Sunday, October 22, 2006

It's not plagarism, it's art

After poking fun at Greg Land so thoroughly I could hardly pass up the opportunity to comment on the god of swipemasters, Roy Lichtenstein. In fact the comparison is enough to make poor Greg cry (if he didn't have enough problems now he's not allowed to swipe from porn mags anymore). Lichtenstein not only sells individual swipes for upwards of a million dollars, but they are not even good copies.

In the Boston Globe article on the subject, the executive director of the Lichtenstein Foundation, Jack Cowart claims that Lichtenstein's works are not copies because they were "changed in scale, color, treatment, and in their implications". I had been planning to set up a Cafepress store selling swipes of Lichenstein's works with a little Photoshopping to fulfil these requirements but looking at the side by side comparisons of Lichenstein's versions and the originals, I noticed what bad copies they are and it put me off.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That note to Marvel freelancers is a healthy step in the right direction.

SallyP said...

It's true! The originals are so much better than Lichtenstein's rather inept copies. You know, if I were one of the original artists, I'd be really really pissed. And I wonder how Brian Hibbs feels about Greg Land blatantly ripping off HIS work!