Fiction

You probably have heard about the Komodo Dragon. It always bothered me that it was called a “dragon” as its appearance didn’t correspond with what I imagine a dragon looks like. It’s ridiculous to see things like that, but the human brain is strange. Anyway, I was looking into where the name came from, and that led me to read about what I think of when were are talking about “Dragons.”

Who Created The Dragon?

The word “dragon” is dating back to the 13th century when it first entered the English language. It was derived from two ancient languages: Latin and Greek. In Latin, the word “dracōnis” referred to a dragon, and in Greek, it was known as “drakōns.”

It’s Thanksgiving this week, so I thought I would make a not-too-long article, in the sense of “not too much research reading to do before writing,” and there’s a new Addams Family show on Netflix. The “Addams Family Values” movie being a favorite of mine and a perfect watch for Thanksgiving, everything led me to write about:

Who Is The Creator of The Addams Family?

The answer to this question is quite simple. It was Charles Addams who created the Addams Family! The thing with this particular creation is that it evolved through time with the help of the TV adaptation first, then the movies. Each new exploration added something to the myth.

It’s spooktober! Halloween month is as good an excuse as any other for watching horror films. I watch them all year round, but more so during the month of October. That’s why I rewatched one of my favorites, George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. In France, the title of the movie is just “Zombie.” Anyways, this made me curious about something I should already know:

Who Created the Zombie?

First of all, what are we talking about when speaking about zombies? Merriam-Webster’s definition of the word goes as follows:

1. a will-less and speechless human (as in voodoo belief and in fictional stories) held to have died and been supernaturally reanimated.

2. the supernatural power that according to voodoo belief may enter into and reanimate a dead body.

Like with the Bechdel Test, it would be so easy to simply say “Disney created Mickey Mouse,” but it’s not totally true. There’s a bit more to it than that. It’s what I discovered while I was reading about some cartooning history that led me to Mickey.

Who is the real creator of Mickey Mouse?

Everybody knows who Mickey Mouse is. After all, as the longtime corporate mascot of the mascot of the Walt Disney Company, even if you never saw any animated (short or long) movie featuring the anthropomorphic mouse, or saw him on a TV Show, you know him.

I was going to write about the inventor of a total science-fiction thing—meaning it was thought, but never created outside of sci-fi books—and I realized I already wrote multiple articles about sci-fi things (like the Laws of Robotics, teleportation, Solarpunk or Cyberpunk). This led me to think I should write about the genre itself. And so, I asked myself:

Who wrote the original science-fiction story?

There’s not an easy answer to that question. Why? Because everybody doesn’t seem to agree on what science-fiction is.

Being from France, comic books have always present in my life—it’s called “bande dessinée” here (it means drawn strips). It’s part of our culture. American comic books were and still are (but less) however not really well represented. It didn’t stop me from becoming an avid reader and collector (I also wrote for a comic book website).

I mostly read Marvel Comics at first, the easiest to find, but I gradually broadened my horizons. I started to read about the history of American Comics, becoming curious about its origins. You know me, I asked myself…