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Nick Simmons/Bleach Manga Plagiarism Scandal Rocks Comics Twitterverse (http://manga.about.com/b/2010/02/26/nick-simmons-bleach-manga-plagarism-scandal-rocks-the-comics-twitterverse.htm)
This is old news to most, but last night I was having a conversation with a friend of mine (who is an artist himself) and we ended up talking about plagiarism within the art community and somehow the conversation ended back onto the topic of Nick Simmons (yes, son to Gene) and the whole **** storm he brought on himself. It's a pretty blatant ripoff from other sources which leaves us scratching our heads "why even bother when you know what the outcome is going to be?"
We talk about this stuff a lot because we both have been swiped from a few times on Deviant Art. It's just a crazy little world that breeds a lot of thievery. I've lost count how many times stuff that I have colored gets saved and then reposted onto another gallery site where they claim to be the colorist. Sigh.
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I have mixed feelings about this. Over the years I've had a lot of artwork stolen and kind of got used to it. Nobody ever made a lot of money from it though and I didn't hold the final artwork so had no control anyway. These days thanks to digital I can keep hold of the artwork and supply digital copies so I guess its a bit easier to protect. These days I just figure if people want to take it and claim it as their own there is not much I can do about it. But they will be in trouble if they get a commission from it since how can they do anything original in my style? They will have to contact me to do it for them or loose the commission. Maybe they take deposits and never deliver, but in the end hopefully they will get tracked down.
If somebody takes a piece of mine and it makes them a lot of fame and cash that's great, because I can sue them and get the cash.
As for plagiarism it all depends on how its done and what the intent is. What Nick Simmons did was all a bit of a mistake. I get the impression he really liked bleach and let it influence him too much. Now as A kid when i was learning I did the same thing with my personal art. I copied a lot of stuff. I don't know a lot about it butt seems like he did the same thing but coz his Dad is rich he got his "practice" published. In reality he just wasn't ready. I feel a little sorry for him for not owning up before it was published and making changes. Ow he's probably messed up his credibility for ever. At least with fanatical manga fans who will never forget and remind everybody when ever he does anything new.
I use reference a for most of my work though I do tend to use photo reference but there is no harm in using reference from any source as long as you are not exactly reproducing the original. However where is the line drawn? With Nick Simmons some stuff is clearly copied and other stuff no more than referenced : http://bleachness.livejournal.com/446299.html
For the most part I take plagiarism as a compliment that does no real harm to me. Perhaps it even helps the plagiarizer's ego so that's a good thing right? Since they are so mentally deranged and I assume unskilled that the only way they can make them selves feel good is by claiming they produced the work of some other. If its done for profit we can expose and sue them.
That's all I can think of for now.
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Well, I don't have issues with someone copying a style because such and such is your favorite artist. It's a given that when you get into comic book artist and start drawing yourself because of them, you will initially ape the style that you are a fan of. But this is a whole other ball of wax and as you stated, when the guy ripping is getting paid for it, they have to expect and take all the negative comments coming their way.
I just think as for Nick, he is young and was just not thinking along the lines of what he was really doing. Unfortunately, his rep is forever tarnished. The only way out is for him to buckle down, draw a series of books in his own style and imagination and hope that what he produces catches on to where fans can begin to start forgiving him.
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New York Observer and Sharon Moody: Homage or Thief? (http://www.scottedelman.com/2011/12/17/a-few-words-in-defense-of-jack-kirby-sal-buscema-irv-novick-and-other-anonymized-artists/)
Is Sharon Moody a Copyright/Trademark Infringer? (http://irenevartanoff.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/is-sharon-moody-a-copyrighttrademark-infringer/)
Last week, a fellow artist that I follow on Devinat Art that goes by the name of Joe Jusko, which I'm sure any fan of Vampirella knows the name very well, was the victim of art theft. Overall, the community was very supportive in siding with him, etc...But there were a few individuals that felt that Joe was overreacting and took him to task on even bringing up the subject in the first place. This morning he posted these two links to further educate why it's neccessary to always call out anyone swiping art from another artist. Both links are pretty good reads and eye opening.
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Roger Cruz Vs. Joe Madureira (http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/09/11/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-172/)
This was a pretty big deal back in the mid 90's as I was a HUGE fan of Joe Mad. So when this new cat, Roger Cruz "burst" onto the scene and started swiping panels and pages from Joe Mad, there was a big uproar about it. Swiping isn't new. But never has it been so blatant and bold and unapologetic. Check the link for some eye popping swipes.
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yeah those are all the old pics from this blog back in the 90's
I guarantee there are way more if someone went back today and poured over his work.
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I actually remember there being waaaaaaaaaaaay more. There was like a good 15-20 books that had multiple swipes per page. I need to find his back issues so that I can check them out again. I haven't seen the issues since they came out however long ago it was.
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yeah for sure that's what I am saying.
I didn't collect his work...so I don't have any...but if you ever find them....give them a good flip.
I guarantee he had books out all the time while he was working.
didn't he used to grab a lot of Jim Lee poses too?
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didn't he used to grab a lot of Jim Lee poses too?
I remember a couple of Jim Lee swipes, but not nearly the amount he was grabbing from Joe Mad. I'm sure there were more than just the ones that I saw.
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I didn't really follow Joe's work back then.
I did pick up deadpool, and then years later got his x-men work.
he couldn't have had too much to really steal from...his whole x-men run was only like 10 issues.
but I guess that's enough if you are determined to get that look
:)
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Cruz wasn't just lifting poses, he was literally swiping entire panels. That's some pretty bold stuff right there. Joe Mad may not have had a ton of books out there at that time, but Cruz made sure to get everything from each panel as humanly possible.
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he was like....I'll even eat the crumbs!!
give me more!!
:)
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How does something like that proliferate? Was it all under the radar?
I read through this and see examples and my jaw is dropped. How are these plagiarist not stopped from the beginning?
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bad editing...you can't really assume every editor would know all the art.
more fan boys spot this stuff after the fact...the internet really sped things up because for whatever reason comic fans love to sling mud
:)
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I remember reading the exact same issue of Uncanny X-Men where he got in that awesome dig at Cruz on the front page of the newspaper where it said 'Cruz swipes again'. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I still think its the best thing ever when it comes to retaliation in comics. A close second would be Campbell's dig at Rob Liefeld (http://pennycan.createaforum.com/comic-books-and-art/how-not-to-draw-like-rob-liefeld/msg202/#msg202) and Dan Fraga in Gen 13.
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hahaha those are such old references.....crazy that was almost 20 years ago
yikes!@
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News: Shia LaBeouf Apologizes for Plagiarizing Comic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7wb33gPY68
Why do Celebs think they can get away with this? If anything, there is going to be more eyes and scrutiny than the average Joe when it comes to invidivual projects such as this. Fail!
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Power, Fame, Entitlement, and on and on.
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Did Zimmerman Copy a Stock Photo for His ‘Original’ $100k Painting? (http://www.mediaite.com/online/did-zimmerman-copy-a-stock-photo-for-his-original-100k-painting/)
Speaking of "celebs" trying to pawn off another persons work as their own, click the link to see side by side comparison of "his art" and the shutterstock photo "painted" over. I'm stunned that the eBay listing (http://www.ebay.com/itm/George-Zimmerman-original-painting-/111239922810?pt=Art_Paintings&hash=item19e66a847a#ht_61wt_1116) hasn't been pulled down because of this very thing.
FYI, his "painting" is a joke. It sucks. I'm gonna laugh when the last bidder gets stuck with it thinking someone else will bid after him/her to save them from their financial obligation. It's true, there's a sucker born every minute.
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I don't even know who he is
he used the cut out tool and then did paint by numbers for the piece itself...I will say that/
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I don't even know who he is
Of course you know who he is. Trayvon Martin ring a bell?
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never mind...I thought he was a director or something
he shot that kid...was thinking a totally different train of thought when I was looking at it....didn't even occur to me he could be outside the Hollywood actor director scene
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I figured it out.
thanks I see you already posted who he was...but I hadn't seen it until my post went up
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In Zimmerman's case, it's a dude who don't know d-ck about art or licensing images.
In Shia's case, from what I can tell, it seems to be crassness mixed in with pure idiocy. I presume he was out of school before term papers and essays ever really entered the equation (he was a kid actor, you'll recall), so plagarism and citing sources isn't something he ever picked up on. You have to figure with Shia's clout, he could have easily gotten in touch with Clowes and gotten to use the script. I'm honestly not sure if that had ever occurred to him.
This is all reminding me of... what was his name, Greg Land? The dude who traced a bunch of po r no images for his comics? I remember when Sojourn came out and how I reacted to it, because nothing takes you out of a work of art like instantly recognizing its' reference material (this also happens in "The Ultimates 1" when we see Shannon Elizabeth in space), but tracing just made everything look flat and non-dynamic.
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I know of a few artist that have been ripped by fans for tracing, but I wasn't aware Greg was in that same class with regards to tracing p o r n . But then again, I really haven't followed anything he has done in years.
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GREG LAND: TRACING, SWIPING & RECYCLING (http://jimsmashextended.blogspot.com/2008/07/greg-land-tracing-swiping-recycling.html)
I had to Google for myself and see what he has been up to. Pretty extensive thread detailing a lot of swipes and traces. Man, he makes Roger Cruz seem quaint by comparison.
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I noticed that the first time I saw a Greg Land book.. and that was ten years and change ago. It also introduced me to a problem that I"ve been having since: almost-recognition of likenesses. I dig caricatures and so on, but it totally throws me when I can ALMOST recognize someone but not quite. Like, I'm pretty sure the main character in Sojourn is Rebecca Romijn but I can't tell for the life of me who her sidekick is. I hate that. Ultimates has a little of that going on as well. And while stylized, I could identify almost everyone in J Scott Campbell's Wildsiderz except for Michelle Trachtenberg's character (although the likenesses in that series were part of the point: the whole thing was a sort-of take-off of big budget movies, you're SUPPOSED to identify the characters as actors, it's part of the fun).
Oh, and more on Shia and his other rip-offs (http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/2013/12/shia-labeouf-legal-action-plagiarism-stole-apologies-from-kanye-west#ixzz2nwzIi3kh).
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I've never had a problem with Campbell using specific actors and actresses for Wildsiderz. It was obvious from the get go who each character was based on. But because he did a very stylize version of them in his classic style, he was and is able to get away with it. I have issues with artist that transfer a realistic photo into a realist drawing that is nothing more than a placeholder for the real thing. There is no style coming across on the page and that's where I lose interest in their "art".
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Totally agreed. I dig when Campbell does likenesses, and those are definitely a great tool for comic book artists because without them, a lot of the faces end up looking the same (I know I'm guilty of that!) . So no issue with that. But the Greg Land stuff seems so scattershot and inconsistent, famous people are minor characters for ONE frame. In Wildsiderz, the teacher actually LOOKS LIKE the character actor who would play a teacher in that movie!
What I like about that, and what I picked up well before even hearing about the book, is the idea boiling the likeness down so that it can be recreated on the fly without a specific reference image. That's how I was trying to work before, basically turn the real thing into an "animation" model. This is why my ink drawings in the last couple of years have gotten thicker and blacker, I start with the thinnest Micron pen size I can get and then go over and over with thicker ones until I get something stark and simple.
And I was thinking the same about locations as well. One of my big influences was Masakazu Katsura, who did these great mangas with ridiculously detailed photoreferenced backgrounds, they looked like big screen movies on the page-- which means that given the time that he made them, he must have been ripping off a BUNCH of photos. But damn, the result. It really gives you that you are there feel. Nowadays with digital cameras, you can take your own reference all over the place (I still do even though I don't draw locations much anymore)... and what I like to do (or try to do) is combine locations together, I have crummy collages in Photoshop of similar but different locales smushed up next to each other so I can get a place that's LIKE a real location, but different and that I can't directly copy. Basically, trying to design my workflow to make that sort of thing impossible.
I mean, this is all academic at this point since I couldn't even tell you the last proper comic book page I drew, but this impulse is still pretty strong inside me.
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I think photo reference is fine by me and would encourage people to use it as a point of reference to translate the essence of what they are seeing onto the page. With digital cameras so cheap these days, it's easy to build up a nice folder of reference material that you can call your own (granted that you don't upload them online that is). I know a lot of artist will do mock ups in Photoshop and Google sketch to map out their background and building scenes and since they are creating a new environment themselves it's definitely artistic in my eyes. Now if someone were to take a very well known photograph of a building (or whatever you can think of) and drop it into the background, then there is no artist value for me.
Getting back to using reference material, the reason why I think it's okay with me is that not everyone can get out in the real world or has the luxury to "Draw from real life". The next best solution is to bring "real life" to your PC or Tablet or whatever and work from that to hone ones craft.
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True enough. I know in college I spent a buttload of my free time scouring the pre-Flickr internet for reference pictures and scouring books of cities and cool buildings from the library (I used a lot of Japanese books so there'd be little overlap with what anyone else was doing). But putting it on paper is a trick because if you don't do it right, it'll feel like your characters aren't interacting with your background-- it'll look like bad greenscreen. And you want to avoid that moment of recognition ("oh, they're in the same room that they shot so-and-so in") unless you're actually going for that. I do save some places for that intentional recognition.
The problem with all of this is that it's a luxury most monthly artists don't seem to have, and it's why I slowly gave up on my dream of being a comic book artist first and foremost.
A photo I took once actually did get used as reference for a piece of artwork, it was a very pleasant surprise (and I was credited)
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Got a link to the photo? Would love to see how it was used.
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Photo:
(http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs19/f/2007/236/e/5/I__m_Ready_To_Serve_You_Master_by_Neumatic.jpg)
Artwork:
(http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/296/5/7/what_re_little_slaves_made_of_by_docredfield-d13d717.jpg)
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Very cool.
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But you see how Jabba and that snake thing just DON'T GO with the rest of the picture? That's the giveaway you keep seeing. If it wasn't a direct copy, those things could have been integrated better, I think. Not knocking the guy or anything like that, but that's what I try to avoid.
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Shia LaBeouf's cloudy plagiarism apology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17GgSq-eMqQ
An update....
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I heard... Not really an apology eh
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I think he is being a dick about the whole thing. You would think he would be taking this seriously given what's at stake here: his "credibility" as well as the potential financial fallout.
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Comic Con Print Hustlers (http://www.tomrichmond.com/blog/2015/03/27/comic-con-print-hustlers/)
Every time I go to Comic Con, the first thing that smacks me in the face is how many non-professional artists are selling prints, Tee's and Sketchbooks using licensed characters from the Big Two (DC and Marvel). How are they allowed to get away with this without any kind of reprisal? They make money hand over fist and don't even have to pay any kind of royalty fee to either company for the use of character(s). The above link pretty much spells out what I thought was the mindset of big companies and how what I see at a Con is really small potatoes in the bigger scheme of things. Good read.
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Artists sue Marvel, Disney over ‘Iron Man’ armor design (http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2015/04/artists-sue-marvel-disney-over-iron-man-armor-design/)
Vaguely similar at best. The only thing they can say that Marvel "stole" from them is the pose on the Poster. Other than that, good luck with the lawsuit. This will be dismissed if it hasn't already been done so.
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DC ALLEGEDLY USING SPURIOUS LOGIC TO SCREW CREATORS OUT OF ROYALTIES AND CREDIT (http://www.theouthousers.com/index.php/news/131478-dc-using-spurious-logic-to-screw-creators-out-of-royalties-and-credit.html)
This is f*cked up.