An independent cartoonist has accused the Netflix show 1899 of stealing a concept from their work, calling it identical. The story of 1899 revolves around multinational immigrants travelling from the old continent to the new, encountering a nightmarish riddle aboard a second ship, adrift on the open sea. On Sunday, November 20, Brazilian comic creator Mary Cagnin alleged in a lengthy Twitter thread that the makers of the show copied her work. In Tweets, she drew parallels between her 2016 comic Black Silence and the show.
Cagnin highlighted the significant use of a black pyramid structure, the mystery-driven plot that features codes and otherworldly voices, and precise information regarding character arcs and final deaths. As additional support for Cagnin’s assertions, the forum also features numerous side-by-side comparisons of 1899 stills and panels from Black Silence. Tweeting in Portuguese, she wrote, “I’m in shock. The day I found out that the 1899 series is just identical to my comic Black Silence, published in 2016”.
At the end of the thread, she wrote, “I’m tired of crying. Thank you to everyone who has read this far and to all my readers for all the support I receive. Countless people in the Insta inbox comment on the similarities. I’ll see the procedures I should take. If there is anything that can be done”. Take a look at the tweet below.
The creators of the show have, however, not yet responded to the allegations made by Mary Cagnin.
Black Silence is a graphic novel that can be read on Issuu, a Danish-founded and US-based electronic publishing platform. The comic was published on the site in August 2017, with a brief synopsis explaining what it’s about. The official synopsis read, “In the future, Earth’s days are almost over. A team of astronauts is summoned to recognize a planet that may be the only chance of survival of humankind”.
Meanwhile, 1899 is a German-language multilingual show set in the late 1800s. It depicts her SS Cerberus, which is sailing from Europe to America, responding to a distress call from her sister ship, the Prometheus, which has been missing for four months. What follows is a bizarre series of events and incidents that defy logic. Pyramids are a recurring theme in the show, with images of mysterious giant pyramids in a dark, dystopian-looking desert. Netflix’s new show 1899 has received positive feedback from both fans and critics.
