‘1899’: Mary Cagnin, Brazilian illustrator, complains that the series copies one of her comics

This Thursday, November 17, the long-awaited “1899”, the new series from the creators of one of the platform’s hits, “Dark”, arrived on Netflix. Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese return with a story that tells us the meaning of reality, simulations and journeys through our memories and memories, concepts closely related to science fiction. The German filmmaking couple is passionate about these themes, as we have already seen in ‘Dark’, but a certain thread posted on Twitter accused them of copying the story and the news set off alarm bells on the internet. Is ‘1899’ the plagiarism of an already existing comic?

On Sunday November 20, Mary Cagnin, a Brazilian illustrator and cartoonist, posted a thread through her Twitter profile in which she stated that the “1899” series is “identical” to his 2016 published comic, ‘Black Silence’. Through several tweets, the author has explained some similarities between the Netflix series and her comic and, of course, there are several things that coincide, but not everything is the same, and the story is not the same.

I AM SHOCKED.

The day I discovered that the 1899 series is simply IDENTICAL to my quadrinho Black Silence, released in 2016.

Follow or trust pic.twitter.com/1deBicrBeQ

? Only Mary (@marycagnin) November 20, 2022

So how exactly are “1899” and the comic “Black Silence” similar? At the end of the thread, the author has provided a link where you can read and download his comic in PDF, and for free, to see the “similarities” more specifically, or as the author explains, so that you can to take “your conclusions”. In preview, and without being able to definitively confirm anything, Cagnin’s work has some similarities with the Netflix series, such as the presence of some symbols or objects, but none of this ensures that the authors of ‘1899’ have plagiarized the cartoon by the illustrator because, while there are similarities, the work does not tell the same story. Some of the most striking similarities are the presence and appearance of a black pyramid, the importance and development of simulations in the plot, the mysterious deaths of some characters, the mention and importance of a code, the journey in a spaceship, the presence of multinational passengers or the symbols of triangles in the eyes of the protagonists.

It is evident that if you read the comic, having seen the series, you will be able to see certain similarities, but it does not seem like a copy or a plagiarism, as the Brazilian author claims. “Obviously, ‘Black Silence’ is a short work, almost a short story. It’s very easy to dilute all these ‘references’, in 12 hours of screening of the series, but the essence of what I created is there”says the author. Cagnin herself explains that her comic is much shorter than the series, but that the authors of ‘1899’ took the essence of their creation and used it for said television drama, which would imply plagiarism.

Cagnin explains in her thread that the Brazilian embassy invited her to attend the Gothenburg Book Fair in 2017, “a very famous and influential international fair in Europe”, in his own words. The illustrator explains that she distributed several copies of ‘Black Silence’ at this fair, including some English versions, and that some of these may have reached the hands of the creators. The author denounced this via Twitter and asked for the help and support of users to look for more similarities between her work and the series. However, if you take a look at his comic and compare it with what happened in ‘1899’, you immediately realize that the similarities Cagnin talks about are not of vital importance and we have already been able to see similar things in other works science fiction. And also, if you go further, you would connect films like “The Matrix” with this series, which is much more story-related than the aforementioned comic.

The answer of the creators

Cagnin’s thread had a huge impact on Twitter and, how could it be otherwise, reached the ears of Netflix and the creators of ‘1899’ themselves. In a post by Baran bo Odar on Instagram to promote the series, a user accused him of developing “1899” based on an already created idea, but The director replied that he didn’t know the illustrator at all, nor her work, and regrets that she thinks her idea was stolen, because they would never steal from another artist, because they are too. Subsequently, the user claimed that he had read Cagnin’s comic and corrected what he said, as he had not found the similarities that the author of ‘Black Silence’ alluded to.

And the worst thing is that without even informing you, you get on the bandwagon of the attack on the authors of the series, through a Twitter thread that, after all, seeks more repercussions based on controversy than anything else. BaranBo Odar, director of the series, also had to respond pic.twitter.com/yh1Z08qNxk

? Blind Master #ChainsawMan #Andor (@Maestro_Ciego) November 21, 2022

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A post shared by baran boodar ? (@baranboodar)

Also, the official account of the series, maintained by Netflix, shared a text explaining that ‘1899’ is an original story created by “two incredibly talented people”. In the text, the platform assures that the series is a special project that they have been working on for years and that it has nothing to do with the mentioned comic. Netflix lamented the situation that the creators are experiencing, accused of plagiarism, and said that this is going too far and that if you read the comic and watch the series, there is nothing more to talk about, because you will realize it nothing has been plagiarized. These words were shared by bo Odar through his Instagram profile, who also thanked the platform for its great support and trust: “Thank you @1899netflix for these nice words. They mean a lot to us. As I said in my previous post: unfortunately we don’t know the artist, nor his work, nor the comic. We would never steal from other artists, because we feel like artists We have also contacted her so we hope she drops these allegations. The internet has become a strange place. Please, more love instead of hate. Thank you. Bo.”