CBR Live! Archive
What will I do without them to tease?
- by Brian Cronin
- in General
Heidi at The Beat had a good bit the other day about artwork that artists just copy from photographs and other sources. The key to the piece, though, was the letter she reprinted (courtesy of TCJ's message board) from Marvel's managing editor to freelancers:
MARVEL ORIGINAL ARTWORK POLICYALL-
There's been some confusion regarding the use of copyrighted materials in work submitted to Marvel. Please note that Marvel pays for original artwork, and your work made for hire contract requires you to represent that everything you are doing for Marvel is original.It is appropriate to use photographs or other copyrighted works for inspiration, for example if you need to see what the architecture of New Orleans looks like. However, what you cannot do is copy or take so many elements from a protected work that you effectively copy it.
Therefore, NEVER copy a photograph or any artwork you do not own the copyright in or that you re not sure is in the public domain. Photographers own the copyright in their works (or they have assigned the copyright to a publisher, etc.) and they are notoriously protective of their work. The same can be said of any paintings, print, scupture, etc.
There is a fine line between HOMAGE and RIP-OFF-make sure you are firmly on the side of using your own creative elements. A simple rule of thumb is to consider whether someone looking at your drawing and the reference material will think that one is derivative of the other. If so, you have gone too far and taken too much.
We know you want to bring an incredible sense of realism to the page and want to support you. Please speak with your editors regarding any concerns or questions that you have regarding the use of reference materials. By working together, we can create a work that is both inspired and unique.
Thanks for your time,
David Bogart
How awesome is that?
I posit quite awesome!
Even if it threatens to cut down on what I can tease comic book artists about!
- Posted on October 23, 2006 @ 12:26 PM
- Leave a Comment
- Share This!
10 Comments
Ye Olde Iowa
October 23, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Wow...this is certainly an interesting twist. It makes me wonder about two things: 1) If Sudyam is ripping himself off, how does Marvel feel about that? 2) The recent issues of Civil War Frontline featured images that were direct "swipes" of Lee Harvey Oswald's murder. Does that count?
What about swiping from images in the public domain? Is this a legal issue, or a moral issue? If its moral, swiping from anyone is going to piss Marvel off; if not, non-copyrighted images would be fair game. Makes you wonder which motivation is prompting letters like this.
Trebbers
October 23, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Who are they going to get to pencil Ultimate Power now?
Bully
October 23, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Yeah, I remember the days when only the inker could be called a "tracer."
yo go re
October 23, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Well, since I'm more interested in the issue at hand than picking on someone to make myself look good, let's discuss the CW Oswald moment.
I think it's clear, in that case, that they were specifically trying to capture the feeling of those particular events - they wanted the absolute Oswald moment, not some random staging of it. That's the kind of swipe (man, I miss the old "Swipe of the Week" site) I can appreciate, because they're not trying to hide their influences. They didn't buy some obscure book of photos and pick the person on page 3 to stand in for Speedball. I think, if you're doing it on purpose, with the expectation that your audience will immediately recognize the source, then it's fine.
The "Magneto as King of Spain" thing is similar, but a bit murkier, because the official portrait of a foreign leader is going to have less resonance with the average person than something like Oswald. Hell, how many people (not working in a government building) would recognize the official portrait of even our own leaders? Other than that one of Kennedy, perhaps. But still, if the above-board intent is there, I can support it...
Apodaca
October 23, 2006 at 3:37 pm
"Well, since I’m more interested in the issue at hand than picking on someone to make myself look good, let’s discuss the CW Oswald moment."
Huh? I don't understand how making fun of swipe artists makes any of US look good. As far as I know, none of us are professional comic artists, and nobody's said anything that would draw attention to them.
It's hard enough to guess what's going on in somebody else's mind in normal life, and even harder online. You're better off not even trying. Let them speak their own minds.
JR
October 23, 2006 at 4:23 pm
The letter is shown in today's Lying in the Gutters column as well, and it's a legal issue rather than a moral one (do coporations ever act on a moral basis when they don't have to? Other than for publicity?). So really all the more infamous practitioners of this need to do is either a) stick to stuff that's either owned by Marvel or in public domain or b) invest in a digital camera and take your own photos to work from.
What I would be interested in hearing is just what sparked the letter now instead of back during the King of Spain incident.
Brian Cronin
October 23, 2006 at 5:43 pm
The lamest thing about this statement is that it is essentially picking on others to make you look good.
Apodaca
October 23, 2006 at 6:23 pm
In the church of Cronin, this is where we say "HalleBOOYAH!"
moose n squirrel
October 23, 2006 at 6:45 pm
There's a fine line between homage and rip-off, true, but in their eagerness to point and laugh at the rip-offs, quite a few people stretched the definition of "swipe" to include stuff that wasn't even an homage - just two pictures that had characters in vaguely similar, but still pretty distinct, compositions. Rich Johnston, who hasn't posted anything interesting or original in his column for months, is the number one violator here. I notice he's taking responsibility for this, incidentally, with his usual modesty - because we'd never have known about the use of photo reference in comic book art without Rich's in-depth investigative journalism.
yo go re
October 24, 2006 at 11:09 pm
"The lamest thing about this statement is that it is essentially picking on others to make you look good."
You're darn right I am. Well, picking on others. Not trying to make myself look good. And when I'm following "who are they going to get on Ultimate Power" smarm, I feel perfectly reasonable.
Has anyone at Marvel (or DC, or any other [reputable] company, for that matter) really been working the copyrighted photos?