Colorist José Villarrubia took to social media today to call out Clover Press for using a plagiarized Tyler Kirkham cover. Villarrubia wrote on Facebook that Clover Press had used the “same image Kirkham and De la Cruz plagiarized from the classic Romita Jr. and Sr. cover I colored is being used to promote his art book.”
Back on June 4, 2025, Clover Press posted a Spider-Man image to promote the Kickstarter campaign for Kirkham’s new art book, The Marvel Art of Tyler Kikham. The project is already funded.
On June 25, 2025, Villarrubia took issue with a Kirkham cover by posting:
“… Let’s talk about the difference between homage and plagiarism.
The image in the center is a great example of an homage. As I’ve mentioned before, John Romita Jr. revisited his earlier cover. The original was penciled by him, inked by his father, John Romita Sr., and colored by me (left). For his Amazing Spider-Man #43 cover (center), the new version was inked by Scott Hanna and colored by Dan Kemp. Each of them did not try to mimic what was done before. It’s clearly inspired by the original, but it adds something new. It is not a trace, not a copy. It is respectful and creative. You would not mistake both images, in their pencilling, their inking or their coloring.
Now look at the one on the far right. The Tyler Kirkham variant cover for Amazing Spider-Man #26, colored by Ceci de la Cruz, is not an homage. It is a rip-off.”
Check out the covers in discussion below:
And here they are, 50% overlaid onto the original:
In the post, some people mentioned that this would fall under the homage banner. Still, Villarrubia quickly replied by posting the Clover Press advertisement.
“Just because something credits something it does not mean it is not plagiarized. It is not enough to call something an “homage” to be one. In any case, rip-off or plagiarized, tomato, tomahtoh.”
Kirmham has yet to weigh in on the situation but rest assured if any developments arise, we’ll keep our readers at The Beat in the loop with the latest updates!
Update 6/26/2025 5:56PM PST
Thank you to Chris Marshall for pointing out that the drawing from Peter Parker: Spider-Man #1 (Dynamic Forces Variant) is also on the cover of The Romita Legacy. There is a hardcover and a tradepaperback edition from Dynamic Forces.
Update 6/26/2025 11:45PM PST
Tyler Kirkham has made a statement on the matter, in a post on his Facebook:
“I felt I had to share this. Not sure what I did to offend Jose. I think he blocked me so I can’t defend myself. I was literally hired to do this recreation of the cover by Marvel. That’s why I give credit to the original artists. I’m not creating these for fun to sell on my own. I go through the official Marvel channels. I draw what they ask and get everything approved. Marvel owns the artwork. I did recently tell Clover let’s not use the homage covers to promote this book. Let’s use the original work I’ve produced. Which is 99% of the book. In the end I’m an artist for hire. As a cover artist I get asked to do homages and recreations sometimes. As do lots of other artists. Jose, sorry if I’ve have offended you in some way….”
when asked about getting in contact with Villarrubia, Kirkham added.
As of now, Villarrubia deleted his initial Facebook post, where most of the the discussion took place.
Villarrubia’s IG post on the Spidey covers is still online.
![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://www.comicsbeat.com/jose-villarrubia-unhappy-over-tyler-kirkham-cover/&media=https://www.comicsbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/3Covers-1-e1750922810112.jpg&description="Let's talk about the difference between homage and plagiarism." posted colorist José Villarrubia regarding a Tyler Kirkham cover.){kind=link}
It has been my observation that Jose Villarubia often opines on topics that he doesn’t understand or has no knowledge of, but which he presents himself as an expert on. For instance, a year or two ago on his Facebook page he continually ranted that DC was having their production staff redraw the artwork from older comics for their collected editions, something which he never presented any evidence of. He didn’t stop saying this until Todd Klein (formerly of DC’s production staff) weighed in that what he was saying was verifiably untrue.
He also doesn’t like when older comics are recolored for collected editions. He specifically doesn’t like when new colors are chosen (which is his opinion and he’s entitled to it), but he also rails against when the exact same colors are chosen to match the original colors, but now they’re printed on whiter, brighter paper stock, so they appear brighter than they do on 50- or 60-year-old yellow newsprint paper stock of the original magazines. Again, he’s fully entitled to his opinion on this, but he tries to claim moral superiority in the argument by saying that the intent of the original colorists was to choose brighter colors knowing that they would be dulled by the less-bright newsprint paper. It’s a fine hypothesis to put out there, but rather than present it as an idea to debate with others, he instead presents it as actual fact even though 1) the colorists on the original comics are uncredited and usually unknown (in the omnibus reprints, even when creators were not listed in the original comics, the publishers credit them in the table of contents if they have records of who did what, and in most cases they don’t know who colored them), and 2) he’s never presented any evidence from any colorist of the specific comics he’s citing stating that his hypothesis is actually true.
(He also seems to think that the original artists on comics that have been recolored should have no say in the matter, even when those comics are recolored under the direction of the original artist (like in the Thor omnibus by Walt Simonson), or actually recolored by the artist himself (like the reprint editions of The Killing Joke by Brian Bolland))
Based on what Tyler Kirkham said above, it seems that this is another example of Mr. Villarubia presenting something as fact that actually isn’t true at all. And, as with the Tyler Kirkham example, my observation has been that Mr. Villarubia never acknowledges when he’s wrong. He just goes silent. I stopped following him on social media a while ago, so to be fair, it’s possible that he does issue mea culpas and/or apologies and I’ve just never seen them.
it is weird to use an homage for the cover of an art book, but that’s more on Clover’s part than Kirkham (assuming he’s not lying about having been asked specifically to redo this cover, which seems implausible)—I personally don’t even get the appeal of “ooh, here’s the same cover again, no new style or anything, but it’s by a new artist!”, but that is similarly on Marvel, not Kirkham.
First of all, when Marvel, or anyone for that matter, asks you to swipe someone else, the appropriate answer is “No.”
Applies to commissions especially, since you now have so many tracing / fakes on auction sites.
Second, recreation only makes sense if sufficiently is added from the original artis to make it different.
Like Carl Barks revisiting his Duck covers in paintings, on a much grander scale.
Third, This does not qualifies as a “re” and certainly not as a “creation”.
Why would Marvel want Kirkham to produce almost an exact copy of artwork that they supposedly already own? Is it because they don’t want to pay out a bigger cost to the original artist?
I’ve seen 100 comic book covers modeled on action comics number one or amazing Spider-Man number one, but I never heard anyone call that plagiarism. It was an homage.
@Rick
Yes they are homage, because there is no possible confusion between the original and the new one. Unlike a 100% swipe like this one. In an homage, the new artists’style is instantly recognizable.
This isn’t a Marvel book. And Marvel would not have asked Kirkham to directly copy one of their most well-known artist’s work. It is a direct copy, not an homage.
Just admit what you did, Kirkham. Be a man. Apologize because you got caught red-handed and then use completely different artwork and move on.
You’re not the victim here.
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