By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/22/2016
For years, there have been rumors of Marvel and Dc shutting down the countless unauthorized prints, t-shirts and sketchbooks sold at conventions featuring licensed characters. While a few people have been shut down for doing something egregious, it’s mostly been a “look the other way” thing, as The Big Two don’t want to be […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 11/21/2014
Todd Klein is the dean of comics lettering in the US, with more awards than he can carry, and a portfolio of logos and classic lettering that would be hard to touch. And he’s put it all together for a seven part series on the history of comics lettering:
This is an amazingly concise and fact filled journey through the most overlooked aspect of comics creation. That contains not only examples of lettering through history but a ton of photos of the letterers themselves, few of whom I’d ever seen before. I’d love to read this in a little chapbook but I guess copyrights would prevent that. For instance, the above lettering from an early Wonder Woman looks like mechanical lettering but it’s actually from the dreaded Leroy lettering guide, which produced a more mechanical looking font.
In the final chapter, Klein looks at the actual rise of Digital lettering:
The 1990s were definitely a era of turmoil for letterers in comics. Once digital lettering became possible, it was just a matter of time before comics publishers adopted it. An all-digital workflow offered many advantages for them, saving time, expense and materials. It also offered flexibility for reprints in other languages they hadn’t had before. Artists and especially inkers generally hated it, as it meant they had more to draw or ink on the page, once the lettering wasn’t there. It also hurt sales of comics art to fans. Without the lettering, comics art is just pictures, the story is missing. Letterers (and colorists) faced the hardest challenges though, needing to buy expensive computers and software and learn new working methods if they wanted to stay in the market. Letterers also had to create their own fonts, a difficult task, or use commercial comic book fonts, thereby making the work they did less likely to stand out from the crowd. Many feared the changes, and much anger and hatred were directed at the pioneers in digital lettering. Alan Moore once said, “You can always recognize a pioneer — he’s the one lying face down in the dirt, pointing the way with arrows in his back,” It was true for comics lettering, and there are still hard feelings from the 90s, when some letterers unwilling to go digital, or behind the curve, were pushed out of the business. Others came around later and reluctantly, often at a cost to their ability to find work.
Despite this, we now seem to have a fairly wide field of lettering options, from hand designed fonts to the occasional mad(wo)man who still does it by hand. If you’ve ever wondered about comics lettering, get a hot drink, sit down and red this whole series.
PS: Klein reprints this chart made by Comicraft back in the day he made detailing the old way vs the new way. UPDATE: This is actually Todd’s work sorry for the misidentification!
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 11/6/2014
On Monday, James Sturm, cartoonist and director of the Center for Cartoon Studies, posted a cartoon at The Nib called “The Sponsor”. I’m sure if you are a cartoonist you’ve already read it, since it was the talk of the town for a few days. Basically it concerns cartoonists, jealousy, the low bar for success, anxiety over one’s abilities, tumblr hits, Kickstarter and more. All in 24 panels. I’d call that a good job.
The basic conceit is that as in various 12-step programs, (the subtitle is “The first step is admitting you have a problem”) cartoonists have sponsors they can call in moments of stress. A young cartoonist named Casey calls his sponsor, Alan, in the middle of the night to fret about another cartoonist named Tessa who has a six figure Kickstarter, a line out the door at a Rocketship signing, and a book deal with D&Q. Tessa’s success sends Casey into such a tizzy that he has to work things out and consider grad school, despite Alan’s insistence that Crumb never thought about hits. And despite his “stay strong” rhetoric to Casey, Alan soon picks up the phone to call his OWN sponsor.
Of course we all know that judging your own success by someone else’s is a short cut to despair. By the same token, we’ve all done what Casey does, looked at other people’s book deals, Facebook likes, retweets or dinner companions and found ourselves feeling shitty about someone else’e\s perceived success. It’s human nature. You do it, I do it, we all do it. And then, if we want to actually be a success in some measure, we move on.
I know this cartoon ignited much talk in cartooning circles, but the one I caught spun out of this one by Colleen Frakes:
…I have a lot of respect for James, but all I see here are two white dudes complaining about a woman in comics. https://t.co/LB6KKefM9r
— ColleenFrakes (@ColleenFrakes) November 3, 2014
You can see the responses from MK Reed, Johanna Draper Carlson, Mike Dawson, Alison Wilgus and more. To be honest, the gender question here is, for once, a red herring. I think Sturm’s satire—and it is a satire, not an autobiographical comic—was based on the image of two white guys fretting over the success of a younger female cartoonist. That was kinda the POINT. This cartoon was about the toxic effects of jealousy not about gender relations—that the more successful, nimble cartoonist is a woman backs up setting as the twilight of the “pap pap era” that is implied by the reference to Crumb.
Another subtext of “The Sponsor” is that Alan and Casey are only reacting to the external aspects of Tessa’s career, and eschewing an examination of the artistic merits of her work that might lead to inspiration as opposed to mere envy. We get better at what we do by studying better things, and applying what makes them better to our own work, in a sensible way. Easier said than done, I know.
BTW, for those who think this is a lonely cry for acceptance by a put upon white male cartoonist, more of those thoughts are publicly expressed in this Metafilter thread, including guesses as to the real Tessa and so on. Come on people…IT’S A SATIRICAL STORY. I am well aware that all art is filtered through the social status of the creator, but but interpreting all storytelling as confirmation bias is the ultimate no-win situation. Can you imagine if Dan Clowes’ “Dan Pussey” came out today?
No, “The Sponsor” is about insecurity and the trivial uncontrollable fretting that destroys your own creativity. A few years ago I linked to this piece by Rob Liefeld called “How to Beat The Haters”, and you know, if Rob Liefeld can do it any one can—although external criticism is far from the corrosive internal struggle discussed in “The Sponsor.” But some of the same rules apply. You can only control one person’s work—your own. And yes, I am aware of the irony of quoting a cartoonist whose entire career seems oblivious to the painful self-examination Casey and Alan are dealing with. The way forward lies somewhere in the middle.
Kind of tangential to this, but I’ve updated the Beat’s “How to Get Into Comics and Survive Once You’re There” page with a few links. It’s still only an outline. Share more resources or self-help or ideas for what Casey and Alan should do in the comments.
And a final PS: Man, the Nib is awesome. That is all.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 4/2/2013
Later this year IDW will be publishing Half Past Danger, a new series written, drawn, and created by Stephen Mooney. After working as artist on several IDW titles including Star Trek and Angel for the last few years, Mooney decided it was time to set up a creator-owned project, which he’d have full control over. In order to do so, he had to set aside a year in which he scripted, designed, pencilled, inked, coloured and lettered the project – six months in which he wasn’t earning money from any other gigs. It was quite the risk, taking himself out of the comics scene for a year in order to focus on a comic he had no idea would ever see the light of day.
However! The good news is that IDW decided to pick up the book, starting with issue #1 this May – preorderable now! I spoke to Stephen about making the leap into creator-owned work, the inspiration for Half Past Danger, and how the experience has been.
Steve: Half Past Danger is dedicated to your father, “who took me to the movies”. What kind of films would you go see? Were there any in particular which served as inspiration for Half Past Danger?
Stephen: Oh wow, yeah. Loads! The first film I can remember my dad taking my brothers and I to see was E.T. in the Savoy cinema in Dublin in 1982, when I was five years old. Still my favourite cinema to this day. I can remember it like it was yesterday; its one of my first real memories. The whole experience made such a huge indelible dent on my psyche, in so many ways. The bustling anticipatory atmosphere of the jam-packed theatre, the crowd reactions as the movie ebbed and lowed. I was absolutely hooked. It also started my love affair with Spielberg’s eighties ouevre. Films that followed included The Return of The Jedi, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Goonies, Back To The Future, Big Trouble In Little China, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, and many, many more.
The most obvious influences on Half Past Danger filmically-speaking are undoubtedly the first three Indiana Jones movies. They really colour and inform my entire storytelling style. That bang-zip-wallop rapid-fire action beats-ridden kind of a narrative, with a few gags interspersed. Half Past Danger aspires to be that style of tale. Strong influences also would be the very early Connery Bond films, and pulpy matinee-style fare like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Then of course you have the classic Harryhausen dino movies. Great stuff, all.
Steve: How did the story of Half Past Danger start to come together? When did you first have the idea for it?
Stephen: The idea has been in my mind in some shape or form for years now, in that I’ve always known that if and when I ever attempted a story of my own that it would be 100% mired in that kind of pulpy action-adventure style, simply because that’s the genre I feel most comfortable in, and know so well. I always knew also that I’d want the main character to be an Irishman, since that’s the one thing I’ve been all my life, and nobody could tell the story of that particular character better than me, to my mind. I guess somewhat inevitably I injected much of my own personality and traits into a somewhat idealised version of myself, and placed him squarely into this scenario I’d begun to dream up. Hell, the guy even looks like me. If that’s not vanity wit large, I dunno what is.
The story came together over the last couple of years, I knew the high concept from the start, Nazis versus dinosaurs, but I wanted to really take my time and write something that hadn’t specifically been seen before, since as everybody knows, a lot of these themes have been done before on many occasions. The real trick is to give readers something they haven’t experienced as of yet, and I didn’t want to press too far ahead until I was sure I’d come up with a new spin on what in some ways could be seen as an old tale.
Once I figured out the main wheres, whys and whats, the rest came fairly rapidly.
Steve: This is your first creator-owned work – how did you decide that Half Past Danger was the right project to get off the ground?
Stephen: Well, it’s the only project that I’ve ever completely fleshed out, to be honest. I had this one idea that I thought was really strong, and it was bang in the middle of my wheelhouse, or more specifically what I wanted my wheelhouse to be, so I ran with it. To be honest I didn’t question it too much. Do I have other ideas? Yeah, but they all revolve around this universe! I guess I just had a single, enormous itch I needed to scratch for the time being, and I’ll see where I go from there.
Steve: You’ve said that you took six months off to focus on this project, writing, drawing, inking, colouring, lettering…. Where did you start with the project?
Stephen: With the writing. I didn’t put pencil to paper drawing-wise until the full series was totally written and put to bed. Then pencilling, inking, coloring, lettering, in that order. Then back to the start again for issue 2 and go again; rinse and repeat.
Steve: Did you work issue-by issue on the story, or plot out an entirety and then start filling it in? How did you approach the story once you had the concept locked down, in essence.
Stephen: I worked out the entire plot first. I’d be terrified to embark on a story without knowing how it was going to end. To be honest, I’d probably never GET to the end in that scenario, I’d just circle the drain narratively until I eventually flushed the project. In order to commit myself to this massive body of work, I had to make sure everything was utterly and clearly signposted. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to visualize my goal, and I’d be second-guessing myself all the while. Because the writing was the only element that I’d never approached before, I wanted to give it all of the respect it deserved, and to take the time to get it done right. Or, at least as right as I could get it!
Steve: How long has each issue taken you to complete? Did you find yourself surprised by how difficult certain aspects of the process were?
Stephen: Man, too long! The writing took about 2 months all-in, including research. That was fine. It was when I got stuck into the art side of things that I began to get bogged down a little. One of my dreams for the book was to do absolutely everything myself; complete creator control. That proved to be somewhat of a pipe dream in a way, though. The first issue of the book took me four months to pencil, ink, colour and letter. That was just unsustainable, the book would take another two years at that rate, and I was already six months in. Hence the addition of Jordie Bellaire as series colorist from issue 2 onward.
Something had to give, and of all of the aspects visually, I was spending the most time on the colours, which was crazy. Jordie is a very close friend, and when she saw me floundering she offered to dive in and help me out. She’s an amazing colorist, and a big fan of a lot of the same source material as I am, so it was a pretty seamless transition really. It also doesn’t hurt that Jordie’s a phenomenally talented colorist, in constant demand at all the biggest companies. I’m certainly beyond delighted that she chose to climb aboard.
With Jordie alongside, I’ve been spending two months a piece on the subsequent issues, almost all of that time spent drawing and inking the 26-odd pages per issue, then a couple of days of lettering at the end.
Steve: I was really struck with a blog post you wrote about the role of writing and art in comics - http://www.halfpastdanger.com/
Stephen: It’s very hard for me to separate the two, if I’m being honest. In this instance, it’s all just the story. When I was writing it, I knew exactly how every beat and scene would look on the page (or at least how I’d like it to look), and now that I’m drawing it, I almost know off by heart the entire story and script, so it all just flows onto the page. Again, it’s all just utmost inseparable elements of the story, for me. The script is more a broad outline with fairly tight dialogue than anything. Stage directions.
Steve: I’ve read the first issue of the series, and really enjoyed the central character, Tommy Flynn. Did you find the design process easier for a character you created, and would be writing yourself? Has it been easy translating your ideas to the page, rather than interpreting an established work, as you’ve done before for IDW?
Stephen: Yeah, I think it has. I wouldn’t say easy, but I certainly haven’t had to wrestle it into submission or anything like that. Probably because the main character is a bit of a cypher, in that he acts and reacts pretty much the way I would assuming I were a lot braver and a tad more selfless. Working with the established characters, like say Angel or Spike wasn’t that difficult either though, in terms of working what was written on the page, because I had such bloody good writers whom I trusted implicitly. I’ve been very lucky that way. I’ve never had trouble portraying any given character on the page, the acting and character beats are one of the very few aspects of the drawing that come totally naturally to me.
Steve: With more control over the final product, have you noticed yourself experimenting more with pacing and panel layout?
Stephen: Oh god, yeah. WAY more. I’m very respectful of a given writer’s script when I get it on a work-for-hire job, I’m loathe to mess with what they’ve asked for in their direction. They spent time working that stuff out, so I stick pretty religiously to it when at all possible, even when I might disagree on the shots called for. Or maybe there might be a crazy talking order or something going on that just isn’t feasible without the addition of an extra panel or the use of a slightly different angle. Perhaps I should go more with my own gut, I don’t know. Usually I just want to make the writer happy. If there’s leeway there, I’ll certainly take it. This kind of touches on that article on the Half Past Danger process blog that you mentioned in one of the earlier questions.
On my own book, I’m much freer to go with my initial instincts, storytelling-wise. It’s one of the most satisfying elements of the whole venture, and one of the reasons I actually wanted to attempt it. I think one of the reasons that people seem to be responding to how ‘cinematic’ the storytelling is, is because that’s my natural modus operandi, and my default setting.
Steve: How has the experience of working on a creator-owned project been for you?
Stephen: Absolutely wonderful, so far. Dizzying highs, terrifying lows, creamy centres. It’s as hard as I’ve ever worked, and in even more of a vacuum than before. It’s incredibly scary and daunting, because at the end of the day, for better or for worse, it’s all me on the page; nobody to hide behind. But at the same time, that’s pretty much the most incredible aspect. Where else can a sole creator be responsible for almost every aspect of production? Film? Animation? It just doesn’t happen, and that’s one of the reasons I love comic books so much.
Steve: Do you see yourself doing more creator-owned work in future, or are you looking to alternate with some more work-for-hire projects?
Stephen: In a perfect world, I’d love to do further HPD series every year or two in the Hellboy model, with the odd work-for-hire gig interspersed between. But obviously, that all depends on how the first series is received. I’ll certainly stick around for as long as Chris Ryall and the amazing guys at IDW will have me, I genuinely don’t think that there’s a better home for Half Past Danger.
Steve: Jordie Bellaire will be coming on as colourist as of issue 2, as you’ve mentioned, whilst I believe Declan Shalvey will be drawing a backup strip for each issue. There seems to be quite a growing community of comics creators in Ireland recently. How important is it to have that sense of a creative community? Is it helpful to have people to bounce these ideas off?
Stephen: Oh, it’s invaluable. it really is. Having guys (and gals!) like Dec, Jordie and also Nick Roche, Will Sliney, Stephen Thompson and all the other Irish pros to bounce stuff off and get opinions from is simple indispensable. We’re a very close network. Almost collaborators in a way. I couldn’t do this without their help, I mean that. Otherwise I’d just be floating along in a nebulous void of gibberish. And I wouldn’t even know if it was good gibberish. So yeah, absolutely essential.
Steve: What advice would you give to anybody looking to create their own comics?
Stephen: Get off the pot and do it. Let go of the doubts and the maybes, and just make it happen. Everybody is afraid; everybody wonders if they’re actually good enough. I know I do. The only way to find out is to light that touch-paper, and have at it.
At the end of the day, even if Half Past Danger doesn’t hit that sweet spot critically or commercially, I’ll still have the satisfaction of knowing I tried.
I did my best. Otherwise, as dramatic as it sounds, I’d go all the way to the grave wondering what might have been.
Many thanks to Stephen for his time! If you’d like to find out more, you can read all about the process on his blog, which has been constantly updating with information and thoughts on the creation process for the last few months. You can find his pencilling, inking, colouring, bits of script, all sorts of things on there – I really recommend you have a look. You can also find him on the twitters! Half Past Danger #1 is out in May.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/12/2013
TweetOver on his Tumblr blog, writer/artist/Backstreet Boys maven Bryan Lee O’Malley has explained that, due to a shoulder injury he suffered last year, his next project Seconds will be delayed until next year. His first major project since the conclusion of Scott Pilgrim, not much is known about Seconds at this point. We know that [...]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 12/9/2012
Gail Simone has explained today on Twitter that, as of this week, she will no longer be the writer for DC’s Batgirl series.
On Wednesday of last week, new Batgirl editor Brian Cunningham informed me by email that I was no longer the writer of Batgirl.
— GailSimone (@GailSimone) December 9, 2012
Simone came onto the series as part of the New 52, controversially giving the Barbara Gordon character back the ability to walk, and putting her back in the cloak. The series has had solid sales since the launch.
This means that Simone, one of the more prominent and popular DC writers, now only has one other announced project left with DC at present, which will be a story in the upcoming Time Warp anthology from Vertigo.
While her DC work may now be concluding, Simone still has the successfully-funded Kickstarter project Leaving Megalopolis coming out next year, along with I’m sure a range of other projects.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 8/20/2012
After reading Bon Alimagno’s excellent interview/evaluation with colorist Erick Arciniega on iFanboy, I decided that it was time for more of us to start jumping on the coloring bandwagon. Getting the right colorist on a comic can be crucial to the success of the book, and yet there’s really very little coverage of this side of the industry available. With that in mind I contacted colorist-whizz (and nicest man alive) Val Staples, whose recent credits include books like Swamp Thing, New Mutants, Deadpool and Hulk, to get a basic insight into his life as a colorist.
Val’s answers bring up some interesting points about coloring as a day-to-day job, and you can see a lot of correlation between his responses and the points made previously in Alimagno’s article.
Steve: How did you make your start in comics? Were you first looking to come in as a colourist, or did you start as an inker, writer, penciller?
Val Staples: My friend Matt Tyree and I had been comic book fans since we were kids, and we both wanted to make a comic together. Both of us are artists but he is a MUCH better artist than me. As I had done creative writing all my life, eventually I focused on writing and he on pencilling. Then, for whatever reason, we split the remaining chores of making a comic and decided to learn them. Matt took inking and I took coloring and lettering.
I then became a self-taught colorist. After honing my craft for a couple years I started attending conventions. Jonboy Meyers and I use to tag team together hunting out work. Plus, Jonboy had already gotten to know a few people in toys and comics, so it wasn’t long before I had some opportunities come my way. Then it was onwards and upwards!
Steve: Is it a difficult business to stay in? You see some pencillers unable to continue in the industry because there can be such quick turnaround in demand. How do you keep yourself working?
Staples: I’d say most businesses, especially any freelance work, is one part talent, one part punctuality and one part professionalism. A lot of people who work in this industry say you can often get two of those things, but rarely all three, so hold onto the people who do all three.
I’ve been coloring now for over 10 years, and I still fear what next month is going to be like. I’d love to be Exclusive to a publisher JUST for the dependability so I can relax at night knowing I have work for a while.
I think of myself as a B-List colorist. I’m not the first person people think of when they think of a colorist, but they often eventually recall my name. I’ve been able to stay employed because I do believe I’m fairly talented. I also think a lot of people find me enjoyable to work with. I know the only thing my editors sweat on a bit is I’m very much a “by the deadline” kind of guy. I map out a schedule and work very linearly. I have a hard time jumping from project to project. I find that it disrupts my creative flow and focus on mood, story telling and harmony. So I tend to work week-to-week on my projects.
Some editors get a bit edgy
Wow, this is indeed a sticky situation.
I have to admit, I would love to see LESS selling of prints for established characters and more original art, but that’s a personal quibble. The fact is many artists do not own the work they do for the corporate level characters, thus selling the prints (sometimes of their own work!) is the only way to make something happen from it (beyond the work-for-hire money they already get).
But what is a guy like Greg Horn, an exceptional colorists and artist himself, supposed to do? It is HIS work, and his colors, and his art. His files are often 100% digital, thus they only exist in a form off a printer. I like Greg and I want him to find his fans that seek out his work. However, that invites the slippery slope of the less established artists — especially the ones who never actually worked on the properties they sell.
I dunno… it’s a tough place to be in because it’s an actual legal action and also a moral & ethical action. Yet… there is a side of compassion for the community that invented the wheel we all need just to make this wagon roll along. Go figure.
Copyright, as it currently exists, doesn’t work. Corporations contradict themselves, arguing for longer terms on the one hand and then ignoring copyright violations on the other. Arbitrarily going after some and not others just creates confusion as to what is allowed and what isn’t.
Only corporations can solve this, but they prefer to let the situation stand. Offering some kind of license online for a fee for items costing less than a certain amount or print runs of less than a certain amount would benefit the corporations and make the work legal. Those licensees with exclusive rights would no doubt complain about the low cost competition, but they’re complaining now and being ignored.
How difficult was it to get a license from Lucasfilm pre-Disney?
There are two possible solutions:
The Boom! Studios model, and the authenticated model.
Boom’s convention booth includes a section for artists.
Boom will sell a sketch cover variant, usually for about $10, which includes a sketch from the artist/cartoonist working on that title.
The receipts are split between Boom and the artists.
This allows an artist to attend the convention without needing to buy a table.
Boom gets an extra draw (ha!) to their booth.
The second option is licensing/certifying artists.
An artist can apply for certification/authentication.
For a print, a quick authorization service can approve artwork.
The artist can then print copies as they like. Perhaps there is a limited edition with CoA on heavy stock, or framed. Maybe it’s a simple laserprint. Or a t-shirt. Or button.
Disney/Marvel could even market the images directly, like they did with J. Scott Campbell’s “Princess and Villain” series, just as they commission artwork from established artists.
—
Question… these gallery shows, where people reinterpret popculture icons as fancy prints… are those licensed?
Torsten asks: “Question… these gallery shows, where people reinterpret popculture icons as fancy prints… are those licensed?”
Torsten, that’s a good question. I had recently looked into doing just that; doing new original work with images of classic 50’s movie stars. You see them everywhere; how tough can it be?
Answer: The rights to their images belong to their estate. You can’t (really CAN’T) use their image without permission.
I am an artist. I work for a company creating art using Licensed characters. I do not make or sell prints of my interpretations of those characters.
We are given a Style guide containing approved art of the characters that we can use. We can interpret the art to an extent. Any art we create has to be submitted to the licensor for approval before we can make any product using that art.
I know from experience that creating your own interpretation a licensors characters and asking them to approve them seldom ever works out in your favor.
The licensor will always ask you to match the style guide.,
Plus a a licensee you have to guarantee a certain amount of sales each year as a part of your contract. Like I said I’m an artist, not one of the number crunchers so I don’t know the legal/$$ specifics of being a licensee, but I’m sure a illustrator attending a Con selling prints could never sell enough prints to make it worth while for a Licensor to “approve” the artist to create original versions of their characters.
And as an artist who works on licensed properties I don’t believe any of the con artists would like to go through the multiple steps of getting art approved, including multiple changes to the art that can kill the originality of a piece of art.
Honestly I don’t believe that the frustration of getting and keeping a license would be worth it to a con artist,The time and money that the licensor would spend trying to keep up with the multitude of con artists would cost more money that it would make.
All that being said, I like to see artists interpretations of my favorite characters.
Would I want those same artists to be making money off of characters that I own, therefore taking money out of my pocket? I’d have to say no.
I think if an artist does an original drawing and sell it. That’s fine.
Making multiple prints and selling them. That’s not ok.
I’ve found that legit artists never sell prints or other unlicensed merchandise but will happily sell their one-of-a-kind originals or do a one-of- a-kind commission on the spot. It’s a distinction with a difference: a print is engaging in the unlicensed manufacture of a product while a commission is just a moment in time, like autographing a book. I know I’m biased because I work for licensors (and have, without a break, for 12 years) so I’m basically “The Man,” but selling unlicensed product is disrespectful to the countless hours of hard work that goes into the licensed ones by dozens of people to deliver something the property owner can be proud of and lives up to their brand promise.
I think part of it is justified in people’s minds by this sense that the corporations don’t need that money anyway, or aren’t taking their character steward reposnsibility seriously (which I can say is NOT true), but just imagine this same thing happening with a smaller property. Would we be OK with ten different artists selling hundreds of prints of the characters from Chew or Invader Zim without compensating the creators? Or even Saga?
As I understand it (and I am not a lawyer) under US copyright, you can make and sell original one-of-a-kind works of art, like a sketch or painting. But, you cannot reproduce that art and sell posters of it using mechanical means. Yeah, it sucks if you’re a digital artist, but that’s why old laws should be updated.
From what I’ve seen, I doubt you could convince a judge that most fan art and cosplay kits fall under fair use as a commentary or criticism. Possibly parody, but even it’d have to painfully obvious and you still might loose.
Now, copyright and trademarks are different. Companies have a legal obligation to protect their trademarks from infringement or risk losing them. Trademarks are the words and images associated with a brand, like the Superman “S” or the word Marvel in their special logo font.
Artists selling prints of their artwork depicting trademarked characters I don’t see as being much of a problem as it’s not taking money out of the pockets of the companies that own them. I don’t see DC or Marvel pumping out prints outside of what us consumers already buy, which is the comics themselves or variants.
I am curious about artists creating artwork depicting characters in less than favourable scenarios and turning that into a profitable side job. You’d think these companies would focus on branding and protecting their properties, particularly when if it applies to artists they already have in their employ drawing said characters.
Just a side thought with lots of ignorance attached as I have no idea how these things work.