I’m already on record about how much I despise Roy Lichtenstein, so it would be redundant to repeat all that today.

But now, it seems, I have 50,000,000 more reasons.

Over on Facebook, David Barsalou—who’s been cataloguing Lichtenstein’s sins for many years—brought to my attention that Lichtenstein’s appropriation of a Ted Galindo comic book panel is about to be offered by Sotheby’s for $50,000,000.

Yes, $50,000,000. I doubt Galindo even got $50 for drawing the panel that inspired it.

That’s Galindo’s original occupying most of the image above, with Lichtenstein’s swipe inset. You can read more about Galindo’s history as a comic book artist here.

It would have been nice to see a mention of Galindo in the ArtNet story about that coming sale. But then, you know me—I believe every article about one of these Lichtenstein’s should include a reference to the source material, the same way I feel gallery operators and museum curators owe it to history to include those references in their literature and wall placards. They fail in their duties whenever they don’t.

All artists deserve respect. And not just the ones whose works sell for $50,000,000.

I told you Friday about Image Duplicator, an upcoming gallery show in which comic book artists are going back to the sources Roy Lichtenstein used without credit in his paintings and doing new pieces based on the primary images in order to comment on the controversy surrounding the lack of attribution.

I spotted another artistic response today that tickled me.

First, take a look at Roy Lichtenstein’s “I Can See the Whole Room … and There’s Nobody in It!”

That painting, based on a panel by William Overgard from a Steve Roper newspaper strip, sold for $43.2 million November 2011. $43.2 million!

Here’s Overgard’s original image. (more…)

If you’ve been hanging around here for any length of time, you already know how much I despise Roy Lichtenstein and those who I feel treat comic book artists the same way he did. So I was delighted to learn via Bleeding Cool that UK comic book artists were planning to protest the Lichtenstein exhibition at the Tate Modern with an exhibition of their own.

Image Duplicator is the name of a show which will appear at the Orbital Gallery in Leicester Square from May 16th-31st, gathering together the works of artists commenting on Lichtenstein’s treatment of the original creators he never credited.

Here’s what they’ve been invited to do:

Every interested comic artist (or illustrator, graphic designer or other “commercial artist”) should “re-reappropriate” one of the comic images Lichtenstein used, and rework it, using some of their ‘commercial art’ drawing skills, to warp and twist it into something interesting and original, and in the process to comment on this type of appropriation.

The first response I spotted was by Dave Gibbons, who tackled one of Lichtenstein’s most famous copyings. First, here’s the Lichtenstein, titled “Whaam!”

Before taking a look at what Gibbons did, check out Irv Novick’s original panel from All-American Men of War #89 (Jan.-Feb. 1962).
(more…)

A story at boingboing the other day sent me to the site of artist Glennray Tutor, who’s responsible for the image below. What’s remarkable is that Tutor is not, as you at first might think, a photographic artist. That isn’t a photo of marbles resting on an open comic-book page. Rather, it’s a painting. All of it. And whatever you think of photorealism as a school of painting, it’s still an amazing feat.

And unlike Roy Lichtenstein (whom my wife eviscerates here at one of her blogs), Tutor isn’t trying to pass off someone else’s work as his own. That is, unlike Lichtenstein, whose works might be mistaken for being merely comics-inspired rather than a theft from specific panels by specific artists, with Tutor it’s clear that there’s existing source material.

So—what about that source material?

Based on the lettering across the top of the splash page, this was from an issue of Heart Throbs. (For other similar paintings, click on the link to the artist’s site above.

According to the Grand Comics Database, there were 46 issues of that title published by Quality Comics from August 1949 through December 1956, and 100 issues published by DC from April/May 1957 through October 1972. Since I don’t have the time or energy to go page by page online through 146 TOCs, can anyone recognize the story and spare me?

I guess I could always e-mail the artist and ask. But where would be the fun in that?

Presented for your consideration …

The oil painting below of the Green Lantern by pop artist Mel Ramos, just one of his many superhero images, was sold at auction on May 13, 2008 for $600,000.

You can find further details of the transaction here.

Meanwhile, the following drawing, by Martin Nodell, the man who actually created the Green Lantern in 1940 and who died two years ago at age 91, was sold at auction on September 16, 2007 for … (pause for dramatic effect) …$77.68.

Which means the world would have us believe that the Ramos has a value 7,723 times that of the Nodell.

Don’t believe the world.

I don’t know about you, but as for me—

I know which one of these two is the better drawing, which has more inherent meaning, and which one, given the chance, I’d rather own, even if price were no object.

And, as you might guess, I’ve never been a fan of the comic-book swipes of Roy Lichtenstein either.