Tintin, Popeye and the Roaring Twenties: What’s entering the public domain in 2025?

Crack open the spinach and get yourself a trusty Fox Terrier companion, because two beloved animated icons are entering the public domain next year.

Indeed, Popeye the Sailor can punch without permission and intrepid kid reporter Tintin can investigate freely in 2025.

The two classic comic characters who first appeared in 1929 are among the intellectual properties becoming public domain in the US on 1 January 2025, meaning they can be used and repurposed without permission or payment to copyright holders.

Popeye the Sailor was created by E.C. Segar and made his first appearance in the newspaper strip “Thimble Theater” in 1929, speaking his first words, “’Ja think I’m a cowboy?” when asked if he was a sailor. What was supposed to be a one-off appearance became permanent, and the strip would be renamed ”Popeye.” 

However, as with Mickey Mouse last year and Winnie the Pooh in 2022, only the earliest version is free for reuse. The spinach that gave the sailor his super-strength was not there from the start, and is the kind of character element that could spawn legal disputes. And the animated shorts featuring his distinctive mumbly voice didn’t begin until 1933 and remain under copyright. As does director Robert Altman’s 1980 film, starring Robin Williams as Popeye and Shelley Duvall as his sweetheart Olive Oyl.

That movie was tepidly received initially. So was director Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin in 2011. However, the comics about the boy reporter that inspired it, the creation of Belgian artist Hergé, were among the most popular in Europe for much of the 20th century. 

The simply drawn teen with a quiff that could out-class David Lynch’s first appeared in a supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle, and became a weekly feature. The comic also first appeared in the US in 1929. Its signature bright colours didn’t appear until years later, and could, like Popeye’s spinach, be the subject of legal disputes. And in much of the world, Tintin won’t become public property until 70 years after the 1983 death of his creator.

Let's just hope that both Tintin and Popeye will be spared naff horror adaptations once they enter the public domain. The mouse and the bear weren't so lucky...

Popular figures entering the public domain happens each year, and last year’s crop was a banner one, with the entrance of Mickey Mouse into the public domain.

“It’s a trove! There are a dozen new Mickey cartoons — he speaks for the first time and dons the familiar white gloves,” said Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain.

“There are masterpieces from Faulkner and Hemingway, the first sound films from Alfred Hitchcock, Cecil B. DeMille, and John Ford, and amazing music from Fats Waller, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin. Pretty exciting!”

Indeed, there are certain noteworthy books also becoming public, including William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury,” Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms” and John Steinbeck's first novel, “A Cup of Gold,” from 1929.

There’s also British novelist Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own,” an extended essay that would become a landmark in feminism from the modernist literary luminary.

Elsewhere, early works by major figures from the early sound era of moviemaking are also making their debut in the public domain. These include Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail – a film recently shown at this year’s Festival Lumière in Lyon, France. It begun as a silent movie but shifted to sound during production, resulting in two different versions, one of them the UK’s — and Hitchcock’s — first sound film.

There’s also John Ford’s first foray into sound with 1929’s The Black Watch, an adventure epic that includes Ford’s future chief collaborator John Wayne as a young extra, as well as Cecil B. DeMille’s first talkie Dynamite. 

Finally, it’s about time the Roaring Twenties had a comeback, and songs from the era are also about to become public property.

Cole Porter’s compositions 'What Is This Thing Called Love?' and 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips' are among the highlights, as is the jazz classic 'Ain’t Misbehavin’, written by Fats Waller and Harry Brooks.

'Singin’ in the Rain', which would later forever be associated with the 1952 Gene Kelly film, made its debut in the 1929 movie The Hollywood Revue and will now be public domain.

Different laws regulate sound recordings, and those newly in the public domain date to 1924. They include a recording of 'Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen' from future star and civil rights icon Marian Anderson, and 'Rhapsody in Blue' performed by its composer George Gershwin.