No, really. Ask anybody.
This has been a busy week. I've been talking to the printer about proofs (on the way!), working on comics, and trying desperately keep up with the Todd Goliath vs. Shmorky clusterfuck. The latter usually won out.
In case you haven't heard, Todd Goldman, AKA Todd Goliath, basically traced a cartoon by Dave "Shmorky" Kelly onto multiple canvases, and sold the results for thousands in multiple fine art galleries.
He probably thought no one would notice, since Dave is "just" an online cartoonist. He thought wrong.
Online artists are wont to shit themselves with fury over any instance of "art theft" at all, even by thirteen-year-olds tracing Gorillaz liner art for their Elfwood galleries. They'll even take up banners in scandals that don't concern them, patrolling art archives and private webpages for "style theft," "pose theft," and other sorts of unjustifiable, hyper-vigilant esoterica. They can care too much, and they can make a lot out of nothing. So when it turns out some guy is genuinely getting the shaft, one hundred percent, by law, complete with price tag, you can only imagine the mushroom cloud.
Or maybe not.
The dust has mostly settled, but if you wanna pick the bones, this thread on the Something Awful forums (+3,300 posts at last count) is thorough, epic, and still charging ahead. Todd Goldman's publicist has posted, even. Brew a pot and prepare for a long read, and a few annoying surprises.
Like most of the creatively bankrupt, Todd's made a habit out of his "borrowing;" Online cartoonists Liz Greenfield and Jess Fink were snatched from, too, and print comic guy Roman Dirge popped up to elaborate on Todd's sticky-fingered acquisition of his work as well.
Not cool.
The whole mess reminds me of the short, short time I spent in art school. (I can't technically call myself a drop-out, because it was only a year-long program, and I somehow managed to finish it. But it was meant as a predecessor to an MFA program, which I didn't bother with.) While the experience wasn't a completely miserable one, it did teach me that there was very little exaggeration in the unflattering depictions and descriptions of fine art schools and their students. The Todd Goliath drama just brings the open and stinging contempt most of the faculty and students had for comics and cartoons flooding right back. I don't know if Todd actively socializes in fine art circles, but I wouldn't be surprised. Even with the popularity of Lowbrow art and related fields, too many artists feel work like Shmorky's (And Liz's, and Jess's, and Roman's, and mine, and maybe yours) isn't worth acknowledging, but possibly worth plagiarizing for the sake of "decontextualization." Because, y'know, that's real art.
Spare me.
Anyway, enjoy the comic. More later tonight.
Oh yeah, and PS: This just came out, and I have some stuff in it. I'm not sure what, though. I sent the authors a lot, they might not have used it all. Maybe the Barnes & Noble down the street has it so's I can check.
