muscee and I can not confirm what I read is correct. But from what I comprehend of Muscee, I translated the following into Muscee The Waters are Blue The Rocks are Grey Wantagh is Black SUBMISSION https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Animal-Best-Friend-Forever-Submission-885747866 ORIGINAL INK https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Animal-Best-Friend-Forever-Original-INK-885748190 ORIGINAL GRAPHITE https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Animal-Best-Friend-Forever-Source-Graphite-885748474 I learned the Muscee from the website the following webpage is a part of http://www.native-languages.org/munsee.htm Original Post https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1571&type=status EMBED CODE

The Black Screenwriter Cometh 07/03/2021 In my experience, less than ten percent of the black writers I have talked to throughout my lifetime have read or written a screenplay. The question is why? I do not know exactly, I can not give a roadmap but I have ideas. I will go back... when I was a kid, multiple times my parents took me to see plays. August Wilson, Black theaters around harlem. They never took me to see a white play, defined as a play written by a white person. Sequentially, I saw black art not merely from one perspective. This parallels my constant rant on black fantasy, which sums up to , I was raised with black fantasy so I didn't see King Arthur or Beowulf or disney princesses or saturday morning cartoons as places that needed black fantasy cause I had it in the books in my home. I have the century cycle as part of my book collection. Why did I mention that? Many black people who say they love august wilson don't have his stageplays. August Wilson wrote the plays, in the same way Shakespeare wrote his and yes as a kid I thought of August wilson whenever we read shakespeare in class. My parents have two trains running and some others as singles, which i read during those early years. I have twilight zone scripts, which are,for me, invaluable in seeing technique for writing scripts/screenplays. Now my personal life means nothing to answer the initial question. I restate, why do less than ten percent of the black writers I talked to throughout my life, offline or online, not have read or written a screenplay? I know black writers offline who won awards for their work, made revenue from their work. I have made connections with black writers online who have varying levels of financial return or awards to their quality. I myself prefer writing poetry more than anything else. But, I have written screenplays, read them. Why have so few of my peers? While I ranted/provided background composing this I see two points that are undeniable. 1.Screenplays are not finished products and black people in the arts in the USA, don't like that. Ownership is a big cultural idea in the black community in the USA. It stems from centuries of enslavement and nearly to centuries of abuse after enslavement. when an artwork is not finished, it is not owned. And no screenplay is ever finished, it is merely the template, no matter how elegant, for the video recorded interpretation by humans, what is commonly called acting. 2.Screenplays structure is a thin lattice over anything goes sections. Meaning, outside some basics, the monolog or multilogs , the definition of scenes are open in their definition for screenplays. Education for black people in the USA after the war between the states, ending around ten years, was wholly funded by whites and mostly trade or skill based in definition. Why ? Cause white religious organizations funded the schools and wanted the bible to be the sole literary device for the black community. On the other side , in the same time period you had the reading schools were all age groups were allowed to learn to read. But, these schools were not interested in forming or creating a alphabet or literature for black people's various dialects of english. These schools were purposed to teach english as accepted by the white churches that funded most of them, who desired the british english. Remember, during that time most white people were still in a literary love affair with britain. Sequentially in the USA, the black communities first educated group, comprehend most black people did not go to school of any kind, had a very rigid sense of literature or writing. This was not , let the gullah/geehce/creole/delta communities create a literature to be the foundation for the future. This was, learn queen's english, read the bible. Rigidity was deeply set in how literature was learned in the black community. Tuskeegee or Howard are probably the most well known black colleges and the former was a trade school and the latter a seminary. NEither was a place where black literature or literature in itself was open to philosophical debate. Thus in modernity, the legacies of those educational cultures exist in the black community. When you hear a black say, as I have, that their parents didn't want them to be musicians or artists, or their parents wanted them to have a better work ethic. That philosophy to learning comes from the trade school, the religious school. Which is the founding place for all black fraternitieis or sororities. What does this have to do with the structure of a screenplay. LEarning for black people in the past 160 years, circa, is constrained. With poetry, whose forms all have rules, or prose, that has accepted structures, it is easy for the black educated populace to adhere to those rules. But, with a screenplay, you are not in error if you don't do it like another, and that simple truth, is uncomfortable for many black writers, who like to be right. If you are going to play the game, you have to know its rules and abide by them, but what happens when the rules are open for interpretation. Can you imagine, can you accept that? from Richard Murray Original Post https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1565&type=status

Alligado 07/03/2021 IN Honor of Sharknado, what about Alligado? Yesterday, July 3rd, in 1843, an alligator was reported to have dropped from the sky after a storm picked it up. What about a prequel to Sharknado, Alligado!!! What say you? ARTICLE CHARLESTON, SC – According to the National Weather Service Charleston office, on July 2, 1843, there were reports of an alligator falling from the sky during a thunderstorm in downtown Charleston. A search for the event, turned up an old newspaper clipping from the Time-Picayune in New Orleans. The Time-Picayune republished an article which originally appeared in “The Charleston Mercury” a local paper founded by U.S. Representative Henry L. Pinckney. The article described a strong thunderstorm that developed on a very hot July Sunday. St. Paul’s Church was reportedly struck by lightning but not harmed. No one was reported dead following the storm, but an alligator appeared at the corner of Wentworth and Anson street in downtown Charleston after the storm had cleared. And while no one saw the alligator actually fall from the sky, the writer states that “and as he couldn’t have got there any other way, it was decided unanimously that he rained down.” That and the look of wonder and bewilderment on the alligator’s face led to idea that he had come from the sky. The working theory is the gator could have been picked up by a waterspout the formed over a near by river or creek and was dropped on Anson Street as the spout dissipated. But since no one saw the gator fall from the sky, it could also be he just got lost in the blinding rain. https://www.wbtw.com/news/alligator-rains-down-from-the-sky-according-to-1843-charleston-report/#:~:text=CHARLESTON%2C%20SC%20%E2%80%93%20According%20to%20the%20National%20Weather,newspaper%20clipping%20from%20the%20Time-Picayune%20in%20New%20Orleans. Original Post https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1564&type=status

Sylessae 07/01/2021 My submission for the Sylessae draw in your style invitational on deviantart https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Sylessae-Draw-THis-In-Your-Style-884297630 My version of Sylessae in my calligraphic art style- look at bottom HEre is the poem I title: Sylessae Moon Terran Companion Turning the solar gaze into embrace Luna L'etudiant de la vie d'existence Toujours, silencieuse aux secrets There is a fae, some name Sylessae born when the moon form, the Earth's her dorm Four verse to say, hope she wel and fray ... Frog trrip over, mushroom, plash plus slime Throat too gulp, sound like, a great big loom Frog trip over, mushroom, plash plus slime Hop to flee, tarsals, felt all boom The Shadow from Sylessae tell no lies hear Bacchae She kill in her month name may The Shadow from Sylessae say again hear Bacchae she kill in her month name may If you want to read more of my poetry , please utilize the following https://www.kobo.com/ebook/poetry-or-more-1 Original Post https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1560&type=status

Der Tchrumpfs 08/24/2018 Der Tchrumpfs Nederlandse versie door Richard Murray Boek 5 - Richard Murray Short Story Collection Synopsis Een gigantische wereld in een klein stukje witte paddenstoelen. Geen van ons weet waar hij moet lokaliseren of vinden in onze kleurrijke wereld. Introductie, Der Tchrumpfs book page https://www.kobo.com/nl/nl/ebook/der-tchrumpfs-1 series page https://www.kobo.com/nl/nl/series/richard-murray-short-story-collection-1

Gospel of Joseph 06/11/2014 Gospel of Joseph literature from the tradition of the earliest people we now call christian by Richard Murray Synopsis The life of Jesus told through the words of a man unlike any other, Joseph, the man who raised him. Find inspiration in this traditional telling of the life of Jesus, from before Nicea or the Bible. book page https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/gospel-of-joseph

The Visasiki- Complete version 12/21/2015 The Visasiki- Complete version Listen to work from Sunset Children Stories or Looking West and West by Richard Murray Narrated by Richard Murray Audiobook 2 - Visasiki Series Synopsis Selected Tales from Sunset Children Stories The Kungaser Babal's somewhat certain dream Why Aso made her stories and how one may have got to you Jean Britisse the Hustler Kidobinti or Lil Binti and the Blue Dog Little Eight or The Lies of Little Eight or How Eight didn't get to Eight Ms. Nyumngu's Freedom Selected Tales from Looking West and West The Wisdom of the Old Blade King Warthog Water Snaker Sister The Good Man book page https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/the-visasiki-complete-version series page https://www.kobo.com/us/en/series/visasiki-series

The Visasiki- Free version 05/23/2017 The Visasiki- Free version Listen to one work from The Visasiki complete by Richard Murray Narrated by Richard Murray Audiobook 1 - Visasiki Series Synopsis This audio book is free for you to get a taste to the content in The Visasiki; it include one story ,enjoy. book page https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/the-visasiki-free-version series page https://www.kobo.com/us/en/series/visasiki-series

Poetry or More 2017 Jul-Dec 12/22/2017 Poetry or More 2017 Jul-Dec monthly poetry aside the astrological seasons in 2017 july to december by Richard Murray Narrated by Richard Murray Audiobook 3 - Poetry or More Synopsis Poetry for the months or the seasonal beginnings , solstice or equinox or perihelion, made in the year 2017 between july and december. book page https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/poetry-or-more-2017-jul-dec series page https://www.kobo.com/us/en/series/poetry-or-more

Poetry or More 2017 Jan-Jun 12/22/2017 Poetry or More 2017 Jan-Jun monthly poetry aside the astrological seasons in 2017 january to june by Richard Murray Narrated by Richard Murray Audiobook 2 - Poetry or More Synopsis Poetry for the months or the seasonal beginnings , solstice or equinox or perihelion, made in the year 2017 between january and june. book page https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/poetry-or-more-2017-jan-jun series page https://www.kobo.com/us/en/series/poetry-or-more

Poetry or More 2015-2016 12/22/2017 Poetry or More 2015-2016 monthly poetry aside the astrological seasons in 2015 and 2016 by Richard Murray Narrated by Richard Murray Audiobook 1 - Poetry or More Synopsis Poetry for the months or the seasonal beginnings , solstice or equinox, made in the year 2015 or 2016, started in June 2015. book page https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/poetry-or-more-2015-2016 series page https://www.kobo.com/us/en/series/poetry-or-more

The Nyotenda 08/20/2014 The Nyotenda A continuation of an 80s adventure classic by Richard Murray Book 2 - JIHI Synopsis An adventure of Ethel, from an Ethiopian village a small distance from Addis Abeba barely known, starting with a simple old arcade game through dangers in space ending beyond the aspirations found in any game. Complete Screnplay plus complete storyboards are inside. A version to the story is written by Camille Wanliss Ortiz inside. book page https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-nyotenda series page https://www.kobo.com/us/en/series/jihi If you enjoy my craft and would like to support me with $1 consider using my tipjar https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/tier/Tip-Jar-to-HDdeviant-902770076

The Janidogo 11/11/2013 The Janidogo the continued adventure from 'To Love and To Hold' by Richard Murray Book 1 - JIHI Synopsis Love is a beautiful thing, seen everywhere plus everywhere not seen. Sometimes, it has challenges. The biggest being the lies we tell ourselves or the truths that can't be changed. Eme and Henshaw dealt with this before, when Henshaw was nearly denied to marry because of a possibility in his past, and when Eme was nearly denied because of a possbility Henshaw didn't want to see. What if, two others, not so large of body, and far older in time, have a similar problem. "To Love and to Hold" was directed by Ndubuisi Okoh. It starred Kate Henshaw-Nuttal, Michael Okon, Fred Essien, Joke Silva, Mariatherese Rogers, Karian Abasimfon book page https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-janidogo series page https://www.kobo.com/us/en/series/jihi