according to whom...

[clauclauclaudia]

... is the Alice of Wonderland fame named "Fairchild"? Is this something Alan Moore invented for his forthcoming books?

Context:

http://www.cinescape.com/0/editorial.asp?aff_id=0&this_cat=Comics&action=page&type_id=&cat_id=&obj_id=50999
http://www.cinescape.com/0/editorial.asp?aff_id=0&this_cat=Comics&action=page&obj_id=51044

Alice is named for Alice Pleasance Liddell, a real girl the author knew. But as far as I know the fictional Alice doesn't have a last name. I certainly can't find any evidence that it's "Fairchild". Help?

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

Apparently, according to him.

I can find no evidence of the character being named Fairchild. As far as I recall, the character is not explicitly given a last name, but since there is a poem in Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There included that spells out Alice's full name (Alice Pleasance Liddell), the best assumption possible to make is that the character's last name, to the extent that it has one, is also Liddell.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

*eyes the books* Joy.

Um, anyway, I suspect that's a rights thing, but that's just a wild stab.

[clauclauclaudia]

I dunno, I can't think why Dorothy Gale and Wendy Darling would be kosher but Alice would need changing. She's the oldest, even!

Maybe he just needed a surname and plucked one out of the air.

It keeps tweaking a childhood neuron for me because of Lady Elaine Fairchild(e?) in Makebelieve on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Well, I know the more recent Oz books (by different author) did things with copyright. And wasn't there a pseudo-Pan sequel, too? Haven't been any for Alice.

(OTOH, they're all owned by Disney, aren't they? So I think I'm just wrong.)

[leora.livejournal.com]

Disney did copyrighted versions for Alice and probably Pan. But Alice is public domain. It's in Project Gutenberg.

[jenelope.livejournal.com]

Peter Pan is owned by the Great Ormond Street Hospital. When the copyright expired, the British Prime Minister proposed a unique amendment to the Copyright Act to protect the hospital's claim to the play, Peter Pan. Effectively, according to British Law, the copyright on Peter Pan will never run out. The copyright is kind of a muddle elsewhere in the world. Disney pays the hospital royalties on their 1953 film version of Peter Pan, but they've been finding ways around the law for sequels and other versions. It irritates me. I love Disney, but they are ripping off a children's hospital. Ironic, isn't it?

[novalis.livejournal.com]

It seems bizarre that the funding of a hospital should be tied to the commercial success of a random work of literature.

I think the problem with Disney in this case is that they are, on one hand, lobbying for copyright extension and expansion, and on the other, taking advantage of shorter copyright terms where they exist.

[clauclauclaudia]

Well, that cuts both ways. It's all well and good to say "it's for needy children", but perpetual copyright in general would be a very very problematic thing. Depending on your perspective on copyright, the hospital is, in the name of an excellent cause, stealing intellectual property from the public, who has a right to it after a certain amount of time. I lean in that direction.

The hospital itself held a contest to choose the author a sequel book to sort of renew the cash flow of the property. I was torn between charmed and icked by that. http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1437070,00.html

The US copyright on the original play doesn't expire until 2023... unless Disney gets US copyright terms extended even further by then. :-/

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Oh, and by the way, me too. Lady Elaine!