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The 15th Rumour Awards – Scam Of The Year

Published Mon, 04 Jan 2016 13:00:58 -0600

Last updated Mon, 07 Mar 2016 07:01:40 -0600

It's a long long time since the very first one of these. I was 28 when I decided that an annual look back at the rumours and scoops of the year would be a good thing. 15 years later, that's still to be determined. But here we go again with a self congratulatory pat on the back. Mostly.

But feel free to catch up with previous years by clicking on all these links.

But who has been conning people out of their hard earned money – or credit – the most this year?

Naturally there's some crossover with Swipe Of The Year, with plenty of folks taking work as their own and selling it for cash.

The Catfish Swipers of Miami, Gary Parkin and Chantelle Viala swiped work and sold it as it it were their own, Ducuso created work and sold it as if it were by other people. And Jason Wilms just tried to get cred.

And whatever the ins and out of the various allegations and lawsuits around Conlan Press and the ongoing battle between them and FansAgainstFraud. It looks like there will be a long time until whatever truth is settled. But there are a lot of people who claim they not got what they ordered up to ten years ago, though they have offered full refunds.

Some people are also still rather upset at the Atlantic City Boardwalk Comic Con after Stan Lee pulled out and refunds took a little time to arrive. While most got theirs, some did not and they still claim they can't get people to return their e-mails….

But at least it existed, unlike the Omega Expo which basically didn't.

There was the service that promised free downloads of comics in return for advertising, that was simply a trick to get people's credit card details.

There were the orders for comic books being placed by a Swiss company that were nothing of the sort and would never get paid.

There was the novel that pretended to be the graphic novel of The King In Yellow.

And while there were many Kickstarters and commissions that didn't delver as expected or were just plain late, Dean Trippe still caused concern for many.

More fake Michael Turner sketches hit eBay, in what seems to be a regular state of affairs for him and his legacy. No one else's name seems to get quick as much abuse in this fashion as his does, year after year after year.

But sometimes there's the good news. Like Neal Adams coming to a deal over the sale of artwork that had "disappeared" in the production system years ago. And something similar with the work of Mike Kaluta and Bernie Wrightson that turned up for sale after being stolen decades previously. People worked it out, which is always a good thing.

But there has to be one winner for Scam Of The Year. And the winner is Arthur Suydam, not for table grabbing, art swiping or for resume inflating, but for using images on his website that exaggerated his fanbase at shows…. even after it had been denied by his representatives.