Thursday, February 17, 2005
I Don`t Own My Image
I am violating copyright every time I put my own image on the Net. Two comic book companies, Marvel and D.C., own my image. Just how did that happen?
I went to the Q.B. School of Cartoon and Graphic Arts to become a Superhero. I didn't know it at the time, I thought that I wanted to be a cartoonist.
It was Spider-Man that made me want to be a superhero. The real Spider-Man, the Steve Ditko Spider-Man, not the years of rewrites and rip offs.
Copyright is a strange thing when taken with the work for hire loop hole. Big companies get rich off the blood and sweat of writers and artist who have to sell their intellectual children to put food on the table. The guys that created Superman starving while the company makes a billion on their creation ever year.
In 1980 I became a Superhero. Steve Bissette, my Q.B. daze room mate, modeled ABSURDMAN after me. I have the original of this page and it is a picture of me, no doubt about it. And I never signed anything or even knew that Steve was doing it until after it came out. So Marvel Comics owns the copyright on my image.
From the day that Tom Yeates did his first stint on Swamp Thing right up to the end of the run there never was a time that at lest one of my school mates wasn't working Swamp Thing Comics.
In 1985 Stan Wok* and Ron Randall used my likeness as the model for Chester Williams in Swamp Thing. I had modeled for life drawing classes at the Kubert school and my likeness made its way into a lot of comics. Steve Bissette and John Totleben kept up the in joke as did Veitch and Yeates again.
*(When D.C. refused to print the last Veitch Swamp Thing I wrote a letter to them telling them to take my image out of their book or else. Up until that time Stan freely admitted that Chester was modeled after me. After I got vocal Stan changed his story)
Having my image usurped by 2 major corporations is kind of a dubious honor. It's like getting kissed by a beautiful woman with bad breath. I am flattered that my friends wanted to use my image but uncomfortable that the big 2 own part of my soul. Technically both companies could come after me for printing my own image. ¶ 7:49 AM
I went to the Q.B. School of Cartoon and Graphic Arts to become a Superhero. I didn't know it at the time, I thought that I wanted to be a cartoonist.
It was Spider-Man that made me want to be a superhero. The real Spider-Man, the Steve Ditko Spider-Man, not the years of rewrites and rip offs.
Copyright is a strange thing when taken with the work for hire loop hole. Big companies get rich off the blood and sweat of writers and artist who have to sell their intellectual children to put food on the table. The guys that created Superman starving while the company makes a billion on their creation ever year.
In 1980 I became a Superhero. Steve Bissette, my Q.B. daze room mate, modeled ABSURDMAN after me. I have the original of this page and it is a picture of me, no doubt about it. And I never signed anything or even knew that Steve was doing it until after it came out. So Marvel Comics owns the copyright on my image.
From the day that Tom Yeates did his first stint on Swamp Thing right up to the end of the run there never was a time that at lest one of my school mates wasn't working Swamp Thing Comics.
In 1985 Stan Wok* and Ron Randall used my likeness as the model for Chester Williams in Swamp Thing. I had modeled for life drawing classes at the Kubert school and my likeness made its way into a lot of comics. Steve Bissette and John Totleben kept up the in joke as did Veitch and Yeates again.
*(When D.C. refused to print the last Veitch Swamp Thing I wrote a letter to them telling them to take my image out of their book or else. Up until that time Stan freely admitted that Chester was modeled after me. After I got vocal Stan changed his story)
Having my image usurped by 2 major corporations is kind of a dubious honor. It's like getting kissed by a beautiful woman with bad breath. I am flattered that my friends wanted to use my image but uncomfortable that the big 2 own part of my soul. Technically both companies could come after me for printing my own image. ¶ 7:49 AM
