greg land(and Tim Bradstreet the hack fuck) is a plagiarist?

[alive she cried]

link

Commenter Swampy and I have been going 'round and 'round about comic illustrator Greg Land. Land has provided illustrations for a large number of comics, including Ultimate Fantastic Four, Birds of Prey, Sojourn, and more. Swampy says Land is great because he illustrates very pretty pictures of very pretty women.

It is very pretty, isn't it?

 

I used to believe Land was pretty good, but I don't anymore. I think Greg Land is a rotten artist, and I'm amazed that he gets any work at all.

 

Wanna know why? Click that "Read More" link, sweet thang, and I'll explain.

 

First, let's talk about the concept of "drawing from life." This is something that almost every artist does. You have a model who you photograph, either posed or unposed, and you use that photo as a reference while you're drawing. Or you have a model who comes in, and you draw them live. This isn't just a comic book thing -- just about every artist draws from life at one time or another. Rembrandt did it. Da Vinci did it. Caravaggio did it. Alex Ross does it. No one minds.

 

Now, let's talk about lightboxing. You can take a drawing or a photograph of anything and attach it to a lightbox, which works by beaming light through the picture and onto a drawing surface. (That's simplifying quite a bit, because there are lots of different kinds of lightboxes, but most of them work approximately the same way.) When you've got the picture beamed onto your drawing surface, you can put a piece of paper down on it and trace the picture almost perfectly.

 

Greg Land doesn't draw from life. He lightboxes. He isn't an artist. He's a tracer.

 

Let's look at some more pictures.

 

Game, set, and match -- makes it pretty darn obvious, doesn't it? It's like someone dared him to make it as howlingly obvious as possible.

 

Land has also picked up some photos from Sports Illustrated and pinup calendars.

 

He also steals artwork from other artists. Like Travis Charest...

 

...and Bryan Hitch...

 

I gotta say, stealing artwork from movies or magazines is bad enough, but lifting your stuff directly from other artists and trying to pass it off as your own? That's beyond low. That's "beat you in the head with a posthole digger" low. That's "avoid going to conventions so you don't meet the people you stole from" low.

 

Land also picks up a lot of his "artwork" directly from pornography. He does this so darn much that a lot of folks refer to some of his artwork as "pornface." For example, there's this one, which is pretty much the best known example of "pornface."

 

And then there's this one, which is supposedly someone being thrown through the air by a shockwave.

 

Umm, wow. Wow. Yeah, I just bet that came from "legitimate photography," don'tcha think? And I'm sure she's 18, trust me on that one...

 

Especially frustrating is that fact that Land will trace these pictures, and then not try to fix the hair or faces so they look the same. For instance, in one issue of "Ultimate Fantastic Four":

Sue Storm starts out with straight hair, but a few panels later...

Boom! Curly hair! Maybe it just got real humid? Or maybe Land was too lazy to change the hair from the curly-haired model to match the straight hair that the previous model had...

 

Why do comic companies continue to hire him? I really don't know. If I were them, I'd be scared to death that one of these artists or photographers would discover Land's theft and sue the snot out of the company. Comics companies have gotten in big trouble for this in the past -- why would they risk having to pay someone a big wad of cash for this? Land's hack artwork surely can't be worth that kind of legal danger...

 

So does it really matter? Land's fans say that as long as he keeps putting pretty girls in his comics, his books are still worth buying. I disagree pretty strenuously. A real artist has to spend a lot of time practicing, learning anatomy and facial structure, drawing stuff over and over to get it to look right. Land doesn't do any of that. He cuts a picture out of a magazine, tapes it into his lightbox, traces it line-for-line, draws a Black Canary costume on it, then sends it in to his editor. He collects a check for being too lazy and talentless to do his own work. He collects a check for stealing other people's work and pretending it's his own.

 

Greg Land is, as far as I can tell, a talentless thief. To even pretend his stuff is worth looking at is a slap in the face to real artists like Jack Kirby, Curt Swan, the Romitas, the Kuberts, George Perez, Jack Cole, Frank Miller, and every other artist who cared enough to work at his craft, rather than steal and cheat his way into a paycheck.

 

You want to look at pictures of hot chicks? You don't need Greg Land. Go buy a Playboy, and cut out the middleman.

Edited June 12, 2008 by alive she cried

[Darth Fluffakins]

"Greg Land doesn't draw from life. He lightboxes. He isn't an artist. He's a tracer."

 

I deffinitely agree with some of his thefts, but this example of "lightboxing" really doesn't count as cheating to me. Of course I really don't know the process of lightboxing, but Alex Ross would photograph so much of what he does first as a model. I don't see how this is too different from that.

[Jables]

Yeah it's probabl;y true but meh. It's a smear campaign is all it is because some 'artist(not looking at Baytor)' takes exception to other 'artists' who simply use filters on real images. We had this exact conversation about Tim Bradstreet about a year ago.Land's images are a lot prettier though. Also, Biting Hitch's style is just ridiculous. Man is an accomplished artist who draws some amazingly realistic models, anyone trying to do the same should certainly draw comparison but not be accused of plagurism. Next folks are gonna say Humberto Ramos is just a Hong Kong Joe Madeaura.

"Greg Land doesn't draw from life. He lightboxes. He isn't an artist. He's a tracer."I deffinitely agree with some of his thefts, but this example of "lightboxing" really doesn't count as cheating to me. Of course I really don't know the process of lightboxing, but Alex Ross would photograph so much of what he does first as a model. I don't see how this is too different from that.

I thought Ross Painted entirely? The commentary on Kingdom Come showed his photo references and I thought he said he had the models standing still for hours while he got the shadows right. Shit, if Ross turns out to be another of these psuedo artists(yes their form is valid but essentially yes, they're glorified inker tracers*) then I'm officially piling his grave high with my hot wet shit.

 

*This is a serious discussion with no real need for such bigotted hatewords

Edited June 12, 2008 by Skeeter

[MetalHeart]

Found this thread while googling Greg Land

 

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=134443

 

Very interesting.

[Darth Fluffakins]

I was just thumbing through "marvels" and it does look like they're photographs he's using. For one thing some of the poses shown would be impossible to hold for too long, like that captain america one,

 

Second, if he's painting these people as models wouldn't all the pictures be in the same place like his studio.

 

Some of this dude's ripoffs are more inspired by then completely ripping off, like that cover from Sojourn. He used the position and the boobs, but the rest of that cover isn't stolen.

 

I still have alot of respect for Ross and Land, and I still believe what they do counts as art and not tracing.

 

*later that day

I checked out that link rachael posted, it is very interesting and kinda funny.

Edited June 13, 2008 by Darth Fluffakins

[MetalHeart]

Man it's great. All 34 pages are pure gold guys. PURE GOLD.

[Silent Bob]

Ross uses photographs extensively. For the kind of lighting and realism that he strives for, it's almost necessary. Most artists use photo reference and a ton of them do "lightboxing". I know I've done it tons of times. Hell, by this guy's definition, Norman Rockwell was a tracer (Rockwell would often project photographs of his models onto his canvasses and trace them to get the proportions right). While some of the examples this guy has put up aren't particularly good uses of photo reference, to say the guy is less of an artist for being strict with his reference sometimes is ridiculous. Even the great Bryan Hitch sticks to his reference sometimes:

 

 

However, those frames that he swiped from other artists, that is pretty low.

[Maldron]

 

That's kinda what makes me think he's going too far right there, SB. The fact that that's supposed to be the same guy, from the same issue, speaks to a lack of consistency. It's one thing to have a frame of reference, but that speaks to something else.

[Silent Bob]

Oh don't get me wrong, I don't think the guy's all that great and how he uses his reference certainly hurts the effectiveness of his art, but for someone to call him a talentless hack and not a real artist for doing something that most comic artists do (even if he does it badly) is pushing it.

[The NZA]

i agree with SB as well as maldron here -the big crime is jacking from other artists (there's a lot on this from Liefeld taking from Lee and others, if i recall correct), but from a reader's standpoint, the pornface thing makes things awful on the writer.

It took a while to click, from his Ultimate FF run as well as Ultimate Power and such, but the women are either overly expressive (no one laughs that loudly, especially during a fight) or giving an odd "come fuck me" look when casually talking to pretty much anybody. Its atrocious, and it sucks cause his art style otherwise isnt the kind that'd directly turn me off otherwise, like, say, Salvador Larocca or something.

 

from MH's awesome threadlink, Ultimate Pornface # 2

[Jables]

Yeah, I mean outside of Chasing Amy noone calls for the head of inkers like Palmiotti for being no-talent hacks. tracing Inking is more valid an artform than photography as far as I'm concerned, and these guys are just taking the next prgressive step. Maybe a new title/school of art is called for here? I mean really, sure they're implementing talent but you can understand pencil/paper artists resenting what these guys do when they're all being bundled in the same category.

[Silent Bob]

I dunno, depends on their attitude about it.

 

Unless they're self-publishing their own work, comic artists are not fine artists, they're paid illustrators and an illustrator's job is to create an image that conveys a story. It doesn't matter whether they're using manipulated photographs or fully painted canvases, if their image fits and clearly conveys the message of the story, they've done their job. If this guy's going around bullshitting everybody by saying "look how fantastic I am at completely drawing these things from my head" then ok, he's a dick. But if he's upfront about what he does and his images work for the book, he's done his job. My personal opinion is that for a fine artist, the important part of the artwork is the process. For an illustrator, it's the final image - nothing else. Whatever a guy has to do to make that final image is fair game.

 

Here, look, I'm gonna use some of my own stuff to illustrate my point (I'm not trying to hijack the thread or anything). One of these images was done without any "lightboxing" or tracing whatsoever and one of them was done without ever putting pencil to paper. Does it matter which is which? Are either of the images less effective because of it?

 

Edited June 13, 2008 by Silent Bob

[Jables]

I gotta say, I still love the shit outta your Spaghetti Western Eastwood one. But your perspective is certainly the most informative here.

[alive she cried]

there's absolutely nothing wrong with using photo's for reference.

but tracing? that's cheating no matter what way you look at it

[MetalHeart]

I just CANNOT get over all the pornface!!!

 

 

 

haha

 

Also

Woahsup

[Silent Bob]

there's absolutely nothing wrong with using photo's for reference.

but tracing? that's cheating no matter what way you look at it

 

Rockwell traced. Van Eyck traced. There's even evidence that many of the Renaissance masters used a camera obscura to trace their proportions. For many artists, it's simply part of their process.

 

I sense an Art & Literature poll brewing...

Edited June 13, 2008 by Silent Bob

[alive she cried]

Rockwell traced. Van Eyck traced. There's even evidence that many of the Renaissance masters used a camera obscura to trace their proportions. For many artists, it's simply part of their process.

 

I sense an Art & Literature poll brewing...

 

i've certainly never done it and i'd never claim the work was mine if i did.

on the forum link mh posted there's even a few people with no artistic ability posting up "great" pictures which they traced with a lightbox.

that's not art

[Silent Bob]

Sure it is, it's just not skill.

[Iambaytor]

Yeah it's probabl;y true but meh. It's a smear campaign is all it is because some 'artist(not looking at Baytor)' takes exception to other 'artists' who simply use filters on real images. We had this exact conversation about Tim Bradstreet about a year ago.

 

Yeah I agree, this is old news. If I can't hate on Tim Bradstreet then you can't hate on Greg Land.

[Jables]

Who denied your hatred of Tim Bradstreet? Everytime I see an old Punisher or Hellblazer cover I chuckle to myself and think fondly of the hate-torch you keep burning so bright for him. It warms me a little in my secret heart.

[Iambaytor]

I see, when the masses are happy they deny the Baytor his hate, but when they need the Baytor-hate they attempt to appease him.... very well then.

 

Yes I still fucking hate Tim Bradstreet and find the man a fraud. I would find his art harmless if Punisher-covers everywhere weren't covered with rivulets of crusty sperm from the masses of geeks and critics who seem to jerk off hourly to what look like pictures of Tommy Lee Jones in like 6 poses with way too much shadow and a skull on his t-shirt.

 

So in closing, fuck Tim Bradstreet, Greg Land at least seems to do some form of actual drawing albeit a limited amount but some rather than trace, add shadows, and t-shirt decals. I may decide to hate him later.

[Jables]

We don't require your hate. It just happens like gravity or Jehova's Witnesses. All's I'm saying is, sometimes your hate serves a tangible function and can be implemented in such a fashion as to even enjoy it, much like tossing beer bottles really high and watching them smash, or even the Cemetary.

[alive she cried]

w...what's wrong with tim bradsheet?

don't ruin him for me you guys

[Jables]

:cue baytor:

[alive she cried]

is it worthy bayte*

 

 

 

*baytor hate

Edited June 17, 2008 by alive she cried