BW Media Spotlight

Created by Paula Rosenthal, Superkitties follows four costumed felines in their battle against evil.

Created by Shane Davis, Starlight Cats follows four costumed felines in their battle against evil.

We’ve seen big companies complain about people swiping their properties while hypocritically using fan art, or ideas from smaller creators in their products. The biggest known disaster was Star Trek: DIscovery using the idea of giant tardigrades, an actual arthropod but very small, as part of a method of otherspacial travel…an idea that seemed to be taken from an indie video game developer. Despite the differences in methodology the concept alone is too close to be considered coincidental.

That brings us to Superkitties, a recent Disney Junior animated series about kittens who are secret superheroes in a human world. I recently did a review of the first few episode of the show, which is why I got concerned listening to my favorite wake-up podcast claiming the idea may have been taken from an indie creator. For the record, this doesn’t change any of the positive or negative comments I made about the show. It is a good superhero show for younger kids and has many positive messages in the episodes I’ve seen. (I’ve watched maybe one or two since the review.) Also for the record I have not read Starlight Cats and I’m going solely on the successful Indiegogo campaign from 2020 and the solicit for the complete comic on publisher 9 Lives Comics’ website. So did I pull a Bitsy-style “oopsie-kitty” and promote a theft? Let’s compare and see.

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