2015 edition!Updated Modern Appearances of Characters!Updated Copyright and trademark information!New Art!The Public Domain Encyclopedia (or PDE) is a book series dedicated to the Golden Age of comics that are, today, freely available to all. It is aimed at readers, writers and artists that are looking for reliable and verified information about characters, authors, businessmen and publishers.The 1st volume is dedicated to the Superheroes of the Better/Nedor/Standard/Pines Publications, a now dead publisher that issued comic books during the Golden Age (1938-1956). Recently, these characters raised the attention of many established modern comic book experts, readers and publishers, contributing to re-invent the way old comics are read, interpreted and understood in light of the historical events of the 20th Century. The Better/Nedor/Standard characters are supposed to be in the public domain and are used as such, however it is not totally clear if they are publicly available or not.This volume of the PDE aims at shading more light on the riddle entangling the Black Terror, Fighting Yank, Miss Masque and other less famous Mystery Men that fought the good fight in simpler times.This volume is divided in 4 macro-sections: an introduction describing the history of the Better/Nedor/Standards imprints and a timeline of their brilliant founder, the late Ned Pines; section 2 focuses on 28 characters, proving insights on their creation and conceptualization, their publishing life and their actual copyright and trademark status. A comprehensive analysis of the characters follows, including a description of their market trends, success factors and archetypal references. The last part is an updated summary of the copyright status of the Better/Nedor/Standard Golden Age titles, providing registration and renewal numbers dates and owners. A trademark table completes this section summarizing the registered trademark of each of the characters.All sections are fully illustrated with black & white fully original illustrations, pin-ups and splash-pages, granting a reading that goes far beyond the simple understanding of historical data, proving that the Funny Pages of the past are still enjoyable for all. Corrado Sesselego is a senior partner and founding member of Blue Monkey Studio, an Italian firm dedicated to edutainment, art, illustration, graphic design and new media. He currently acts as senior researcher and writer, marketing manager, and spokesperson. He has over 15 years of experience in the field of education, edutainment and social research with a special attention toward youth, having cooperated with Fondazione Iard and carried out national and international projects promoted by Invalsi (Istituto Nazionale per la Valutazione del Sistema Educativo di Istruzione e di Formazione) and under the Memorandum of Understanding between Italy, Poland, Romania and Malta of CIDE (Centro Nazionale di Informazione e Documentazione Europea). He developed "Progetto: Club DeA" in cooperation with the International Library for Children E. De Amicis, the Local Authority of Genoa, Hasbro Italia and Wizards of the Coast (Italian Branch) to promote young people's development through edutainment programs based on comics and role-playing games. A. Gerardo Ceglia is an Italian artist who specializes in traditional black & white comics. In 1998, he Graduated from the Scuola Comix of Naples and ever since had several cooperations with local publishing houses seeking a retro style. He cooperated with AC Comics, working on their flagship title, Femforce, further refining his artistic approach toward the widely-known good girl art style. He is a fan of John Romita Sr. and Steve Ditko's run on Spider-man.