get at me
The recent series of lawsuits involving Disney Comics or should I say Marvel have pushed me over the fence on a choice I’ve been brooding over for some time now. Mind you to comprehend this you might want to familiarize yourself with fan art (deviantart.com), comic conventions, and the assembly line system in which many outdated comics companies work.
You see I don’t believe in fan art, and the only times I’ve done it are for school assignments (read: when I was forced to). Clearly there is a difference between what fans do, and what the creators in legal battles with Marvel (and D.C. in the past) do. That difference lies only in a matter of quality, and position. Position meaning the artists working (freelance, not as employees) for said corporations and their art are put on a pedestal.
But how do they get there? That’s what we all want to know because…well we’d all like to get there too. Well i’ll tell you. Work, and artists get put on their pedestals through energy. Without energy they have no position. And that energy comes from you. That’s right you the person reading this right now. By doing fan art, and commissions of licensed characters artists at various skill levels validate the otherwise outdated out of touch intellectual properties of these mega corporations. You are keeping these characters, and stories relevant beyond their functional time in culture (a crime really). When you draw something or write a fan fic you put energy into it.
You might be asking “Hey what’s wrong with that”? Well nothing, if your sole purpose is to create professional samples which will be seen soley, and I mean soley by the target companies, or completion that may be dazzled by such work. But that isn’t the case with most artists outside of Asia. See the problem with giving these companies your energy (for no pay I might add) is that you take it away from YOUR intellectual properties, your relevant, new, original works. And that is exactly what causes an artform to stagnate, jobs to shrink, and fans to move on to other mediums.
So in light of all this I will be removing my colorist professional samples from my blog. If you’re interested in hiring my services as a colorist, inker, or otherwise please contact me, and you can see such work privately. And that’s exactly what it is, a service. That superhero stuff isn’t who I am or what I’m about. I hope you readers/fans will come to see that that the illustrated medium is much deeper than kids stuff, and men in tights.
Peace.
Oh, by the way I’ve designed a new business card for the new year. get at me.
For those of you not in the know aya, and fihankra are adinkra symbols.
