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.

robgranito.jpg
By now you have all heard the story of this “artist” who has been passing off others’ work as his own for years. But not just one or two people…EVERYONE. From Jan Duursema to…Bill Watterson.

Just check out a bit of his bio:

Rob Granito, internationally known artist and illustrator, has worked for over 15 years in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and comic art. His name has been attached to major projects for companies such as Warner Brothers, DC and Marvel Comics, Disney, MTV, and VH1, where he has worked on comics, graphic novels, trading cards, animation, as well as book, CD, magazine, and novel covers.

Rob’s recent work has been on “Iron Man 2” for Marvel, “Spider-man Archives” and “X-Men” for Upper Deck, “Marvel Masterpieces” for Ritten House, and the Playbill for the Broadway musical and posters for the 25th and the 27th Anniversary celebration of “A Christmas Story”.

Never being one to ride on past successes, Rob is currently hard at work on projects for Noel “Lois Lane” Neill, and Olympic snowboarding sensation Ross Powers, a CD project for music innovators Midnight Syndicate, the soon to be released USPS Comic Strip stamps, and a project for a few classic comic strip/cartoon.


That’s right, this man claims to have worked on A USPS POSTAGE STAMP. Featuring Calvin and Hobbes. But it was all swiped and traced — and clumsily at that. And no one he claims to have worked with even knew who he was…until now.

Since this story broke last week on Bleeding Cool, it’s taken on a life of its own as artist after artist has stepped forward to show how Granito ripped them off. There’s now a thriving Facebook community dedicated to showcasing his fraud which is so widespread and eclectic in his tastes that it beggars the imagination.

Also beggaring is his website, which includes the following in a FAQ:

Q. You worked on comic books?

A. Yes I have worked on several different books.
Q. How do you get it all done? The colors, the words, the covers….???

A. Well I don’t do every thing for a book. There are several people that work on a book there are artists that do Pencils, Inks, Colors, Cover artists, Letterers and of course the writers and the editors.

Q. WOW you DO ALL THAT??!!

A. No I usually just do one step depending on the book, I have done pencils, inks, colors and covers in the past on several different projects but there are still other people involved.

Q. O so you Didn’t CREATE Batman or WRITE THE BOOKS?


No, Virginia, he didn’t create Batman. But apparently there’s nothing else that he can’t do..or claim to do.

Frankly, reading this, it’s hard not to think the guy has a screw loose. And he probably didn’t even know how much fire he was playing with, to the point that he thought it was fine to show up at this week’s Megacon, where all heck broke loose. Confrontations were FILMED;

The story seems to have culminated when the Murtaugh and Riggs team of Mark Waid and Ethan van Scriver got together to ride him out of town on a rail, as Waid put it:

Don’t give me too much credit for the co-smackdown, folks. It’s just that when I heard that he’d tried to capitalize off Dwayne’s death, that was the last straw for me. I saw red and stormed over with Ethan. We were both livid. I told Fraudboy in no uncertain terms that I will personally contact every convention there is and warn them… not to give him a table if they ever want to see me or MY friends there, EVER. I also screamed at him when he said “Well, truthfully–” that he is not allowed to use that word, ever, ever. That word means nothing coming from him.


Waid’s tweet summed up the uniting power of comics:

Hey Granito: When you get comics’ loudest leftwing hippiefreak AND loudest rightwing Nazi to join forces on your ass, YOU HAVE FUCKED UP.


In other words, faced with a fox in the henhouse, it doesn’t matter who you voted for, comics will be protected. People like Colleen Doran turned into Lisbeth Salander, taking screenshots of Granito’s now-removed Facebook page, and finding gems like the claim he worked with Dwayne McDuffie — the claim which seems to have set off the most punitive measures.

She even — god knows how — found what appears to be an actual non-swiped Granito:

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Until now, Granito made a living going to shows and selling “his” art. But thanks to Bleeding Cool and the righteous mob, that has been stopped. He’s been removed from Chiller, Wizard and other shows. Granito’d is now a verb.

How did it happen? A lot has to do with the trusting nature of the comics world. And now that the rage is subsiding a bit — Grantico was STEALING money from people by selling his crap knock-offs of people who actually do make a living at this — the analyses have begun.
Jim McQuarrie looks at the psychology:

Which brings us to the next point: evil people don’t think they are evil. People have an enormous capacity to rationalize anything; even Hitler could make himself the hero of his own story. Rob Granito honestly thinks he’s an artist; he deserves the applause and money due him because he is an artist. If he takes a few shortcuts and fudges a few details, who cares? Part of this is Kruger-Dunning Effect, the phenomenon whereby incompetent people can’t tell they’re incompetent, because the skills needed for assessing competence are the same ones needed in order to be competent. Rob thinks he’s an artist because he honestly can’t see the difference between his own drawings and the ones he traced. He lacks the ability to assess what makes a drawing good or bad, and assumes the traced ones sell better only because people are familiar with them, so he simply claims to have been the “ghost” artist who “really drew them.”


Leonard Kirk — who was among the ripped off suggests that we may be making TOO much of this:

In all honesty, I really don’t want to know his story. I’ll admit, I’m a little curious about his fraudulent beginnings with that very first swiped image that he sold to some poor schmuck for twenty bucks. However, I don’t want his full story to come out. I don’t want to know about his life outside of the fraud. I don’t want to know about his wife or his kids or his childhood or his schooling or the bully who took his lunch money or his first legit-o-mite job. I don’t want to know any of that because such knowledge will begin to humanize him. Not that he isn’t a human being with feelings and loved ones. I’m just saying that it will lead to people coming up with stuff like, “Oh, look. The poor guy had it rough.” or “It’s been his lifelong dream to get into the business.” or “Can you blame him, considering how his parents treated him??” or some shit like that. Hell, I’ve already seen people post comments about how they feel sorry for the guy.

I don’t want this asshole’s story to turn into.… well…. A REAL STORY. I don’t want this transformed into some human interest piece of fluff like the crap you see on Oprah. Do you remember the movie, Catch Me If You Can? It was a story about a guy who pretended to be an airline pilot in order to cash forged checks and make a shitload of money. It was a movie about a con man. It was a movie about a thief. It was a good movie. I liked it. But one of the things that made it a good movie was the fact that the thief, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, became a person. He was a person all along, of course. But the film made us feel for the character and even empathize with him. I am willing to forgive this because the thief redeemed himself. The film was based on a real story, in which the real thief turned his life around and used his knowledge of fraud to aid the authorities in catching other crooks.


If Granito had a little more savvy, we might see a turnaround redemption — an interview with CBR, a tearful tell-all with Piers Morgan. Next thing you know, he’s on Celebrity Apprentice with Rod Blagojevich.

I’m exaggerating a little. But we all love a tearful confession. Now that he’s been quite rightly held up to the greatest scorn and shunning that our industry is capable of, don’t let him crawl back. Keep him out in the cornfield. Even an industry as open and forgiving as comics needs an outcast. With his habitual, ongoing and clueless fraud, Rob Granito has earned his place as that outcast.

99 COMMENTS

  1. I must admit, I do want to hear the guy speak for himself. The mere fact that he’s been trying to pass the work off as his own indicates that he’s of a deceptive and underhanded (yet still buffoonish) nature. Therefore what kind of horrendous backpeddaling would he try to accomplish? C’mon, it’d be juicy, right? Saying that, his MacDuffie comments are unforgivable and that alone should make us want him to dissappear. Okay. I changed my mind.

  2. I think he must be delusional. I doubt a smart mad man would ever think he could get away with this, he must just be unwell. In today’s world with so much media you think we would be more skeptical and informed, but we’re not, and everyone from this guy to high ranking political officials and corporate CEOs are delusional thinking if they lie enough it’ll become true. There’s a sickness going around and this guy has it.

  3. You know, people who read comic books have a strong sense of right and wrong. There is good, evil… heroes and villains.

    But rarely in life does that present itself in such a clear, bold manner that people can strap on the “S” cape and confront it.

    Here’s hoping the next time we hear from this creep, he’s crapping out horrible portraits at a Six Flags somewhere or better, getting an order wrong at “Red Lobster.”

  4. Heh. Just popped onto The Beat to upload the post I wrote on this very topic, as discussed last night, and you beat me to it! Oh well, guess I’ll post mine to my own blog then.

  5. Not to excuse what this guy was doing (because I’m strongly opposed to lying and passing off others’ work as your own), but I find all the internet tough guy, nerd rage stuff (a la Waid and van Scriver and, well, pretty much every thread on the topic over at Bleeding Cool) to be pretty irritating, too. It’s like all the kids that were pushed around in school have found somebody lower on the pecking order on whom they can vent their pent-up frustrations.

    Yeah, Granito needed to be called out for his nonsense and sternly cease-and-desisted, but all these stories about talking smack to Granito’s gun-toting “bodyguard” while putting giving Granito a solid tongue lashing sound kind of pathetic, really.

  6. I’m reminded of the case of Micah Ian Wright, another man with a fabricated past who was drummed out of comics.

  7. Bill beat me to it.

    Does this mean Micah Wright can come back? Grave personal pathologies aside, his STORMWATCH was a damn fine book. And at least he wrote his own material (if not his entire personal backstory.)

  8. “I must admit, I do want to hear the guy speak for himself.”

    I’m afraid we’ve already been seeing that. A variety of equally inarticulate defenses of Granito have been popping up in discussions, all insisting to not know Granito personally but sounding just like him. It’s all just “innocent until proven guilty” deflection and “stop picking on him” appeals to mercy. When confronted face to face, he’s resorted to “what i really meant” backtracking, like when he claimed to be speaking metaphorically (not his word) about his relationship to Dwayne McDuffie.

  9. @Jerry–you find the “rage” irritating? Imagine going into work tomorrow and discovering that some guy you’ve never heard of has been telling everyone that he secretly did some of the work you’ve done–thus casting aspersions over EVERYTHING you’ve done. And once it comes out that he’s a liar, the boss starts to wonder what work ANYONE has actually done for themselves. People are angry not just because he’s used others’ names and work to make money for himself, not just because he has lied, not just because he has constructed an elaborate house of lies to back it up…but because fans and cons and pros are now going to be leery of everyone who is not completely and utterly famous in the world of comics. Now, it won’t be people asking my husband, “You worked on that? I didn’t know that!” Now, they’re wondering if there’s a chance he’s exaggerated it…gee, wouldn’t they have “known” if he had worked on it?

    And the only way you could be irritated by all the rage, all the comments and the videos and the blog entries…would be if you are giving them attention.

  10. Keiren – wha?

    Yeah, I’m reading the blog entries and the comments (haven’t watched any videos), obviously, or we wouldn’t be posting here in a comment thread for a blog entry.

    For a good example of the stuff that I find irritating, just look up-thread at the post from “Steve,” about how there are clear, bold heroes and villains in life (Granito being the villain here) and how people who are confronting him are putting on a Superman outfit and fighting evil. Like, really? Because it looks to me like a couple of guys were yelling at another guy at a comic book convention.

    I guess it’s not enough to say “look, this guy is a liar, and he needs to knock it off,” it’s got to be some kind of epic superhero battle. It’s all a bit immature, especially from grown-ass men like Mark Waid. I know the comic industry isn’t exactly a bastion of professionalism, but is this really the best way to handle a problem?

  11. Hmm, ‘equally inarticulate’? I wasn’t defending the man, Mr Quest. I was making the point that I would – for the sake of , admittedly salacious enjoyment – like to hear him squirm. Do you understand? No? Ah well.

  12. I’d like to share a few thoughts regarding about the whole Rob Granito situation and “Jim McQuarrie looks at the psychology” topic:

    1. Hitler was in fact a good artist, recently he had some artwork sold in a private auction. So, Hitler 1 x Rob Granito O;

    2. Hitler didn’t lie, cheat or created any psudo-reality to achieve victory in the 30’s. He was, in fact, elected thanks to the long economical crisis and unhappy middle class. He was not even German.

    3. Both Hitler and Rob Granito believed in their own misplaced speech, in which they distorted reality to fit their megalomanic schemes. Hitler wanted to take over the world (like Brain) and Rob wants to be somebody special (like Pinky – low self-esteem problem).

    4. What strikes me as completely lonnie behavior is the fact that he lied about his qualifications and nobody checked before letting the guy gets his own booth.

    5. He could not draw at all. People asked for sketches and he simply could not provide. He commissions due and didn’t deliver them on time.

    6. He charged people for his “artwork” and give them forgeries. There is a felony here and it goes deeper than just “stealing art”, jail-time.

    7. He must be exemplary punished.

    Mauricio Fleury

  13. @Nick- Jason wasn’t saying your comment was “equally inarticulate”, he was referring to some posts that have been popping up in different blogs of “people” defending Granito that were clearly written by him. Some of them are quoted in Bleeding Cool

  14. “I don’t want to know any of that because such knowledge will begin to humanize him. Not that he isn’t a human being with feelings and loved ones. I’m just saying that it will lead to people coming up with stuff like, “Oh, look. The poor guy had it rough.”

    Wow. So somebody who has committed a fraud, (not something terrible like a murder), should not be seen as human? This is obviously someone who’s connection to reality is questionable at best. I’ve always seen artists as a compassionate lot, but this seems more like a pile-on.

    Hey comics community: He’s been exposed, let’s not kick him in the head, which might be the place he needs the most help.

  15. Okay… anyone see that big elephant over there in the corner?

    The one that Marvel and DC turn a blind eye to as well?

    You know… how Marvel and DC and Lucas and the actual OWNERS of those images are the REAL victims? How they allow various artists to use their property to make money in Artist Alley without paying a licensing fee?

    (Go ahead and discuss the difference between a $50 sketch and a $300 painting. Even if it is original work, it is still derivative. Then there’s the trademark issue…)

    Yeah, Fair Use is a fine line (one which doesn’t exist in most other countries)… it allows Lichetenstein to use Buck Rogers in a subway mural, but it also is a cash cow for lawyers. (See: Betamax, 2 Live Crew, Wind Done Gone, Jeff Koons) Caveat artifex.

    Here’s a good overview, from a cartoon perspective:
    http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2061&context=bclr

  16. And before anyone ponders, yes, Mr. Granito deserved the verbal smack-down for what he has been doing for the past 10-15 years.

    If he doesn’t change his behavior, then he deserves to be ostracized as well, as well as litigated against to the full extent of the law.

    While I do pay for the occasional character sketch (thank you, Franco, for the $1 Wonder Woman sketch at C2E2), I prefer to have the artists sketch themselves. If a BOLD NAME creator is charging $50+ for a sketch, then I’m more likely to just purchase a page of production art instead, or go cheap and have them autograph a comic book (the Poor Man’s print).

  17. I’d like to point out that ‘granito’ is the Spanish word for ZIT, at least in Argentina.

    Maybe this guy needs to be popped too? :-P

  18. Maybe because I’m not a creator and have no stake in this, but I feel pity more than anger towards this guy. It’s just really sad.

  19. So good of Torsten to protect the billionaires.

    Until necessary is diagnosed with something, I am going to believe he is responsible for his actions. Deluding himself into believing he is right is probably necessary to continue doing it. It isn’t grounds for turning a blind eye.

  20. I have gotten commissons several times from Rob Granito for my young son and every time was a great experience he deserves a place at every con and if you dont like him and his work then ignore him its that simple tell me were it says you can ban someone because you dont like them

  21. To RCheli:

    I am a creator, and I feel the same way. I haven’t met Granito and think he’s doing a scummy thing, but there’s something sad about wanting so much to be a part of this comics culture and wanting to be seen as an artist, but not having the goods to back it up.

    Understand, haters–I’m not trying to excuse him or call anyone out for getting on his case, I think he deserves that–I just think the guy is sad.

    There’s a real parallel here to the whole Carlos Mencia thing, stealing others’ jokes. For anyone interested, Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast had a great couple of shows on Mencia and how there’s some real pathology to his behavior, and after listening to those shows a couple of times, I felt sorry for the guy at the same time I thought he was a douche. And I felt like I could understand it.

    Maybe that applies here.

  22. I’m not protecting anyone. Just pointing out a few facts. And some of those millionaires are creators who have incorporated.

    Disney went after a Florida day care for painting amateur Disney characters on the building without approval. They could just as easily go after an amateur artist sketching Captain America at a convention and selling those sketches for money.

    Artist Alley is one of the best aspects of any comic con, where fans can chat with creators and purchase cool art and comics. But unless everyone is careful, one big controversy, and the party is over. Con sketches could become just as illegal as bootleg DVDs (and yes, there were at least two vendors at C2E2 selling bootleg DVDs). If you don’t have a license from DC or whomever, you could find yourself on the sidewalk.

  23. >> So somebody who has committed a fraud, (not something terrible like a murder), should not be seen as human? This is obviously someone who’s connection to reality is questionable at best.>>

    I dunno. Since that’s one of the guys Granito was ripping off, I can fully understand why he might not want to hear about what a rotten life Granito’s had or how he loves his kids. To the people Granito’s plagiarized (or defrauded), they’d rather focus on the crime, and not on excuses.

    >> tell me were it says you can ban someone because you dont like them >>

    Are you under the impression that this is happening because someone took a personal dislike to Rob? And not because the guy was fraudulently making money off of other people’s work and reputation?

    You’re mistaken.

  24. Kurt, Gabe Carey IS Rob Granito. One of Rob’s motifs the past couple of days has been to visit blogs discussing him, create fake IDs and post poorly written followups defending himself. They all pretty much sound the same–his writing style and speech patterns are unmistakable, as his lack of a grasp on reality. He’s Granito, and he’s a scumbag.

  25. To Rob “Gabe Carey” Granito: Come on, dude, have some self-respect. Obvious Granito is obvious. No one is fooled. We know who you are.

  26. “His name has been attached to major projects for companies such as Warner Brothers, DC and Marvel Comics, Disney, MTV, and VH1”

    Yeah, apparently his M.O. is to locate the completed projects and then attach his name.

  27. I hope this gets resolved soon, because I’m spending way too much time following this whole train wreck. It’s hitting that same part of my brain that the Charlie Sheen stuff did a few weeks ago.

  28. “Gabe Carey”,

    It states very clearly in most con agreements that selling illegal stuff or bootlegs is unacceptable. They have every right to ban him because they are a business… say if someone was selling child pornography, the con has every right to not allow that person a booth to sell in. They also have the moral and legal responsibility to alert authorities. They reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. If you have a problem with copyright law, you should consider moving to Turkey.

    Mark Waid also didn’t say he should be banned, he said he refused to attend any con that would allow him in. Imagine if someone was selling child pornography and you said, “I will not table at a con that allows this.” Saying you should ignore him doesn’t work. If someone is passing off somebody else’s work as their own, they can dupe people into giving them money rather than the person who did the actual work for it. It is equivalent to theft.

    Commissioned sketches are a celebration of comics. Ripping off fellow artists for profit is just stupid. At least swipe a pose and make your own character…

  29. No, Rob Granito is not working on the Charlie Sheen comic from Bluewater. That would have been too perfect.

    Instead, the cover is by Joe Phillips, interior art by Fred Grivaud.

    Although, given Mr. Granito’s work methods, he would be the perfect artist for Bluewater’s line of biographies…

  30. Let me first say that I’m in no way defending this person. That said, I do question this level of righteous indignation in an industry wherein “reference material” (what in my day we called a “swipe file”) is considered an essential tool. Didn’t Shelly Moldolf (not to single him out, but he’s the most obvious) literally made his living in the forties doing nothing more than what this guy did?

    Again, I’m not defending this guy. I just didn’t realize that nobody compiles or uses a swipe files anymore.

    But it all still looks like Kirby to me. Just sayin’.

    I guess Alex Ross will be the next guy to be blackballed, right? Is there a difference between “tracing” photos and tracing line drawings? Or is the level of indignation just inversely related to the quality of the copy?

    Again, not defending the guy. I am, tho, amused by the startling hypocricy of it all.

  31. While I say he should be shunned by the comic community, and barred for life from any comic convention, AND sued by any artist who finds one of their traced drawings with his signature on it……who were the ignorant comic “fans” buying his stuff? Anyone with internet access could track and disprove his “accomplishments” easily.

    Plus, any fan of Alex Ross, Ethan Van Sciver, Ed McGuinness, or any other established artist could (or should) be able to easily pick out their work. I can, and I’m just an AVERAGE comic book fan!

    I feel bad for those taken advantage of….the artists, writers, etc. who had their names thrown around or their work stolen….but I don’t feel bad for this idiot or those foolish enough to be “taken”. I’ve been “taken” in the past (as we all have I’m sure), and it’s shame on me…live and learn. Hopefully, we will all double-check these kind of claims in the future…that is why we have iphones right?

  32. faboofour,
    Things Granito didn’t do:
    -“Swipe” a pose or facial expression, changing the outfit/hairstyle, ala Liefeld, or many others.

    -Take a photo himself of a model, then closely (slavishly?)render a painting of that photo ala Alex Ross.

    Things Granito did do:
    -Literally trace other artists drawings and sign his name to it, and sell it, giving no money/citation to the original artist.

    -Said he worked on books/with people & companies he had absolutely no contact with, using these claims to increase saleability of above mentioned art.

    He’s a walking photocopier with no conscience. See his Al Rio copies and compare to some of his other far crappier stuff, he has little ability beyond copying another piece of artwork that’s in front of him, either by tracing/Photoshop, or if it’s really horrible, his own hand.

  33. Huh. I recognised this guy. Sure enough I have about two dozen pictures of him from Toronto’s Fan Expo 2007. I’ve taken a lot of pictures of myself or a friend having conversations with people at conventions over the years, mostly for future use in my photocomic. Granito went on and on about how much better the Daredevil Director’s Cut is than the original. I guess I won’t be using these particular photos in my comic, although there would be a kind of peculiar irony in tracing around his image…

  34. Torsten is right. Most people’s understanding of copyright law is hazy at best. Hell, it’s misunderstood even in businesses like comics where folks should know better. Or they do, but there’s a cultural understanding in comics where the IP owners turn a blind eye (perhaps because they’re too busy sueing the families of the original creators of those IPs). This guy totally deserved to be excluded from cons and certainly needed to be smacked down for making money off the travails of others, but I find the claims on his résumé to be more outrageous than the tracing. Roy Lichtenstein made art history out of tracing, but had the good sense to do it decades before the internet could call him on it.

    Tracing a photograph that doesn’t belong to you is a violation of the photographer’s copyright, but people do it all the time and think it’s okay. People who know better carry a camera all the time and shoot a ton of reference photos.

    In the eye of copyright law, the tracing is hardly a step away from what selling sketches of characters that one does not have a license to draw and sell. Doesn’t matter if it’s a tracing or an original drawing. If the IP owners get their lawyers involved in this, then they become obligated to go after everyone else in Artist’s Alley.

  35. From “”Let Their Past Be Their Past!”, Roy Thomas, Alter Ego V03N03 (as reproduced on the twomorrows.com website):

    “Having read … how Captain Marvel himself might have been based on young Fred MacMurray … Alex used that affable-appearing actor as the model for his Cap.

    “For Mary Marvel’s “look” he chose supermodel Kathy Ireland….

    “He felt that Michael Gray … looked to him like Freddy Freeman, so he used him as the basis for his Captain Marvel Jr.”

    Are you telling me that Ross contracted with MacMurray, Ireland and Gray to use their images legally prior to his painting?

    Unless that’s true, there’s absolutely no ethical difference between what Ross and Granito do. None whatsoever. No matter how expertly crafted the work is (I refuse to use the word “art” when discussing Ross’s work).

    A swipe is a swipe is a swipe. And get it right: it ain’t in no way “forgery”, folks. Forgery is when you copy an artist and put HIS or HER name on it. Copying the masters and selling the result is perfectly acceptable in the art world, long as you don’t try to pass it off as that master’s (noting “after ” is a nicety, but not required).

    Note: I’m not addressing his alleged resume-padding, which, if true (and I’ve no reason to believe otherwise), is certainly as ridicule-worthy as Aleksey Vayner’s video resume, so be my guest and go to.

    But, please, guys, give up the plagiarism indignation, not just because there ain’t one single “fan fave” who can cast the first stone, but mostly because it makes you all look pretty ignorant about both the history and practices of your own industry.

  36. Ross uses a photo for reference.
    Granito traces the work of another artist.
    Not even in the same ballpark.

  37. Faboo: come one, NOT exact same ballpark at all. People have gone round and round the photo ref thing from Rockwell on, and if Ross isn’t quite in Rockwell’s league as far as changing THE detail that makes the art stellar, it’s still honest work from an honest process.

    Both Ross and Rockwell shoot/shot tons of their own photo reference, by the way. (which is how I ended up in Kingdom Come, for instance.)

    The most troubling thing about L’Affaire Granito is not that he did it — Artist Alleys across the nation are full of hollow-eyed wannabes sitting behind stacks of HEAVILY borrowed marker sketches — kinda like those pastel artists in Times Square of Hollywood Blvd. It’s that Granito kept it up so long without any fact checking and got so far with no artistic talent at all. I’m not saying we should institute TSA-style pat-down package checks to those attempting to cross our borders — that is against the friendly nature of comics — but a reference check or two is not necessarily a bad thing.

  38. “No artistic talent at all”. Really? Again, I’ve nothing to go on but bad jpgs, but are you really being honest when you say Granito has “no artistic talent at all”? Can you really honestly say that Scott Adams or Cathy Guisewite or Mell Lazarus showed a greater command of craft (just craft: no one was buying Granito’s crap for its literary merit) when they were first hired? Or do you dismiss their work as completely talentless, too?

    I dunno, maybe you can duplicate exactly what Granito did with a light box. But I sure can’t. Not without at least a little training. Not ten thousand hours, to be sure, but certainly more than a few dozen. Don’t you think?

    “It’s the stealing of other people’s work–no, wait, it’s not the swiping, it’s the lying; uh, no, it’s that he has no talent and that he got away with it for so long.”

    It sounds more and more like Bush’s ever-changing excuses for invading Iraq–just another attempt at justifying participating in a very ugly lynching.

    Aside: I see that everyone jumped to defend Alex Ross, but have totally ignored my repeated references to Inkpot Award winner Sheldon Moldolf. Wonder why?

  39. Under the law, it is EXACTLY the same ballpark. Ask a pro photographer how they’d feel about someone taking one of their photos and tracing it for a comic, editorial illustration, t-shirt, poster, etc, for sale. They are creators too.

    There is no problem with using photo reference per se; it’s been a tool of the masters as old as the camera obscura. If it’s a photo that is in the public domain (which in the U.S., I believe is anything created before around 1972) then it’s okay. It’s when you use the photographic work that is the property of someone else that you become no better than Rob Granito.

  40. And actually, Ross is skirting a different legal issue and that is that celebrity likenesses are also a property, regardless of whether it looks like a particular photo or not. The property can be carried on after the celebrity’s death by their estate.

  41. Come ON, faboofour. You can’t be serious. Your statements, with all due respect, are completely absurd. Granito is a thief and a liar. He claimed to have worked on the Batman animated series. He claimed to have worked on Calvin and Hobbes. He claimed to have created a U.S. postage stamp. He claimed to have ghost-drawn the covers of George Perez and many other artists. And he did all of this in order to perpetrate fraud against convention management and comics fans. He’s a criminal. And no amount of misplaced apologism or righteous indignation will change that. In fact, I suspect you are someone connected to Granito; you can’t be Granito himself since you can form a coherent thought and don’t write like a five-year-old–but you could be a friend or family member. As many people seem to be saying on a number of boards, obvious Granito is obvious.

  42. Photo reference, by itself, is not unethical or illegal (although I did have an art professor who said he could tell the difference from work copied from a photo vs. from a model).

    Stock photo companies license generic (and specific) photos for commercial use. Corbis (owned by Bill Gates) and Getty Images are the two biggest companies. There are also pose books sold to help artists visualize anatomy correctly.

    Drawing a pose from a photo is not illegal, as long as there is enough originality in the drawing. I don’t know of anyone calling attention to a specific swiped full-figure pose. When the facial and physical attributes are copied, then fans notice.

    https://www.comicsbeat.com/2006/10/20/the-comics-journal-message-board-view-topic-suydam-announcement/

    Photographing a model and then using that photograph as reference (shadows, pose, paraphernalia) is ethical and legal; the photo was created by the artist and then re-purposed in a drawing by the same artist. Using a specific person’s image without approval is only allowed under the parody clause of Fair Use. Journalistic uses (magazine illustrations) might also be protected.

    Rumor has it that Ambush Bug: Year None #6 was cancelled due to the above reason.

    There exists at least one comic book where every image has been swiped from other comics. Art appropriation? Theft? Sampling mash-up? You decide.

  43. The talk of using photo reference and personal likenesses reminds me of a Doctor Strange cover from around 1988-1989 where the cover artist (Butch Guice, I want to say) basically took an image of Amy Grant from the inside cover of one of her CDs, tinted it red, gave her vampire fangs, and used that for the cover.

    There was a lawsuit of some sort, as I recall, but I don’t know how it ever turned out.

  44. @Nadia:

    Not to go all Mr. A on the matter, but isn’t it all a matter of degree? Granito steals. Ross steals. Even Ms. MacDonald sees nothing wrong with publishing photos without legal permission or attribution (lying by omission is still lying). Yet the first is condemned but the latter are not just allowed to get away with the what is ethically and legally the very same thing, but are defended.

    I have no relation to the thief being lynched. I simply hate lynchings. Especially when performed by people who are demonstratively but unapologetically guilty (albeit to a lesser degree) of the same crime as the person being lynched.

  45. faboofour, I don’t believe for a moment that you “have no relation to the thief being lynched,” for a very simple reason: You keep ignoring what people are telling you. The issue is NOT so much that he swipes–it’s that he has completely lied about his credentials for years, claiming to have worked for companies and creators whom he’s never worked with, in an effort to scam people. THAT is what this is all about. You keep willfully ignoring that fact, and when you says “Especially when performed by people who are demonstratively but unapologetically guilty (albeit to a lesser degree) of the same crime as the person being lynched,” you are COMPLETELY incorrect. No one who is taking him to task has perpetrated the fraud he has. The man is a criminal, pure and simple, and I believe you are a sock puppet for him.

    Obvious Granito is obvious.

  46. There was a lawsuit of some sort, as I recall, but I don’t know how it ever turned out.

    According to a 2008 piece by Brian Cronin, the case was settled out of court in 1991. Below is the cover in question.

    Dr. STRANGE cover

  47. Quoting Jerry Ray-
    “Not to excuse what this guy was doing (because I’m strongly opposed to lying and passing off others’ work as your own), but I find all the internet tough guy, nerd rage stuff (a la Waid and van Scriver and, well, pretty much every thread on the topic over at Bleeding Cool) to be pretty irritating, too. It’s like all the kids that were pushed around in school have found somebody lower on the pecking order on whom they can vent their pent-up frustrations.

    Yeah, Granito needed to be called out for his nonsense and sternly cease-and-desisted, but all these stories about talking smack to Granito’s gun-toting “bodyguard” while putting giving Granito a solid tongue lashing sound kind of pathetic, really.”

    I 100% agree with this. I absolutely think that the copied artists should be protected and that this guy has to be stopped from what he has been doing. However, the glee with which the community has gone after him doesn’t reflect well on the community itself. Comics are words and pictures, the medium itself doesn’t belong to anyone. The situation is being taken care of and that should be enough.

  48. Oh, yeah, like I didn’t expect that. When one can’t intelligently discuss the issues, one attacks another’s credibility.

    Ever consider a career in politics?

    Nadia, what part of “a lie of omission is still a lie” didn’t you understand?

    The photograph I pointed out is stiil on this site and is still without proper attribution.

    And if you can’t recognize that this act of Ms. MacDonald’s is in no way different than what you’ve condemned Granito for, there’s no point in discussing it further.

    Again: I am not, never have been, nor ever will be, anyone’s sock puppet. I’ve been pissing people off on the internet likely longer than you’ve been alive.

    So, Nadia, for an encore, how ’bout a rousing chorus of “The Great Mandela (The Wheel of Life)”?.

  49. Once again, faboofour, you have willfully ignored the real issue. The swiping isn’t what has gotten everyone so riledup–it’s that on his Web site and at conventions, he outright lied to people about his credentials, claiming to have ghost-painted covers he didn’t work on, or having worked for publishers he’d never worked for. He even lied about having worked with the late, great Dwayne McDuffie, in order to promote himself on the back of someone who’d recently died, despite the fact that he had no connection to the man. Here are the facts: (1) Granito has never done a single assignment for DC, Marvel or any other comics publisher. (2) Granito has never worked on any animated series. (3) Granito claimed the exact opposite of both of these, in order to bilk fans out of money, and in order to pass himself off at conventions as a VIP guest, despite being a complete nobody who had no actual credits of his own. What has everyone so upset isn’t the swiping–it’s the faked credentials, the lies, and the fraud. And yes, it IS fraud. What’s more, several individuals are already planning to bring legal action against him–I mean, you.

    Obvious Granito is obvious.

  50. Listen, faboofour/Rob, here’s the bottom line: Telling people you worked for comic book companies when you didn’t is fraud. Telling people you worked for animated series when you didn’t is fraud. Telling people you worked with many great talents when you didn’t is fraud. Selling your swiped works BASED ON the above lies, knowing people are buying them since they falsely believe you to be someone of importance when you’re not, is fraud. And fraud is inexcusable. That you’re trying to excuse it makes it VERY clear what’s going on here. Obvious Granito is obvious.

  51. Nadia, I think you’re stretching credibility ni asserting that faboofour is Granito or is working for Granito. I haven’t gotten that vibe from him at all. Yeah, he’s maybe dodging the point that some people’s outrage stems from the faked resume moreso that the swiping, but it sounds to me like he’s saying that MORE people in comics ought to be called out for fudging things, not fewer.

  52. Jerry, on every message board Granito has commented on (always pretending to be someone who goes out of his way to claim not to know him), his defense has been the same thing: Other artists swipe, so leave Granito alone. And faboofour, I believe, is taking the same stance.

  53. faboofour is not Mr. Granito. Tone is very different. Plus Heidi could always tell us if he was from the same IP address as the two commenters who do sound like Mr. Granito.

    I understand why folks got upset as they did. I saw Mr. Granito set up in an artist’s alley, maybe two years ago, & noticed a Green Lantern painting he had that looked *just like* an Al Rio Green Lantern. I asked if Rob had interned w/ Mr. Rio, or something, & he kinda blew me off. Although all his work seemed derivative, I kinda shrugged it off, I admit, & kept going. He’s been around for awhile.

    Using reference photos to create art is NOT the same as outright copying an already existing work of art. Reading all of the above makes me tired.

    I shoot my own reference photos to draw. Many artist I know do that. Are they not supposed to use reference? I don’t have very good perspective skills. How am I supposed to make ’em better, other than going places & taking pictures of things?

    But there’s a difference between saying – “..that tree over there, I wish to draw it”..photographing the tree..then taking the photo home, figuring out how to turn a photo into a drawing, & drawing it; and saying – “oh look, that’s a great drawing of a tree by Al Rio. He’s already figured out how the branches should hang for best composition, & the tricky play of light & shadow on the leaves. Screw figuring all that out myself. I’ll just photocopy that drawing, or lightbox it, & by treating it as a paint by numbers, recreate the *exact* same image. Then I’ll splatter a little additional paint on it, to stylize it ever so slightly, & sell that image as an original creation.”

    When one does something like this, the “after” the artist who did the original work isn’t just a had-wave of courtesy – it’s a necessity. Otherwise you are claiming that tree, turning it from a 3-D thing to a 2-D picture, was entirely figured out by you. Doing that takes considerable talent. I know this, as I myself am not a skilled artist (though a damn good colorist). I have enough skill that I could trace artists I admire, & indeed, I have a while slew of sketches I did recently, inspired by a Bruce Timm sketchbook. I didn’t post any of them, but if I did, I’d have written all over them – after the work of Bruce Timm. ’cause I’m n ot the one who did the artistic heavy lifting in those sketches – Bruce Timm is.

    Mr. Granito didn’t do his own work: he stole the work of others. There’s so much difference between using photo reference & that, that I have to assume that anyone who doesn’t understand that doesn’t draw themselves or doesn’t understand the skills behind drawing.

    He doesn’t have zero artistic talent. After all, he had to center the art he was lightboxing very carefully on that canvas. But his freehand sketches show he has little practice, little skill, when it comes to drawing things on his own.

    AND the lies about his career credits make folks angry, too, though whether it makes folks angrier than the art theft does, I dunno.

    Colleen Doran has made excellent points about all this on her website, A Distant Soil. Check it out.

    Now, that said, yes, there’s been a dogpile of “nerd rage”. Perhaps had Mr. Granito admitted his mistakes, maybe online like where all the hounding of him has taken place, folks would have been appeased. But no, he continued to insist that he’d done nothing wrong, when he has profited for fifteen years off of the work of others. I thin the outrage has been less “lower man on the totem pole” than shock at how blatant the copying was, & perhaps some surprise that nobody really called him on it sooner.

    Sure, ban him from cons. I hope customers of his art are lining up to demand refunds. Let folks who are gonna go legal on him do so. But the stupid cartoon images of him, saying bad stuff about his family – that seems in poor taste & puerile. A lot of folks are chiming in w/ their .16 cents just because it’s the LOLZ of the day, as opposed to being affected by the situation personally.

  54. Yeah, but faboofour can spell and form coherent sentences.

    He obviously wants to pick a fight over Alex Ross, and seems to be performing a massive stretch to do it. And you’re right that Granito’s offense isn’t merely using swipefile photos as reference — even the swiping he’s done is egregiously beyond that — but that he’s claimed credentials he doesn’t have to defraud people and trade on the reputations of others, claiming that he did their own work for them and they lied by putting their names on it. I sorta expect faboo to declare, any minute now, that Jack Kirby got the Demon’s face design from an old Hal Foster strip so that’s the Exact Same Thing as what Granito did, even though that betrays a sweeping misunderstanding of both substance and scale.

    But he’s not Granito. Granito couldn’t express that argument in plain English, even if he could manage to conceptualize it.

  55. @Jay: Bingo. Except: Honesty, I have no dog in this fight. I really don’t care if someone steals a source or lies about a credential. Let me repeat that for the hard-of-literacy: I DON’T CARE!! Steal and lie all you want, I make no value judgment. I don’t buy “comic art”, I’ve not been to any kind of convention since the LA ’84 Nasfc, and I probably spend less than fifty bucks a year on “mainstream” super-hero comic book merchandise (and then it’s only stuff written and drawn over sixty years ago).

    Again, for those who have short spans of attention: I DON’T CARE WHO LIES AND WHO STEALS.

    Fact: EVERYBODY STEALS AND EVERYBODY LIES. The only reason I even brought it up is that some people (the editor of this blog included) delude themselves into believing that their own hands are clean.

    Again, and finally: It’s the blatant HYPROCRACY of the vitriol I have a problem with and have been addressing.

    @Kurt: I’ve no bone to pick with Ross. I simply used him as an obvious example, along with, I pointedly say yet again, Sheldon Moldolf. The ONLY reason I’ve even mentioned Ross other than that original example is because all the Ross apologists have crawled out of the woodwork defending photo referencing WHICH ISN’T EVEN THE DAMNED POINT!

    You people gave Moldolf an Inkpot award, ferchristsake! And for what? Swiping Foster and Raymond ad nausium? Let me gusss: it was for ghosting Bob Kane. Woah, there’s a job that required a LOT of talent!

    Again, for the utterly stupid: Ross and Moldolf were just the first and most obvious examples I thought of.

    I’ve no dog in this fight.

    Everybody lies and everbody steals. (Yes, even me [D’oh!])

    You’re all a bunch of damn hypocrites.

    And (let me state the obvious for you) I’m a pedantic asshole.

    Any other stupid questions, or can we put this damn thing to rest now, ’cause I’m beginning to have to repeat myself and I find that tedious and not fun anymore.

    Oh, and one more obvious thing, as Unka Walt used to say: Don’ take life so serious ’cause it ain’t nohow permanent.

    (D’oh!)

  56. >> You people gave Moldolf an Inkpot award, ferchristsake! >>

    You people?

    The Inkpot Award is a “we like you” award given out by the people who run the San Diego Con. Unless you’re talking to the CCI board, “you people” aren’t here.

    And you may think the CCI Board shouldn’t like Shelly Moldoff, but that’s their decision to make; it’s their award.

    >> I’m beginning to have to repeat myself and I find that tedious and not fun anymore.>>

    Maybe you should just figure people don’t agree with you that all this stuff is the “exact same” as what Granito did, rather than figuring if you say it over again and in capital letters they’ll understand.

    If people don’t buy your argument, you’re not forced to keep making it. You may want to declare that everyone lies and everyone steals, so no one should care when someone does it, but I think most people don’t see it as quite the broad equivalence you do, and therefore aren’t going to see the raging hypocrisy you decry. So it goes.

    kdb

  57. If I’ve interpreted faboofour’s comments accurately, he’s arguing that the loose attitudes toward IP displayed by more than a few people in the comics field make the denunciations of Granito hypocritical. How many artists have earned commissions doing portraits of comics characters they don’t own? Photo tracing is very close to plagiarism; swiping is farther removed but evidence of laziness and poor planning if it’s used to meet deadlines.

    Granito was completely in the wrong, but his wrongdoings were, in retrospect, so obvious to people familiar with the industry that jumping on him with boots is like punching out someone who’s mentally impaired. The vitriol might be better used on things that matter more, such as the ongoing assaults on state employee unions.

    I doubt that mobsters complain about tax evasion, or that marijuana growers complain about trademark infringement. If someone is going to be publicly irate about IP abuses, he should take on all abuses of IP in the field.

    SRS

  58. Tracing is tracing. There is nothing wrong with tracing. What is wrong is lying about it. Very very simple way to differentiate the ordinary business of swipe files and the process of inspiration from what someone like Granito does.

    There is no bright line — no magical point at which creative inspiration becomes ripping somebody off and good copying becomes bad copying, because these are false categories, and individual human ownership of shapes or ideas is just a fiction that our society maintains for its own purposes. It doesn’t actually make any logical sense for *anyone* to own *anything* intangible. Therefore, if you pick at any form of ‘intellectual property’ (whether black lines or lyrics), it’s going to fall apart, logically. There is no natural logic to ‘intellectual property’ — it’s an increasingly untenable human invention.

    That doesn’t excuse people like Granito; in fact one thing has nothing to do with the other. The fact that it is increasingly difficult in the digital age to justify ownership and control of intangibles like imagery or language, does not force anybody to lie about what they are doing. Lying about what you are doing is entirely optional.

    I do a photocomic in which I retouch photos to look somewhat fakely drawn — it’s not overly pretty but it works for my subject matter, which doesn’t want pretty. I have never had a single person be confused about what I am doing, or mistake my work for something it is not or mistake me for a line artist.

    Let the truth be your guide to what it is right — it will not let you down.

  59. Synsidar, you’re not getting the issue any better than faboofour does. What has the masses so upset is NOT the tracing or swiping. It’s the faked credentials, something other artists do NOT do. There is a HUGE difference between commissioned work at a con and lying to people that you worked on the Calvin & Hobbes script, the Batman animated series, and numerous Marvel and DC comic series. The man was a liar, and he thus frauded people into buying his art based on the lie that he was somehow famous or important in the industry, despite his having no actual credits of his own. THAT is what the issue is, NOT the swiping or tracking.

  60. It’s the faked credentials, something other artists do NOT do.

    Other artists might not do that, but con artists generally? The Nigerian e-mail scam is a faked credentials scam. Why get outraged over an ancient scam that’s practically transparent?

    SRS

  61. And as predicted, the “Why object to fraud when there’s other fraud around? Unless you track it all down to decry piece by piece, there’s no point to doing anything about it when it crops up in your face” argument begins to rear its head.

    Can’t say I’ve ever understood that argument, even in the form of “Why are you pulling me over for speeding when there are other speeders out there?” But it seems to be popular, if not terribly logical.

  62. Can’t say I’ve ever understood that argument, even in the form of “Why are you pulling me over for speeding when there are other speeders out there?”

    Note that nobody is defending Granito, but the outrage I’ve seen is disproportionate to the crime. If someone receives an e-mail from Nigeria offering money, he generally deletes it and might even wonder how someone could be foolish enough to fall for it. He doesn’t get angry and try to track down and punish the person responsible. There are more important things to worry about.

    SRS

  63. >> Synsidar, you have GOT to be trolling.>>

    As an enthusiastic contributor to internet outrage over stuff he objects to but nonetheless doesn’t chase down all instances of worldwide, I think Syn’s just demonstrating an odd set of blinders.

    Never mind that there are a lot of law-enforcement people doing their best to put Nigerian spammers out of business, but it’s not terribly easy, so it’s not really a parallel to exposing a fraud like Granito and doing something about him. If, say, Syn were to turn out to be a Nigerian spammer, and was exposed and taken down, I doubt people would think it a waste of time on the “There are con artists we aren’t able to do anything about, so why bother with the ones we can?” argument he’s proffering.

    On the other hand, considering the date, it’s not a bad day for stringing someone along as far as you can get them to go. But Syn seems to have started this last night.

  64. Kurt, your observation that some people don’t agree with my opinion is rather banal (much like all your work, but I digress).

    That I’ve in this discussion painted the comic book community with a broad brush: Guilty as charged. I’m well aware of much original work being produced in the art form. But obviously not in the “super-hero” genre. By definition, endlessly running stories based on merchandisable characters must be derivative and static. Such stories are crafted from a finite and accepted set of predefined rules and concepts. Surely as a craftsman of such stories, you understand this.

    The last original idea expressed in the genre was Moore’s “Marvelman”, and that was almost thirty years ago. You may have heard of it. A few years after Moore finished it, some hack regurgitated the Fall of Man for the forty-second-bazillionth time and sold it as a Miracleman story, ripping off “A Canticle for Leibowitz” while he was at it. It had literally nothing whatsoever to do with Moore’s original work and yet it was marketed as if it was. The only reference to Miracleman whatsoever is a single word shoehorned into the first panel.

    There was three issues of the crap published and none of it, not one word, illuminated in any original way Moore’s work. Heck, Moore’s name isn’t even on the damn things.

    But no one would call that lying to sell work. No, that’s a “whole other ballpark.”

    Gang, I’ve had fun reading all your insipid justifications for lynching. It’s certainly been on a par with the 90% of crap that fills up comic book shops. But now it’s just become sad. Appropriate for today, I’m abandoning this ship of fools. That’s a reference to book by Katherine Anne Porter. You’ve probably not heard of her. She’s never won a Harvey or an Eisner.

    Hunting elephants or hunting foxes, it’s all bloodlust to me. YMMV. Have at. Enjoy. And, hey, don’t forget to laugh at your game after you’ve killed it. It’s a time-honored tradition.

    Just ask Ellie Wiesel.

  65. It’s good to know that faboo’s expanded his circle of identity to include superhero comics he doesn’t care for as another example of Things That Are Just Like Rob Granito.

    One wonders what’s next.

  66. Oh, was that Fall of Man reguritation a “superhero comic”? I didn’t notice any delineation of “superpowers” in it.

    Oh, I get it: simply questioning the status quo must be a superhuman trait in your eyes.

    Explains much.

    Look up Godwin’s Law, Kurt. This thread is closed.

    If it helps, think of me as a troll. Stop feeding me.

    And you’ll stop trivializing the Harvey and Eisner awards at the same time.

  67. For someone who keeps insisting that he doesn’t care, that the thread is over, and that he’s walked away from it, declaring us all to be an unlettered ship of fools (which is, of course, a reference to a popular novel of your lifetime, rather than any of its inspirations), you sure want to fight about something.

    I don’t know what it is, but by gar, you’re het up about it, and you’re determined to make your displeasure known. Which strangely undercuts your overall argument that people who do that are all hypocrites, but never mind.

    Go on, storm out again, you’ll get it right eventually.

  68. Kurt, it’s obvious at this point that he’s just trolling. I’m tempted to say “Obvious Granito is obvious,” but I don’t think that’s even the case anymore–I think he’s just another cliched Internet troll.

  69. Faboofour is a notorious troll who spends his free time running around yelling at people, making moral equivalency arguments as logical as, “if you have ever jaywalked, you cannot condemn a murderer.” He’s not Granito, he’s just an obnoxious creep who pretends he’s morally superior to everyone else because he has no morals.

    Say, faboofour, are you the same faboofour over on Demonoid, downloading all those comics?

    There probably aren’t ten people on Earth who wouldn’t be thrilled to be painted by Alex Ross. I would never have known MacMurray was the model if I hadn’t been told. The final work doesn’t really look that much like him. But faboofour thinks “reference” is the same think as Granito tracing!

    Even though Granito traced Dave Stevens and lied about getting Dave’s permission to do so, Ross is the same as Granito. Even though he fed off Dwayne McDuffie’s death, Alex Ross is no better than the Granito ghoul.

    It’s not the witch hunt that excites faboofour; this guy needs to drag everyone down to his level, so he doesn’t have to feel lower than the people he’s envious of for getting the attention he demands be doled out only to those on his personal list of worthies.

    If faboofour wants to leave, turn off the computer. If it really bothers him to see other people get their comeuppance for lying and committing fraud, then get therapy.

    This trolling is what he does for cheap kicks. Some old dude behind his computer, hopelessly grabbing for a sense of self importance, standing up for crooks, and then making bizarre equivalencies by bringing up Elie Wiesel, whose name he doesn’t have the courtesy to spell correctly.

  70. The title of this story is misleading: “Rob Granito: The man who got drummed out of comics.” He was never IN comics to begin with, since his entire bio is a lie, so he can’t have been drummed out of them.

  71. faboo…an idiot

    nadia…pms’ing

    Heidi..get a real job

    kurt…love avengers forever

    synsider…shut up

    eva…too long

    anthem…pointless

    john…awesome

  72. Here in the Atlanta area we have a guy who has been charged with stealing millions by selling forged movie posters by mail nationwide.

    Having been enjoined from continuing to do so, he employed someone else to do it for him.

    Some people really have no sense ofdecency, honesty, or, apparently, self-preservation.

  73. I knew something was up with this guy. My wife and I met him at the Chiller convention in the spring of 2010. He had some ‘Iron Man 2’ “original” pieces my wife was interested in. He was telling us about how those pieces and just about every other piece was being considered for use by a comic company, but just fell short. Also he had a bunch of ‘Real Ghostbusters’ animation cels that he claimed he worked on during the shows run. He was allowed to keep all of his work. If my calculations are correct this would have made him about 15 or 16 years old while making the cels. Fraud.

  74. “Evil”……”twisted”…….psychological evaluation?? This loser COPIED fucking comic books!!!!! Cartoons, pictures………….WTF?? OH, ride him out of town!!! Cause people who like comics are so loving…..

    Man, you guys need to get a farking life……ever wonder WHY so many comic drawers have stalkers…..cause stalkers LIKE comics………..

    Yeah, I can see why this granito guy is one of the worlds worst humans……EVER…………SHEESH.

  75. Your absurd sprinkled caps diatribe shows you don’t get it nor do you want to. After all, if it’s not happening to you, so what?

    He is a thief. Thieves are punished. His punishment? He can no longer flog his stolen art to unsuspecting people looking to buy a genuine article.

    If anything, he got off light. You, on the other hand, are taking this more seriously than anyone who posted here in the last 4 years.

    If anyone is in need to a life, it’s you.

  76. He should have just copied Greg Lands ‘work’. Since most of it is traced from porn, I doubt anybody would care.

  77. Fabboo: “Why are you attacking this guy? Attacking people is wrong”
    -Proceeds to attack people.
    Saying ‘well Alex Ross did the same thing!”
    Please show me where Alex Ross LIED. Repeatedly.

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