

Umberto Eco on the Greatest Maps of Imaginary Places (2014) - pepys
http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/02/17/legendary-lands-umberto-eco/

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scott_s
I immediately thought of Bill Mudron's gorgeous maps of classic videogames
(Zelda, Super Mario, Castlevania). The easiest way to view most of them is the
page where he's selling prints:
[http://mudron.bigcartel.com/](http://mudron.bigcartel.com/)

His homepage has a few more,
[http://www.billmudron.com/](http://www.billmudron.com/), if you go to "For
Me" and click on the bottom right for the gallery.

~~~
kbenson
Does he somehow own the rights to the NES and SNES Zelda content? I would
think those are art assets owned by Nintendo, and reselling them would fall
under some license agreement.

~~~
scott_s
I do not know the legal status of his work. However, the term "art assets"
implies, to me, particular works. In that sense, he is not reusing "art
assets" \- these works are his own, but obviously inspired by work that
Nintendo owns the copyright to. I am unsure what legal status fan art in
general occupies: it's original art, but obviously derived from something
someone else owns.

Trademark may be a clearer case: he's clearly reusing trademarked terms in a
context that could cause someone to believe they are from the trademark
owners.

Anyway, I hope he's allowed to continue making and selling them. They're
amazing, and should exist.

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kbenson
Yeah, I'm not trying to get him to stop _making them_ , they're awesome, I was
just struck by how they look to use a lot of art that's not his in their
content, and he's charging for prints. It just struck me as odd.

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bmm6o
Can anyone recommend this book? I really admire Eco, but I've found his most
recent novels to be generally disappointing.

~~~
riffraff
I really think his novels are 50% hit or miss.

"Foucalt's pendulum" was great, "the island of the day before" meh,
"Baudolino" was great, "queen loana's flame" was disappointing (I haven't read
"Prague's cemetery" yet).

But: this isn't a novel, so different rules apply. Also, amazon has 12 reviews
for it all with 5 stars :)

~~~
baghira
While there is no english preview, as far as i can tell, anyone who can read
italian may be interested in the preview at [http://www.amazon.it/Storia-
delle-terre-luoghi-leggendari/dp...](http://www.amazon.it/Storia-delle-terre-
luoghi-leggendari/dp/8845277585/)

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skaevola
A fun little essay by Eco:

[http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_mac_vs_pc.html](http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_mac_vs_pc.html)

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ginko
Well, Palmanova at least isn't really imaginary.

[http://www.turismofvg.it/ProxyVFS.axd/popup/r11207/file-
jpg?...](http://www.turismofvg.it/ProxyVFS.axd/popup/r11207/file-jpg?ext=.jpg)

~~~
mxfh
Eco's book is called "The Book of Legendary Lands": Legendary places don't
have to be fully imaginary or fictional as at least half of the examples are
more or less generalized versions of real world locations. The T-O Map, Tabula
Peutingeriana, Iceland are all depictions of the world.

There is however this other genre of curiosity maps:

[http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/...](http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/thematic-
maps/theme-maps/literature.html)

[http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/...](http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/thematic-
maps/theme-maps/love-marriage.html)

