Edit: so far Shuma Gorath (from Marvel’s Dr Strange in 1973) is the only example. Know another? Please let us know
According to Wikipedia, the Beholder is a Dungeons and Dragons original creation and it is copyrighted. Its first appearance was in 1975.
In case you are not familiar with these, a beholder is basically a floating eye with tentacles that also have eyes, often able to shoot rays off the eyes. You have probably seen some similar creature type in a myriad other media such as videogames, tv shows and whatnot.
Now I’m really surprised something like this only surfaced in the 70s. Is there anything similar in any type of media or culture prior to the 70’s? The only thing that pops to mind is the ancient biblical angels with abstract forms and many eyes, but I’m hoping someone here can show me more and better examples.
Or not. I don’t know.
I thought they were based on gorgons, specifically gorgoneion which is the image of just the head of a gorgon.
Nice connection there
I wonder if they could have been inspired by the writings (and some illustrations) of HP Lovecraft? I’m no lore expert there, but a Beholder wouldn’t be out of place by the side of some of the others.
Yeah. Lovecraft was one of the popular authors the creators of D&D had read. Sci-fi, fantasy, horror etc genres did not have tons of superstars in the 70s, so a lot of people were reading the same books/authors. It’s similar to how everyone had seen movies like Jason and the Argonauts.
Lovecraft was writing back in the 30’s, the same era of early Conan etc, but had become much more popular by the 70s.
Copyright only protects a specific artistic expression, not a concept.
So you can use the concept of a giant floating eye with ten eye tentacles that shoot lasers. Full stop.
But you can’t call it a beholder (due to trademark, not copyright), and you can’t use their artwork of the concept.
My question was “where were the beholder -like creatures in the media before 1975?” Specifically looking for examples of similar things that were already in circulation before.
I wonder if they had to pay to use something similar in Big Trouble in Little China.
iirc Wikipedia doesn’t mention Big Trouble in Little China as copyright infringement, but it mentions that example as something similar, whereas other media does get mentioned as infringing copyright.
Apparently the only one who got to use a beholder as such and not get a lawsuit was Pixar, who managed to get permission from WotC. I guess this means both have similarly strong lawyers
Did Wikipedia mention that what it sees, Lo Pan knows?
‘Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace’ (TV, 2000s) also had something similar in the “skipper the eyechild” episode. Nsfw if anyone searches it. I’d be quite surprised if they paid royalties for that.
There is plenty of similar, I also recall a Powerpuff girls episode with something like a beholder, also in the 90s I think. No infringement either, because it wasn’t exactly a beholder nor it was called a beholder.
That Pixar movie did use a proper beholder though.
Anyway… They’re all after 1975 so…
Yeah I’m surprised no one has dug up any obscure faerie or troll creature. So it does seem to be fairly original thing with maybe some medusa inspiration.
In the real world some of the drawings of beholders with toothy mouths make me think of angler fish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_one-eyed_creatures_in_mythology_and_fiction
There’s some cool things in this list, but i don’t see anything like it really similar enough.
Closest in appearance might be this listed as a 1973 comic, so close in time, but maybe too tentacleish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuma-Gorath
I can’t get past this one though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasa-obake
They are generally umbrellas with one eye and jump around with one leg . . .
That should have been in D&D
I think that’s it, you’ve found it, it’s Shuma-Gorath. It’s really close chronologically, it’s in a very popular publication, and also in the oldest depictions I could find it also sports something like the “chitinous plates” the beholder description has. According to Wikipedia too, Shuma was/is one of the most popular kaiju-type villains in Marvel. It also says Shuma can levitate and shoot rays off his eye and tentacles.
Eyeballs on tentacles/eyestalks were much more popular back in the day than now, especially for alien or extraterrestrial designs. So there isn’t a huge leap from Shuma gorath to Beholder.
I was hoping for more sci fi or fantasy fans to crop up and point at other characters from 60’s or earlier novels, however, no luck so far. Someone pointed a beholder wouldn’t look out of place in a Lovecraft story and I agree but yours was the only concrete example so, congrats, enjoy your trophy!
