Original Comic Book Artwork

Erik Larsen, writer and artist of various things but best known, I guess, for his creator-owned Savage Dragon Image Comics title, is not someone whose work I've ever enjoyed very much. I haven't read much of his written work, but his art just doesn't appeal to me, and never has. As one of the hotshots who started up Image Comics - along with Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Mark Silvestri and others, if memory serves me - I've generally had no use for him and the rest of them because Image was mostly a creative wasteland, in my opinion. Vacuous artwork of women with impossibly long legs and quadruple-D cup size, involved in stories with little or no substance to them, isn't likely to cause even a blip on my personal comic book radar. After all, "image is everything" was the catchphrase the company seemed to be based on, except of course that it's actually next to nothing. All sizzle and no steak; favouring style over substance; and so on.

All of which is just preamble to explain that I'm not a fan of Larsen's, though I certainly hold no particular ill will toward him. (Unlike McFarlane, who's attempted repeatedly to screw over Neil Gaimain, which is pretty close to unforgivable in my mind.) But in a couple of recent online columns, Larsen has talked at length about the thorny issue of buying original artwork, when you're unsure of whether the artist ever agreed to sell it. He asks who really owns the rights to such pages, a topic that I'm very interested in as an owner of dozens of them.

In the first article, he rambles on (a bit more than he should have, actually) about some of his personal experiences, as well as his take on what it means to buy a piece of artwork that the artist never actually consented to sell. Although it was a tough read - because he repeated himself way too much - I found myself agreeing whole-heartedly with his stance: if you buy a page of artwork that you have reason to believe may've been stolen from the artist, then you're commiting theft. Steve Ditko, the original artist on The Amazing Spider-Man, is referenced again and again as an example of a very private individual who never approved any of his art to be sold, and yet tons of it showed up on the market. Larsen draws some parallels that those who know me will smirk at: comparing it to stealing music, movies or video games. He also writes a fair bit about integrity and doing what's right, which also resonates strongly with me.

Then he followed it up with a second article, this time passing along some responses he'd gotten to the first piece, along with a few more observations. It pleased me no end to read that at least a few people took his first set of words to heart and questioned the morality of what it meant to buy artwork that may not have been legitimately stolen. I know I reviewed many of the pieces I've purchased, trying to recall the situation of purchase for each. Many were bought directly from the artist - at conventions, or via e-mail - while others were acquired through the artist's agent, as directed by the artist himself. Very few of my pieces have come to me through a 3rd party, but where they have, they've been high profile pieces that are well known to have been sold by the artist. Having said all that, Larsen's two columns really opened my eyes as to how dicey this hobby can be.