Posted in: Comics, Editor's Picks Comic News, Swipe File | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, Swipe File
Swipe File: Dan Jurgens Vs Bill WIlliams And A $100 Batman
Comic book reader Aric Shapiro contacted Bleeding Cool to tell me,
I commissioned Dan Jurgens to draw a Batman piece. It was a pencil only piece.
But at Alamo Comic Con, this past weekend, one of his friends saw artist Bill Williams selling this.
I contacted Dan Jurgens who told me,
When you take another artist's work and pass it off as your own, especially while trying to make money off it, you are a hack. A complete and total hack. You're trying to benefit off another person's work, which makes you something of a thief.
By doing so publicly, you have forever labeled yourself as such.
Bill Williams, hack and thief.
In response, Bill Williams told me,
"He's right of course.
I offer a humble and honest apology for inking that Batman image. When someone asked about the drawing, I stated that I had inked a Dan Jurgens image. That information was not written on the page. That was one of the many mistakes I made that will not be repeated.
The page has been destroyed. And I think I'm done with conventions for a while."
It's rare that you get such a response, and that is to his credit. The question here might be, is inking a copy of pencils without the permission of the penciller and selling it – however you credit it – might well be problematic.