The News Blog of Comics Culture
You can be sympathetic to Gary Friedrich’s current situation—older, broke and in bad health—while still being alarmed over all the issues his court case has raised. My own email and IMs are full of variant views on it. So let’s trace the evolution of this a bit.
Continuing our roll-out of picks, prognostications and previews from the comics industry. Part one can be read here.
First off — something we forgot to post yesterday: pages from Charles Vess’s projects for the year:
A 16 page full color graphic narrative about Istanbul, Turkey. 50 paintings for ‘The Cats of Tanglewood Forest’ written by Charles de Lint and to be published by Little Brown & Co. And my on-going work on my own book, ‘The Greenwood’ which use a combination of pure text, illustration and hundreds of pages of graphic narrative content to tell its story.
Famed comic book spoofer Rob Granito to has finally answered some direct questions, and didn’t get paid to do so, which is awesome. . But the origin of such things as Jay Didillo, Granito’s non-existent collaborator on a non-existent DC book, is strangely prosaic:
As we predicted last week, the Rob Granito team is attempting to get their second act rolling with a round of tell-all interviews. You may recall (it was all so long ago and little noted) that Granito is a person of dubious artistic skill who has been going around to comics shows for 15 years selling copied art that he’s passed off as his own. Now, Comics Cube reports a letter is making the rounds:
Damn — Google loves April Fool’s jokes as only a bunch of borderline Asperger’s tech nerds can (Moss, see under). For today, they’ve also replaced the dignified and beloved font Helvetica with the Rob Granito of fonts, Comic Sans, when you make a search for “Helvetica.”
Wonders and marvels of the comics world! All at the click of a link.
As everyone has probably already heard (just scroll down the page), Rob Granito is a plagiarizing conman. He claimed to have done work for DC and Marvel, been the secret hand behind Brian Stelfreeze and, hilariously, to have worked on Calvin and Hobbes, and sold direct copies of other people’s work with a few scribbles on top for hundreds of dollars. Not the usual pose tracing for a different use or character, but direct copies, with perhaps an arm moved slightly. And he did it for years.
Artists known to have been plagiarized includes Jan Duursema, Tim Sale, Bruce Timm, Mark Bagley and Ivan Reis among others. As a response to this, the website Legit-o-mite.com has been started as a clearinghouse for evidence of direct plagiarism and fraud like this, on the part of Granito or any other artist.
The comics community is an accepting one–perhaps the most accepting. The greatest masters feel a kinship with someone who makes mini-comics, and will make time for them. It’s a giving, friendly group of people who share a passion for comics and a collegial sense of belonging.
But then there’s Rob Granito.
Uh oh, when The Beatdips into the Cover Browser you know it’s one of those “I’m all stressed out!” posts. Indeed, I’m finishing a VERY big and vital project and just can’t keep up with everything going on. (Yes yes, Ron Granito, I know.) I’m very sorry. There are times I jut sit staring into space and wish I had a day where I could do nothing but read email, accept Facebook requests and drink coffee. That day is as likely as a day where I do nothing but shop at Prada and Bottega Veneta, but…you never know!
The Year in Review: 2011
I look back and recall the interesting events of 2011. What’s my choice for the biggest event of 2011? Read and find out!