There is a project underway to adapt Peter & Wendy and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens into a graphic novel.  The creator Renae De Liz is a talented artist with a good track record, so I am very much looking forward to it.  She is currently running a campaign on Kickstarter.com to raise the funds for it (as illustrating a graphic novel requires a full-time commitment to get done in a reasonable amount of time).

http://renaedeliz.blogspot.com/
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/renaedeliz/peter-pan-the-graphic-novel-vol-1

If I understand it correctly, the BOOK is in the public domain, whereas the PLAY is still under copyright, which amounts to anything unique to the play (as opposed to what it has in common with the book) being copyrighted.  I could be mistaken, but that might explain why it is that in the US any stage adaptation we're likely to see is not J. M. Barrie's original but the Mary Martin musical....

It's more a (self-perpetuating) matter of the musical being better-known. In the perception of most people in the US, "Peter Pan" = "a Disney movie" or "a Broadway musical", and Barrie's play and novel are (if they aware of them) just the source material for them.  Much like if you mention Gone with the Wind or The Wizard of Oz or 2001: A Space Odyssey, people will assume you're talking about a film.

It seems most likely just a typical publishing oversight, but IF Barrie requested that the year of publication not be included, I'd guess it was because he wanted to pretend that it was an old story.

I've come across a reference or two to Peter and the Lost Boys being an example of the "totenkinder" (German for "death of children") genre, but I don't know anything about it.

Nothing to do with Peter, but I trust you're looking at Neil Gaiman's personification of Death in The Sandman?

I've done a little research, and apparently there is a "report to moderator" feature.  This would be a convenient way to deal with the recent signature-spammers.

Does this forum software have a feature for reporting spam posts?  There's been a small rash of them lately, and it'd be nice to get them cleaned out.

The simplest solution to the murkier aspects of the copyright question is to donate a small percentage of any profits (say 10%) to GOSH, regardless of whether the law requires it or not. It's what Barrie would have wanted, after all ...

That would settle the ethical question, but not the legal one; GOSH would still have grounds to pursue a copyright infringement suit in the US if they chose.

So if someone wanted to create their own version of the story for film or play etc based off the book they are allowed even in the US because it's in public domain?

Correct.  As long as they use only elements introduced in the novel Peter and Wendy (or LWB/PPiKG), and do not use anything introduced in the 1928 publication of the play (or other adaptations, which are under someone else's copyright), this is legal.

The only exceptions to this are in the few countries whose copyright terms are longer than the EU's: St Vincent and the Grenadines (all of JMB's copyrights expire in 2013), Spain and Colombia (2018), and Mexico (2038!).  So if you speak Spanish and want to produce an unauthorized Pedro Pan y Wendy, you might find the lawful market for it somewhat constrained for a while yet.