Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Comic Books >

So nitpicky but ... swipes/homages?

17:48 / 10.01.03

This is so very nitpicky, but anyway ...

I spotted a comic book cover that looks like an utter swipe of a photo from a clothing catalog, and not the kind of swipe/copy that's meant to be a tribute. Does anyone know if there are any outlets on the web for talking about swipe/homage/copied comic art?

There used to be a website that served this purpose - "Swipe of the Week". It showcased comic artwork that looked as though it had been lifted/copied along with the suspected original, and visitors could vote on whether it was an outright swipe, an intentional homage, or a coincidence. Unfortunately, it closed its doors a while back and took down the site. Rats - it was absolutely hilarious.

18:00 / 10.01.03

Brian Wood's Couriers poster is ripped off of the Trainspotting campaign.

18:00 / 10.01.03

I took classes at the School of Visual Arts in NYC, where they have an illustration program geared towards comics and book covers. Many illustrators use photographic "sources" for their artwork, since any "realistic" drawing technique that can be taught will tend to look stilted most of the time (talent is another matter). That is, a photo from life will have a realness that can't be taught, but can be copied. Compare, say, Todd McFarlane, who doesn't use source, to Bill Sienkewitz, who does. You might like McFarlane's stuff better, but Sienkewitz's is definitely more varied.

I imagine these illustrators switch back and forth as they see fit, from "sourced" material to their own hand. Usually, they take their own photos, but if they like a particular fashion spread, why not? I understand Timothy Bradstreet does this a lot, though I don't know that's for a fact.

18:29 / 10.01.03

For the record, here is what I suspect to be a swipe:

Comic art: from crusadefinearts.com the illustration from the cover for Shi the Illustrated Warrior #5.

Photo: from Victoria's Secret, a lace-up nightgown they've had for years (_every time_ I open that catalog it's on sale; they must be trying to get rid of it).

21:45 / 10.01.03

Hmmm. Yep, I'd call that a ripoff. But, really, who's it hurting? It was a good illustration, I suppose. But it is damn close to the original... Could the photographer sue for plageurism?

21:46 / 10.01.03

Based on the two pictures, I must agree that the illustration is a swipe of the photograph. The previous posters brings up a good point about photo-reference though and since whomever did the illustration created with some variation it might be considered alright.

Does anyone know if a line has been crossed here?

16:25 / 11.01.03

I don't think any ethical line has been crossed, though you're free to think it's cheesey crap if you want.

08:29 / 13.01.03

There used to be a website that compared pages of comicbooks to show the swipes/homages. Anyone know where it is or whether it still exists? I was searching for it last week but couldn't find anything.

Dan Fish - @Fish1k

12:42 / 13.01.03

There used to be a site - But it was taken down long ago - Now, if only there was someplace that archived webpages....

http://web.archive.org/web/19990125095552/http://www.genesiscomics.com/

Dan
Comics@
www.fish1000.freeserve.co.uk

14:23 / 13.01.03

Cheers! That was the exact site I was thinking of. No wonder I couldn't find it!

14:25 / 13.01.03

It depends on what you consider "swipe" to mean; the term implies some sort of duplicitous intent, that the artist is stealing the work of another and trying to pass it off as his own. In the case of the Shi image above, I wouldn't call that a "swipe" - it's photo reference. Perhaps it stays a little too literal to the source photo, but I don't think there's anything ethically wrong with it. I use photo reference in my work all the time, from magazines, catalogs, stills I grab from DVDs, whatever. (I also shoot photos myself.) Bryan Hitch has built a career out of it - I can point out at least a dozen photo-based drawings in any given issue of The Ultimates.

The problem is with guys who literally cannot draw and rely on copying drawings from other artists. I saw an online archive of Rob Liefeld swipes about a year ago and most of them were astonishingly blatant - entire pages of artwork copied line-for-line with just a few superficial details changed to make them "Liefeld originals." It made my blood boil.

14:47 / 13.01.03

Perhaps it stays a little too literal to the source photo, but I don't think there's anything ethically wrong with it.

I imagine the photographer feels differently. Do you pay a copyright fee when you use photos for reference?

Ethan Van Sciver

16:48 / 13.01.03

I'm going to disagree with Cameron and call that a swipe. Unless the photo reference is taken by your own camera, borrowing so literally from something like a Victoria's Secret catalogue is wrong. I suppose it wouldn't be if you were doing a Shi pin up that was parodying or tributing VS models or catalogues, but I get the feeling the artist here was trying to disguise the source and claim it as his own.

Using magazines and catalogues is fair game, for bits and pieces. A nice facial expression can be grabbed, some help with anatomy here and there, shadows and lighting, and certainly the way clothing drapes around the body. I don't feel right about taking an entire photograph of a woman from printed media and copying it, like this guy did.

Matthew Fluxington

18:57 / 13.01.03

As a person who has had a lot of experience with photography and also a fair bit of experience with drawing, I'd probably agree more with Ethan than with Cameron on this matter.

I think that using a stock photo of a place as reference for a background or an establishment shot is a good practice, but I do think there is a problem with drawing a picture of a model from a magazine and changing the details to make it Rogue or Wonder Woman or whatever. Using published photographs for bits of visual information here and there is fine, but lifting poses and compositions is not.

Also, I think it's very silly and misguided to use photographs which are shot under studio lighting conditions for lighting reference in drawings unless you are attempting to replicate the same conditions.

00:09 / 14.01.03

These are all excellent points. Perhaps another good idea to ponder is the limits of photo-referencing: when does using an image become a swipe or its own work. Obviously, we must accept that this distinction can be arbitary to the individual. For instance, the artist of the Shi drawing may feel that since his picture does not duplicate the original in its entirety than he/she has shaped his work enough to be considered original. The Shi picture doesn't include the background, changed the dress color and the ethnicity of the woman, and added a weapon. The original shows a seductive woman who may be getting ready for a sensual night with her significant other while the Shi painting shows what?...a seductive woman getting ready for a sensual night with her enemy?

When Liefeld swiped stuff, he kept the intent of the original along with the design - the original and his work had homogenous leit-motifs. The Shi drawing and the VS original may have different themes, although the design is the same. Do you think that's enough to distinguish the two pictures?

Personally, I think it's a swipe in this instance but the artist's ability to capture the nuances of the original don't help his case. If the artist was Steve Ditko or Cameron Stewart, I doubt we'd have noticed more than a passing reference to the original.

Cameron - you can pay me later for putting your name in the same sentence as Ditko. :-)

05:00 / 14.01.03

The Couriers promo images are direct homages to Trainspotting promos. There have been three or four seperate images posted on Brian Wood's forum, with each mimicking a Trainspotting image, down to the pose. For reference, the artist is Rob G, one of the creators of Teenagers From Mars.

As for obvious photoreferencing, what about the recent Greg Horn covers on titles like Electra? Not only are they over the top, the fact that Horn's women appear to have breast implants are a testament to his precision in referencing those photos.

05:33 / 14.01.03

AS far as I'm aware, Greg Horn shoots his own photos of models and then paints over them in Photoshop.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:32 / 14.01.03

Re: The Couriers - can anyone tell me a) whether either of the creators have mentioned the Trainspotting posters as the point of reference anywhere, and b) how well-known the original image is in the US? Because it strikes me that in the UK, the original is *so* well-known, from a period where it was near-ubiquitous, that it's hard to see it as a swipe: okay, so it's about as 'cool' as riffing on a Reservoir Dogs theme, but all the same it's such a familiar image that the intent would have to be an in-joke between creator and audience. However, I'm willing to accept that it's a different context on the other side of the Atlantic.

11:04 / 14.01.03

b) how well-known the original image is in the US?

I think the campaign is familiar enough in the US that many readers will know what's happening. But The Couriers campaign doesn't include any of the winks that would turn it into a knowing, post-modern riff in my opinion. Just a straight rip off. Mind you, I probably wouldn't feel that way if Brian Wood were a bit more original, but he seems to make a regular gig of swiping "mainstream" design and getting called original because it's in comics...

Mister Six, whom all the girls

13:30 / 14.01.03

Wish to Hell I had a pic of it, but the cover to Zero Girl #1, the one of the main character looking up, when I was in Italy, I spotted an ad for some such thing thay was identical, not just similar, but identical, as a photo.

Tres weird... in Italian.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:59 / 14.01.03

Laurence: isn't there a point of familiarity at which the more something is a "straight rip-off", the more this is in itself a wink? I'm talking generally - I'm not a huge fan of that design, to be honest...

On a related note, though, I'd be interested to know of other examples where you think Brian Wood has 'swiped' stuff (presumably you mean as an artist or designer?).

14:18 / 14.01.03

Laurence: isn't there a point of familiarity at which the more something is a "straight rip-off", the more this is in itself a wink? I'm talking generally - I'm not a huge fan of that design, to be honest...

I don't know - I haven't read The Couriers but based on my experience of Wood it's probably not a wry metacommentary, you know? It's probably played straight, the campaign is played straight - where's the wink?

On a related note, though, I'd be interested to know of other examples where you think Brian Wood has 'swiped' stuff (presumably you mean as an artist or designer?).

I can't accuse Wood of swiping for writing or art, but in terms of design all he appears to be doing is ransacking the previous month's issue of Print or How. I'm not a Wood fan so I can't namecheck works, but I subscribe to a lot of design books and IMO have "seen" many of his covers before he does them, if you know what I mean.

I don't think is is necessarily wrong, and I don't fault him for doing it. But I do think it's absurd that he's developed something of a following for his "original" design sensibility when all he's really doing is bringing mainstream design to comics.

20:14 / 14.01.03

Re: The Couriers - can anyone tell me a) whether either of the creators have mentioned the Trainspotting posters as the point of reference anywhere

Repeatedly, on Wood's own forum on delphi. It was immediately followed by several days of talking about how cute Kelly Macdonald is. As far as I know, the images have been online-only, since it's not the official ad campaign, just some images whipped up for forum people.

To make sure I wasn't misunderstood, this is a homage done with the creators involved mentioning the point of reference many times.
http://www.brianwood.com/couriers/couriers_1.jpg

Plug in a number between 1 and 5 (couriers_2.jpg, etc.) to get the rest. It's the same poses and numbers as the movie poster.

22:15 / 14.01.03

The following is an excerpt from an excellent interview of artist Dan Adkins from issue 14 of the magazine COMIC BOOK ARTIST. (Please purchase a copy of this wonderful magazine). The excerpt provides another perspective on the issue of swiping and borrowing.

Dan Adkins:
Anyway, at a science-fiction convention, Larry Ivie [another artist from Tower comics] showed this slide show, and he had my stuff and Virgil Finlay and a bunch of guys, he was showing our swipes, or sources. Like when Virgil Finlay would swipe from the Saturday Evening Post or something, he'd show that. He's show me swiping Frazetta or someone. So, I wasn't at the convention, but I heard this from Steve Stiles, so I went up to see Larry and talk it over, "What the hell are you doing, smearing my name?" [laughs]

This wasn't the first time, he was also writing letters to Celia Goldsmith, who was the editor at Amazing Stories, and she would show me the letters from Larry Ivie, where he would show my swipes and stuff to her. And then, he would show her how to draw! [laughs] He would point out, "This is comic book art, this is illustration, this is fine art," he would do examples. She was saying, "You've got to straighten Larry Ivie out! I don't need this!" [laughs] So, he was working for Galaxy at the time, doing a couple of illustrations for Galaxy, but I don't think he ever worked for Amazing. Anyway, I went up to talk to Larry, because he was writing Celia letters, and he was running me down....

CBA: Bad-mouthing you?

Dan: Yeah, at the conventions.... He put me in good company! He was showing Krenkel, [laughs] and everybody.