So, about those assholes that jacked my art. Feel free to stop by their Facebook or Twitter and say hello for me.
Art theft? Art theft? Nah.
Maybe idea theft. Maybe. If you want to get upset about someone stealing the idea of “playing cards + darth vader.”
But they did not steal the art.
Darth Vader specifically as the Suicide King of Hearts narrows it down a little, and is certainly no less suspicious than several of the Threadless VS Todd Goldman designs people were up in arms about a few months back. I’m going to tell people to use their own discretion, but I hope people will consider how they would react if someone like Jess Fink was making the original theft of concept complaint, or if a company like Hot Topic or David and Goliath was producing the T-Shirt.
I’m weary to wave the ‘art theft’ flag because so much is different here. It’s not a trace, or even a copy, and everything about the art, linework, colour, pose, design style, is completely different. At worst it looks like maybe the artist saw the original, said ‘hey cool idea I’m going to draw my own and sell it’ and did so. And even then, I don’t see what’s malicious about it, it’s not a direct ripoff or shitty knockoff idea. Both of them are neat executions of the same idea, and I’m REALLY hesitant to get mad at someone just for taking someone’s idea and doing a different spin on it, because that’s my favourite thing with art.
If anything, to me, the difference just simple marketing - now the buyer has the more traditional design or the more artistic design to choose from. And for the record, I like the left one.
