Brian Bolland's art ripped off. Who is right?

[kevf]

Anyone who is a comic book fan will be familiar with the name and the work of Brian Bolland. He was one of the original artists on the UK's Judge Dredd comic strip and has spent most of the last 20 years producing outstanding front covers for US comic books.

Now the work of an exhibition artist, Erró Gudmundur, has caught his eye. Because Erro has been ripping Brian, and other leading comic artists off. Erro either repaints or photomontages pictures by these comic artist onto his canvasses and sells them for much more than the original artists ever received. Here is a recent Erro canvas, with Brian Bolland himself stood in front of it in the Pompidou Centre:



And here is the original cover art from Tank Girl comic by Brian Bolland:



So, the question is where does Brian stand as far as copyright is concerned, and is Erro perfectly within his rights as an artist to reappropriate the work of another artist without crediting them?

I am torn over this issue, having studied Fine Art, been raised on Roy Lichtenstein who, 50 years ago, did precisely the same thing with the work of such comic artists as Russ Heath (Whaam) and John Romita. And I have had two exhibitions of my own canvasses on a very similar principle, taking minute snippets from comic strip frames and blowing them up to reveal their imperfections. One such canvas by me is currently on sale on eBay:



The £25 I'm likely to get for my canvas means I'm hardly doing a Lichtenstein or Erro by earning hundreds times more than the original artist, but the principle remains the same. I have reappropriated the work of another artist, although in my exhibitions the original artists including Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko are credited when known.

So, is it art? (Well yes, obviously it's art, that was a facile tabloid way of putting it). But who is in the right? And should Brian simply accept being ripped off in this way? Or should there be some recompense for artists whose work is reused so?

Discuss.

[chrissmillie]

It is an offence to perform any of the following acts without the consent of the owner:
- Copy the work.
- Adapt the work.

Has a copyright infringement actually occurred?
- Be clear in your mind that an infringement has actually occurred and that this is not simply a case of incidental inclusion or coincidence.
- The work should be substantially similar in design, structure or content, to the degree that it can be said that the work was copied or adapted from your original, rather than simply a similar idea or concept.

I'd be contacting a lawyer if I was Brian.

[philcom55]

I doubt if he'll get anywhere: Benefit of Clergy and all that. I read somewhere that when Andy Warhol famously used Campbell's Condensed Soup as a Pop Art image the guy who originally designed the tin turned out to be doubly incensed as he'd only become a commercial artist after failing to make a living as a serious abstract expressionist painter!

- Phil Rushton

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

It's OK to be influened by your favourite artists,-----lots of pro artists start off like this, but many evolve their own unique style over time------- but to copy images as blatantly as in the above case doesn't earn real respect from me; I think it's morally wrong that Brian recieved only a fraction of the cost for his own work after he came up with the original image.

There was another DREDD artist called Cliff Robertson [or similar name] who turned out a good few DREDD stories, and he was clearly influenced by BOLLAND, however, there was a high degree of skill involved in how he approached the assignments, and Brian had long stopped doing the strips by this time, so it was acceptable in my view.


However, isn't the ROBOCOP character very similar in many ways to early DREDD?

But I don't recall any flying lawsuits anywhere in that case.

[Lew Stringer]

Looks like a clear case of plagiarism to me.

If the "artist" had put it into a context to make a comment about comics, similar to Lichtenstein, one might appreciate it but this isn't anything like that.

(Not that I was ever impressed by Lichtenstein anyway.)

[NP]

Simple question, simple answer, it's theft.

[Alan McK]

If an artist uses another's work as a reference, maybe to get a bit of figure-drawing right or to capture a certain mood, well ... that seems just about okay, provided they bring their own talent to the piece.

But where an artist lifts chunks wholesale from another's work - or worse, copies the entire piece, like "erro" has with Brian's DC cover, right down to the little details like the wall-eyed teddy bear - well that's just plain plagiarism. You can dress it up with labels like "post-modern" (just what the hell does that mean, anyway?), but it's still tracing someone else's work and pretending it's your own.

And, of course, "erro" is using copyrighted characters without permission, which is illegal as well as immoral.

He's a bit of a cock, actually. (Always thought Lichtenstein was crap, too!)

[STARBOY]

Yeah its a Rip Off under the guise of "true art" as others have said its one thing to be heavily influenced by another artist - in comic terms Leo Baxendale, Neal Adams, Jack Kirby have all hed their clones but thats different theyve all used the style to do a comic story (ok a few have swiped panels direct from other artists) but few literally "trace" the stuff out like this guy to createda complete body of wrok - he obviously has skill pity he cna t be a bit original - actually I liked the Batman logo piece at the start of this thread, that's pretty nice even although Im still not sure why that's a piece of art by someone who didnt draw as opposed to this guys work (but I can see a case for that more that this BOLLAND rip off)

[stevezodiac]

I had one of the news channels on last week and I saw that "Whaammm!" painting by Roy Lichtenstein being show, the presenter also had the original comic from which the panel was painted/copied. The original artist probably got a couple of dozen dollars for the whole page whereas Lichtenstein made $Millions? (hundreds of thousands at least).

When I was much younger I used to spend hours copying panels and sometimes whole pages of Kirby, Steranko, Wood, Wrightson etc - I came across them yesterday. Some good stuff.