Was Emily The Strange Ripped Off???

I was pretty shocked to read about a 1978 children's book that features a character very similar in design and attitude to the highly popular "Goth" character Emily The Strange...

Look at the images above and then read this from the You Thought We Wouldn't Notice website, who spotted the uncanny resemblance:

"The top image is a page from Nate the Great Goes Undercover, complete with text. This book was published in 1978. The bottom image is one of the first images of Emily the Strange ever made publicly available–it was sold, WITH THAT TEXT INCLUDED, as a bumper sticker."

What do you think? Unconscious influence? An homage? Total rip-off?

Glad that bitch Emily is getting what's coming to her:

When I Was A Chubby Twentysomething Goth

Me at 23 (or so) at Chiller Theatre with
"Carnival Of Souls" star Candace Hilligoss

Favorite colors: purple, black, and black

Note 1: Gothic culture is most probably far more textured and deep than I am making it sound in this post. Please keep in mind that this was my personal interpretation of "Goth" when I was in my mid-20s, not any standard definition.

Note 2: Most real Goths would not consider me a real Goth, partially because I thought Marilyn Manson was real Goth music (a point revealed to me in angry message board debates). Only began to hear real Goth music when I was no longer a Goth; by that point, I had also found ironic satisfaction in Britney Spears music, so I was too far gone.


Note 3: Far too old, perhaps, even at 22 to be a real Goth but simply a poseur? Or was I cool? I think I might have been kind of geeky.

Note 4: Phase was preceded by "Spiritual Hippie Who Buys Buddha T-Shirts From Old Navy And Stoner Necklaces From Hot Topic."

Note 5: Phase followed by "Nondescript Chubby Comic Book Company Assistant Who Eats Lemon-Frosted Pound Cake As A Substitute For Joy."


Favorite Movies As A Chubby Twentysomething Goth:
* The Craft
* The Crow
* Interview With The Vampire (seriously)

Too Hardcore For Delicate Flower Me:
Nightmare On Elm Street (it was mean! and ugly!)

Favorite TV Shows:
* Buffy The Vampire Slayer
* X-Files (only Mulder/Scully shipper episodes!)
* Kindred: The Embraced (obscure!)
* Wolf Lake (more obscure, never really watched it but said I did just to seem hardcore)

Websites I Could Be Found Lurking At:
* Buffy The Vampire Slayer Fan Fiction Sites
* Sites hosting shitty vampire clip art so I could build my own homepage on AOL
* Proto-MySpace type communities with shitty vampire clip art


Hobbies:
* Getting dissed by 13-year-olds for Buffy fic I wrote (if you want to talk "continuity hounds"...)
* Drying roses until they turned black
* Endlessly browsing through the two Goth shops I knew but never buying anything (except for that one day I bought a postcard)

Defining Moments Of Disillusionment:
One Goth shop turned into a punk store, and one shop closed down. And then my little sister said: "Goth is dead, Val! God!"

Biggest Regret: Never did the Masquerade RPG


What I Almost Did: Linked to my repository of old Goth fan-fiction that is still online. But I took one look at it and wised up. Sorry.

Final Comments On The Subject:
I had a good time. That's what's important.