When homage goes too far
So a while ago I was tweeting about Choice of Broadsides, an awesome text based RPG. It's set during a fictional version of the Napoleonic wars and you are a dashing psuedo-British Naval officer. The thing is, at the beginning when you pick your name and stats and all that, you have the option to choose your gender. If you choose female you will find yourself an officer in an All Girl Navy in a world where all the gender roles are reversed. Even the ships become masculine instead of feminine (which threw me off for a minute). It's pretty awesome.
Also the Choice of Games blog is pretty interesting.
Anyway, one of the characters in the game inspired a new character in my comic. Actually she's a bit of a combo of the Broadsides character Villanueve and Udda Von Schteppenslammer (be forewarned, this link leads to hilarious lesbian furry porn). But I can't come up with a name for her. In my head she is Villanueve.
This kind of feels like it's skirting the edge of plagiarism to me. A vague character outline is one thing, but to take that and slap on the name of the original....
I'm having a bit of the same issue with another minor char who I want to call Christine Kochanski (omg why haven't more people seen Red Dwarf?) but that one feels more in the realm of homage. I'm not actually calling her Christine, and she's actually nothing like that character (not that Kochanski really was much of a character anyway). It's more that my Kochanski will fill the same sort of role for one of my more major characters as "Chrissy" did for Lister (seriously, Red Dwarf is made of awesome).
My main issue is that now, on the third (and I think final) rewrite of the first comic, I have introduced Villanueve right off the bat and I really need to come up with a different name sooner rather than later. I was going to save her introduction so as to have an opportunity to make reference to a classic Star Trek episode but I think the story will be stronger this way. And I can always do that joke in a flashback.
Also the Choice of Games blog is pretty interesting.
Anyway, one of the characters in the game inspired a new character in my comic. Actually she's a bit of a combo of the Broadsides character Villanueve and Udda Von Schteppenslammer (be forewarned, this link leads to hilarious lesbian furry porn). But I can't come up with a name for her. In my head she is Villanueve.
This kind of feels like it's skirting the edge of plagiarism to me. A vague character outline is one thing, but to take that and slap on the name of the original....
I'm having a bit of the same issue with another minor char who I want to call Christine Kochanski (omg why haven't more people seen Red Dwarf?) but that one feels more in the realm of homage. I'm not actually calling her Christine, and she's actually nothing like that character (not that Kochanski really was much of a character anyway). It's more that my Kochanski will fill the same sort of role for one of my more major characters as "Chrissy" did for Lister (seriously, Red Dwarf is made of awesome).
My main issue is that now, on the third (and I think final) rewrite of the first comic, I have introduced Villanueve right off the bat and I really need to come up with a different name sooner rather than later. I was going to save her introduction so as to have an opportunity to make reference to a classic Star Trek episode but I think the story will be stronger this way. And I can always do that joke in a flashback.