Amis Angst

Yes, I know, why in heaven's name am I bringing up this subject again? I'm sure that everyone has had their fill of Martin Amis, including, well, me.

Thing is, a fellow illustrator made some comments on my blog post about copyright which now has me concerned, so I am interested in what others have to say about the subject.

First, this gentleman assumed that I was using scans of the various popular kidlit icons. That really worried me, that folks might actually think that all I did was draw Amis' head and then just plop it on to a piece of art that I'd found on the internet. Please let me be very clear if anyone else thought that: All the art from the Amis spoofs are hand drawn, and definitely not traced.  Copied, yes, but all drawn by me, and then coloured in Photoshop. This includes the pigeon, too. I went through the trouble of using a grease pencil to give it authenticity. I ink with a brush anyway, so it just made it that much easier to imitate the style of say, Dr. Suess or John Tenniel. To get the fine cross hatching detail of Max, I used a thin Pigma pen. The only thing that was not hand drawn was the background for the Wimpy Kid. Yes, I took that from the net. I had thought that without the background, it might not be so obvious that the sketch was the Wimpy Kid. So am I a hyprocite? I'm beginning to wonder now.

In my original blog post showcasing this art, I did make this statement at the end: My sincere apologies to all the authors and illustrators who took part in my silly fun – it's only because I love your work so much that I chose you as part of my spoof.

I had hoped by doing that, that I was making it clear that this creative exploration was a parody. It's been brought to my attention that I may be in some trouble copyright-wise in regards to copying this art, and then having it printed in The Times and the London Evening Standard. I also want to make it clear that I received no fee for having the art reprinted. I also want to add that the Wimpy Kid was not reprinted in either paper, and when I provided art for The Times, I deliberately did not add the background, because I knew I hadn't drawn it.

So what do others think? It seems a bit late now to remove the original blog post, but perhaps I should? Of course I've just linked to the original post, and I've posted the artwork again, Gaaaaaaa....I'm so dumb sometimes...

Comments

[sassymonkey]

Isn't their a fair use/copyright exception for satire and parody?

[sassymonkey]

Oh for Pete's sake. THERE not THEIR. I fail at today.

[Brian Fies]

You're fine.

I'm not a lawyer and know infinitely less about Canadian copyright law than I do U.S., but your Amis drawings are clearly Fair Use satire/parody of the sort that's kept political cartoonists and MAD Magazine in business for decades. They're one-offs, there's no intent or chance they'll be confused for the originals, you've done the original authors no harm.

That said, I don't think a couple of your points help your case. Redrawing art in your own hand doesn't make it any less a copyright violation, and writing "with apologies to" doesn't get you off the hook. IF you'd committed a real crime, neither would be a defense.

But you didn't. Sleep well...

[susan adsett]

I don't think it's hypocrisy - it's an editorial illustration, using an illustration device that's fairly common. I know the tweedledum and tweedledee illo has been used by more than one cartoonist to illustrate TwinFordMayor, and the Grinch turns up in all manner of political cartoons.

[Barry Edwards]

Nicely said and nicely done. Cheers!

[steve]

Hey Patricia,

Sorry to be the cause of this angst.

I assumed the Amis art was scanned because I am familiar with the Diary of a Wimpy Kid image—my son went through that faze—which was scanned. I didn't really inspect the other pieces but the treatment of Curious George/Amis reinforced my assumption. The head has different linework and it lacks the tonality of the other areas.

I think the art would have been more effective if all the pieces had of been in your style or the Amis heads were rendered in the same treatment of each individual piece eg. Mad Amis Hatter. If the pigeon was handled as such it would have been clear that Amis is the pigeon rather than just a head "plopped on top".

[patricia]

I gotta say, Steve, that you might wanna quit with the criticism while you're somewhat ahead. I appreciate you expressing your opinions about the copyright issue, which I believe has been resolved. But I don't quite get why you now have to critique the whole Amis project, which was just a fun lark and not to be taken so darn seriously. I'm sorry if my parody hasn't lived up to your standards.

It would have been nice to draw all the characters in one 'distinct style' but it was a question of time – I had a lot of deadlines to deal with when I got this idea. Plus it was a timely issue, and I wanted the art out while the mood over the whole Amis fiasco was still burning.

And finally, I actually liked the contrast of the Amis head differing somewhat from the style of all the characters. I felt that the jarring difference added to the humour of the work. I don't think it would have been as effective if I had drawn them all in my style.

I honestly can't believe I'm defending this. Sheesh.

[steve]

Sorry, I thought this was a discussion. I only wanted to offer a suggestion about why I thought the images may have been scanned.