I Think I Can Manage is a weekly column by retailer Steven Bates, who manages Bookery Fantasy, a million dollar retail operation in Fairborn, Ohio.  This week Bates talks about using your ideas.

I am constantly bombarded by stray thoughts, creative impulses, pipe dreams, and flights of fancy.  My imagination outstrips my ambition, and I am forever forced to abandon ideas before they come to fruition.  This has been one of my great frustrations in life, the cruel timing of the muse and my own inability to beat the other guy to the punch. 

For instance, in high school I dreamed up 'Snap Dragon,' a teenage boy who transforms into a mystical fire-breathing hero.  That was over 20 years ago.  Image Comics just published Firebreather last year, with many of the same concepts, and Dark Horse will soon publish Dragon Prince, even closer yet to my character.  Most frustrating of all is The Disney Channel's Jake Long: American Dragon, so close to my story it is frightening. 

Now, I don't think I was ever ripped-off or plagiarized--I have only produced one mini-comic to date starring 'Snap Dragon,' and there's almost no way Image, Dark Horse, or Disney could've seen it.  No, I simply file the experience under 'You snooze, you lose.'  Being the first one to market doesn't necessarily make you the most successful, but your idea won't seem as fresh if someone has, coincidentally, created something remarkably similar.

I've personally had numerous ideas inadvertently 'appropriated' by others; so many, in fact, that friends swear my store is bugged.  There was the TeenAgents, a title and concept similar to my own, by none other than Jack Kirby, published by Topps Comics.  And my Big Chill-inspired super-hero epic, built around sixties era adventurers reunited at a friend's funeral, complete with a time traveling hero at the epicenter, written months before Watchmen was ever solicited.  Or how about my Squires, four young men who get separate pieces of an alien armor -- helmet, breastplate, gloves, and boots--parallel to but thematically opposite of DC's Fraction.

In 2001, my friend Jeff asked me to help flesh out his comic idea, which he called 'Dream Pirates.'  We dallied off and on with the idea, and crafted a universe derived from our favorite comics and fantasies, but original in its own respect.  We jokingly called it 'Peter Pan meets the X-Men,' as the story involved fantastic elements such as armored pirates, flying ships, magic-wielding villains, and a strong female leader Jeff called 'Scoundrel.'  I threw into the mix elements from Atlantis, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and my own concepts about seafaring adventurers.  I even gave 'Scoundrel' a real name, Sarai (an African word that also evoked a Biblical heroine).  As illustrated by Sergio Cariello and Geof Isherwood, the Dream Pirates were slowly but surely coming to life.

Imagine my surprise when Jeff showed me a copy of Kandora's Barbarossa comic, with most of our concepts!  We'd actually been encouraged by Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean and CrossGen's El Cazador, believing it to be a door-opener for more pirate comics.  And we'd had trepidations about Sea of Red, as our comic also had horror elements mixed with pirate adventure.  But Barbarossa was uncannily similar to our Dream Pirates, with science being interpreted as magic, a whirlpool, a kraken, and a ship named, if you can believe it, Sarai.

There's an old saying that amateurs borrow, and professionals steal.  I believe the difference is more in how professionals approach the material.  Brian K. Vaughn's Y the Last Man is by no means an original concept, but the execution is entertaining and captivating.  Likewise, Alan Moore's ABC, Miracleman, Supreme, Terra Obscura, Watchmen, and 1963 projects all owed much to classic Silver and Golden Age comics, but were so refreshingly original, no one ether noticed or cared that they were recycled characters and concepts.  In all these cases, the writing elevated the material to something above a mere rip-off or homage.