The Great Art Grab.

From the Dark Ages

This character portrait from a defunct project was based on J-pop idol Toshihiko Tahara. It is scanned from a photocopy from around 1987. These pictures were done as prelims for an illustrated novel which was never published. The writer had an obsession with Japanese pop culture, so she usually had me base her characters on actors or singers. The former colleague was once well-connected in publishing circles as an editor first and then a writer, but her novels went nowhere, and she hasn't worked in publishing in some time. She tried on more than one occasion to start her own publishing operation, but these efforts were unsuccessful.

She was interested in A DISTANT SOIL too, and I created original ADS works for her, as well as other illustrations, some in full color. I'm afraid I was never able to get copies of that art, despite her promises to graciously let me have copies of my own art.

It’s hilarious, even as I type it.

I can’t tell you how many times I went through this sort of thing: you deliver art, they don’t let you have it back, and then string you along with promises of at least letting you get COPIES of it, if you are a very nice, good little artist.

I shit you not.

It was not uncommon for 1970's and earlier era writers and editors to behave as if artists owed them original art from the books we illustrated, and there are many tales of illustrations disappearing from offices into private collections, or writers making a stand for original art to be "gifted" to them.

According to this comment, P. Craig Russell in an interview in an old issue of The Comics Journal, Craig "...was even more unhappy about Marvel's policy about sending some original art to the writer, so he peeled the word balloons off the art and sent them to Wolfman. Wolfman called him up, made repeated demands for an art page or a sketch, and when Russell refused Marv made the veiled threat of "Archie[Goodwin] hasn't heard about this yet, but there could be trouble!". Russell hung up on him, and outside of Epic comics refused to work for Marvel again for quite a while."

I remember this story, but I don't remember that it was standard Marvel policy to give art to writers. I could be wrong. What I do recall is several writers from this era being very insistent on getting a portion of the art. To this day, I have a hinky feeling around the writers in this clique, but since I don't really work with any of them, it's not causing me any grief.

The writer of the job for which I did the art in this article not only walked off with a few sketches, she walked off with entire jobs. She wouldn't even let me have copies. Some of our work was done for trade, but I was never paid for other work for which trade was not in the nature of the deal, and she never completed her share of the trade agreements we did have. In the end, I was anxious to be done with her so never pursued the matter. Our professional collaboration could be politely described as a deep pit of wasted effort. I haven't spoken to her in over 30 years.

These are among the few pictures I have copies of because she decided I would need to have the reference in my files when the project moved forward, which it never did.

This sketch uses actor/idol Go Hiromi as a model.

I haven't kept up with J-Pop in decades (frankly, this whole thing soured me on it,) and while pulling out these pics, I looked up some of the pop idols to see where they are now. I was surprised to find out they are older than I am, since I had the impression that they were young teens at the time, as that is how they were marketed.

Anyway, it was dicey for the writer of this project to ask me to base the characters on real people in a recognizable way. I didn't know at the time (I was only a teen when we met and still in my 20's when I walked away,) but you can get in a lot of legal trouble over Right of Publicity.

The writer of this project had been a major editor then as well, and my senior in age and status. She was about 40 when this all went down. I would have thought she'd have known better, but apparently not.

Around 1986, Marvel Comics and artist Jackson "Butch" Guice had been the subject of a major lawsuit by singer Amy Grant when Guice used her face on the cover of an issue of Dr Strange. Grant claimed this "satanic" material hurt her image. There was a big settlement. Big.

Now that comic-based properties are so popular now, I bet Amy Grant would give her eye teeth to be on the cover of one.

Then again, the writer who had me do these pics may have simply found a clever way to get me to make pics of cute pop stars for her! She could always get me to redesign the characters later! What a dastardly plot!

I did some art of D'mer from A DISTANT SOIL based on photos of pop idol Kyomoto Masaki. When I did consulting work for Bandai, an executive showed Mr Kyomoto my work and got me a signed photo. So, I guess he wasn't too upset to be a comic book character! I know better than to take these risks now.

The Johnny Winter vs DC Comics case is well-known, and the courts sided with the creators, throwing out every claim the musician made for damages to his reputation and person. But it doesn't always work out for artists who reference public figures in their comics.

A wrestler (EDIT: hockey player, sports, it's all alike to me,) sued Todd McFarlane for basing a villain on him and won a $15M judgment. I thought the character was kind of a wink-wink-nudge-nudge tribute, and I can't imagine it did him any harm, but what can you do. The case was upheld on appeal and later settled for $5 million.

The writer I worked with often inserted roman a clefs of people she didn't like in her projects too, digs at well known people in SF/Comics, including one of my ex-publishers and his cronies, and even me (and while we were still friends, so, you know, that should have been a clue things were going to go nowhere but down).

The ex-publisher was an absolute monster, but I don't believe in poking the bear, and I don't want roman a clefs of ugly people in my work. I don't like to be reminded that they exist, and I think it poisons the project.

Regardless, he found out about one of these jobs by looking at preview copies of a story on my table at a convention when I'd left my stuff unattended to go to the bathroom.

He was stalkery like that.

I’d left his company years before, but there he was, again and again, well at least he’s consistent. I used to keep records of how many times his IP address was coming to my blog.

Anyway, he blew a gasket and called the client demanding changes, which were not made. The project was never published anyway owing to another of the writer's shenanigans, which is a story I'm not going to get into here. But other digs at this guy and his social circle made it into print. For the first time about 10 years ago, I read one of her 1980’s era works, and there it was. I nearly fell out of my chair.

Anyway, maybe these juvenile tricks at sneaking digs into published works are some of the reasons this writer doesn't get jobs anymore. I honestly don't know. I don't think she was a stand-out writer even then, but I'm biased, obviously. She was certainly not enough of a success to dish out that much mess and expect clients to take it.

She was the second female editor/writer in a row who got stacks of free original art out of me. It's kind of sad to look back and think how low my self esteem was at that time that I was so easily exploitable. I had poor boundaries, and made the critical error of thinking that a woman wouldn't take advantage of me like a man would. Obviously, this is not the case.

I'd gnaw your arm off if you tried this shit now.

When I finally got the art back from one project that a certain editor had held on to for herself for something like a year - sniffily claiming she didn’t want it anymore because she could find a better artist than me, haha (yet she kept the cover and an entire stack of sketches for which she paid not one red cent,) - I took the stack of published work and burned it.

Go find another artist then, said I. But you’ll be redoing this previous work from scratch if you ever do.

She never found another artist.

A major reason why I love technology is that I never have to let a client touch the originals.

No more lost art.