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Randy Queen Targets Criticism Of His Comics With Takedown Notices

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Randy Queen, aside from having a rather hilarious name to Brtish folk with a mental age of twelve, is the creator of comic book series Darkchylde which, once upon a time, sold lots and lots. And looked a bit like this.

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[Darkchylde image by Randy Queen taken from Amazon.]

Naturally, this is prime material for the Escher Girls Tumblr, which examines some of the extremes in comic book art regarding the portrayal of women. By mocking them. Such as running this:

So naturally Randy Queen was prime for the ribbing. Except he didn't want to play along.

So yesterday I found out that Randy Queen (artist of DarkChylde) filed a bunch of DMCA takedown notices to Tumblr to remove posts of his covers on this blog (the entire posts, not just the images).  I&#8217;ve also gotten messages from other users that he&#8217;s had their stuff removed too (redraws, etc that have been featured here).  Non-critical Tumblr posts of his art/covers and those praising his work appear to be unaffected.<br /><br /> I&#8217;m writing this to let other people who run sites that might have criticized his work ( thehawkeyeinitiative, bikiniarmorbattledamage, boobsdontworkthatway, repair-her-armor, comicartcorrections etc) know that he seems to use DMCA takedowns to remove pages that are critical of his work.  And, to be prepared that he might have Tumblr remove your posts without warning (there was no prior communication of any kind, or conventional requests for removal).<br /><br /> Also, if you&#8217;ve submitted redraws of his stuff to these sites, you might want to ask them to put them private for now (if he complains about a submission you&#8217;ve made, Tumblr will count it as a complaint against your account).<br /><br /> To date, Mr. Queen is the only artist who has taken this kind of action - other artists and publishers seem to understand Escher Girls &amp; other similar sites are fair use and criticism, and that fan discussion, positive or negative, is important and helpful to their business. (In fact, the creators I&#8217;ve interacted with are either fans of EG, or expressed disagreement but know that it&#8217;s fan criticism.)<br /><br /> If anybody is curious about what his DarkChylde art looked like and why they were featured on this blog you can find them here.<br /><br /> (Don&#8217;t harass him on his Facebook or Tumblr by the way.  I&#8217;m not interested in having a feud with him, just letting people know what&#8217;s going on.)<br /><br /> Update: He has now filed a DMCA takedown with Tumblr to remove this post.  This post is still up on Escher Girls, but every single reblog of it has been removed.

So yesterday I found out that Randy Queen (artist ofDarkChylde) filed a bunch of DMCA takedown notices to Tumblr to remove posts of his covers on this blog (the entire posts, not just the images).  I've also gotten messages from other users that he's had their stuff removed too (redraws, etc that have been featured here).  Non-critical Tumblr posts of his art/covers and those praising his work appear to be unaffected.

Ridiculous yes? It gets worse…

He has now filed a DMCA takedown with Tumblr to remove this post.  This post is still up on Escher Girls, but every single reblog of it has been removed.

So now you can't use work in an editorial fashion to criticise something, and now you can't even mention that this is what's happening?

Randy, you are in the wrong. This is exactly the kind of situation that "fair use" is intended to protect.

As well as getting those Tumblr posts removed, he's even managed to get the images removed from the Wayback Machine and Google cache.

But not, it seems, from this content grabber…

I Almost Felt Bad For

I Hope That Growth On Her Back Is Because Of Her

One Leg Is Twice As Long As The Other

Anybody Up For A Game Of Horseshoes?

Even Blow Up Dolls Have Bad Dreams

Julie Submitted I Discovered Eschergirls

It's Like The Artist Got Bored Or Ran Out Of

Where's St Patrick When You Need Him

Because Some People Might Have Missed Some Of

And there you go, Randy, As a result of your actions, the articles you wished to suppress are now listed on the front of Bleeding Cool…

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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
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