First, Darren Di Lieto of the Little Chimp Society, a fantastic art portal site (of which I am a member) sent out emails warning people about “Colorful Illustrations 93°C”, an art book created entirely from plagiarized material. Not much later, I heard that the Orphan Works Bill (you can download copies here) was back. A day or two after that, a good friend of mine found that her work had been purloined and used online without permission. This is bound to get wordy, so hang in there.

Now We’re Ripping Off Monkeys???

The LCS situation is as clear-cut a case of intellectual property/art thievery as you’re ever going to find. Some sleazy, possibly fictitious publisher ripped Darren’s interviews from his site, then proceeded to go to every one of 93 artists’ and illustrators’ websites and steal enough images to fill a 300-odd page book. Which they charge 100 bucks for. Considering that most of those images were a couple hundred pixels big at 72dpi, it must be one great looking book (sarcasm alert). The story is way too long and depressing to fully recount here, and can be read over at Darren’s personal blog, Apefluff. I’m just glad to see that some progress has been made. Oh, and DON’T BUY THE BOOK.

The Orphan Works Act of 2008

Back in 2006, Congress considered the first Orphan Works Act. It died. Illustrators and photographers breathed a little easier. Objectively speaking, there is a good amount of film, music, art and writing where the creator is (and will probably eternally remain) unknown. Current copyright law keeps people from using or disseminating this work, and keeps it buried in archives. It would be nice to put work that is legitimately “orphaned” back into the hands of the public. After all, art is useless if it isn’t seen.

The proposed Act, however, would likely make the protection of legitimate copyright extremely difficult. The internet makes it only too easy to pass around an image, a collection of words, or a piece of music. Accidentally or intentionally, it can become detached from it’s author’s name. The Act calls for a “reasonable” or “good faith” search for the owner of the copyright. But who can define what is reasonable? Especially when it is in the best interest of the user not to find the copyright holder. The proposed fix for this is a sort of privatized registration system (yay! more money to some big internet company!). The problems with this are many. First, A large percentage of artists (visual and otherwise) are barely scraping by as it is. The additional outlay of, say a few grand a year to register every image, sketch and concept we create (after all, it’s our concepts and ideas which have real value) would likely make it impossible for many of us to continue in this field. Next, while requiring registration is currently illegal, these registration banks will become the de facto source to identify whether a work is orphaned or not. Failure to register a work will, in effect, orphan the work as soon as it is created. In addition, the act seems to remove the heavy fines which go a long way towards protecting copyright today, and puts the advantage solidly on the side of the infringer.

There are folks who think we’re all overreacting to this Act.
There are those who think we’re underreacting.
Jeff Trexler over at Newsarama has written an interesting article documenting both sides of the argument.
The Illustrators’ Partnership has an excellent roundup of this Act and it’s history (and their objection to it).

Blogging, the Internet, and “Borrowing” Art

Finally, and perhaps most complicated is the case of Papiers Colles and the images stolen from her blog. Not so long ago, I got into a discussion with a number of creative friends about the failure of current copyright law to protect us in the digital age. At the same time, the internet has re-defined fair use. The current copyright system is both too weak and too restrictive, depending on the situation. The majority of people involved with those discussions have chosen to apply a Creative Commons license to their online works. I use one on Flickr. Generally speaking, I don’t mind bloggers borrowing my images (particularly when they blog about my artwork) so long as they credit me and provide a link back to my site. Just don’t use it for commercial purposes. I also do not allow derivative works. I’m still ruminating on how to apply this to my blog and portfolio site.

The BIG question for artists is how to protect our work from now. I am considering a number of unpleasant options.

I can remove the large images from my site. This would keep people from seeing the textures and detail of the work, and could result in a loss of sales. I can paste a copyright notice on the artwork itself. It’s an inelegant and ugly solution. Or I can continue on in the current vein, hoping that the benefits compensate for any losses due to copyright infringement.

I am beginning to envision a future where the only way for creators to protect their intellectual property is through copyright enforcers; big guys we send out to smash the kneecaps of image thieves.

It’s been a week of heavy lifting for myself as well. In addition to working out this piece and coming up with some concepts for some personal work, I tackled my taxes. My Japanese taxes. In Japanese. A language which I have not quite mastered for everyday speech, let alone accounting practices. Luckily, you can go to the area tax office here where they will point to the correct box to put your numbers. Of course, you do need to have those numbers in order before you go in, or they’ll just send you right back home again. I think iWork and Numbers (for all the bits missing from a 1.0 software release) is the best purchase I’ve made all year.

Plus, preparation has been rocketing along for an exhibition or two that I’ll be blogging about soon. Oh, and don’t forget that my webhost will be moving my server tonight, starting Friday, March 21st, at 9PM PDT, and it is expected to last up to 12 hours, until Saturday, March 22nd, 9AM PDT. Cross your fingers that nobody drops anything important and I’ll be back online soon.

Back in art school, I used to spend crazy amounts of time doing value sketches and fine drawings onto Bristol board, then tracing those onto multiple pieces of tracing paper. The process has been streamlined since then. I do teensy thumbnails now, blow them up and finesse them in photoshop, then do my final drawing directly onto a nice, thick tracing paper. Not only does the art stay fresh and lively, but I also get to sleep more than two hours a night. The final cut paper art is about 90% done, and should be up tomorrow (yes, I know I’ve promised that before, but this time I mean it!).
Illustration Friday

Right now, these are the types of products you can find for sale: original art, calendars, button-badges, and books. In the near future, I plan on adding postcards, prints, more button-badges, and anything else my little imagination can conjure up.

Here’s where you come in: I’d love to hear your ideas or suggestions for future items. Which pieces would you like to hang on your wall as a print, or wear as a button? I’m completely open to suggestions for new types of things to paste my art to as well. So don’t be shy!

Okay, now for the bad news. My webhost has seen fit to move a bunch of servers from one clust…y’know what? I don’t really know what they’re doing. Theoretically it will result in my website being more stable and zippier. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. In the meantime, it will mean about 12 hours where my site will be down, unavailable, dead-to-the-world. Downtime starts Friday, March 21st, at 9pm PDT and is expected to last until Saturday, March 22nd, 9AM PDT.
Give or take.

My dream garden, on the other hand would be wide, wild, and chock-full of swinging monkeys. Oh sure, I like to stroll through traditional Japanese gardens. There’s no arguing that they are stunningly beautiful and serene accomplishments. However, I’ve always found myself at odds with the assertion that the Japanese garden is at harmony with nature, or that it somehow proves that Japanese culture is more in touch with the natural world than western culture. Maybe it’s my upbringing as a farm boy, living on the edge of a state-park where I spent a large part of my childhood running from bears (and wild dogs, and coyotes, and wild turkeys, and chickens…chickens are vicious, man!), but to me the Japanese garden is an attempt to reproduce nature on a human scale, reduce it to a manageable size, and thus to control it. It’s the same impetus that leads to the kawaii-factor. Everything is easier to deal with if it’s small and cute. Having said that, Rikugien is mind-bogglingly beautiful, and does wonders for the soul.

Most damning of all, traditional Japanese gardens have no monkeys.

You may remember Mark McKenna’s Banana-Taill from previous posts here, here, here, and here, and a bunch more. I’ve been doing some more monkey art for him recently, and this is a taste of where it’s all heading.

Illustration Friday

Remember way back when I posted about this paper-toy-doodad-bird-thingy I made? Remember it was based on Josh McKible’s original “Paperbird” design? Well, Those tricky Paperbirds have morphed into NaniBirds, and a whole new batch has hatched over on the new www.nanibird.com website.

Hop on over to that nest to download (yes, for FREE) the template for Skybird, or more than a dozen other extremely nifty birdies by a whole flock of talented people. Since the last post, Skybird has grown a pair of itty-bitty birdy feet and, now that he’s found his voice, is sure to ruffle a few feathers. He’s certainly spread his wings, so to speak.

Hurm. That’s all the silly bird references I can come up with right now. Feel free to suggest more in the comments. And yes, I promise there will be new work online soon.

After nearly a year of anticipation (on my part, anyway), A Constellation Album: Stars and Mythology of the Night Sky by renowned astrophotographer P.K. Chen and chock-full of cut-paper illustrations by me is now available from Sky Publishing! Yee-Haw!

When art director extraordinaire Sandra Salamony first laid out the idea of the book, I knew that it would be unlike anything I had worked on before, and entirely special. Here’s a brief breakdown of the awesomeness that is this book:

• First off, I get to illustrate the constellations. About fifty-five (55!) of them. I mean, how cool is that?
• P.K.’s photos of the night sky are gorgeous.
• The book delves into the mythology and stories, my favorite part.
• The illustrations are a fusion of Greek and Asian design elements, with a healthy dash of my quirks thrown in. Extra points to anyone who can find a little Cthulu in there.
• Coolest of all, the artwork is printed on a transparency that lies on top of the photo. You can lift it up to enjoy the night stars, then put it back down to try and figure out how the ancients managed to see anything at all in those lights (my theory includes plenty of free time and a lot of wine).

My little digital camera can’t do justice to how mind-numbingly cool this book is, but here’s a quick shot of Sagittarius.

Here is the original Saggittarius cut-paper artwork. Each of the illos for this were cut from a single black sheet of paper. ‘Twas a relief not to worry about glue. They are mighty floppy, though.

Oh, and just for the heck of it, here’s the original sketch which led to the cut-paper art which led to the book.
The book is available pretty much everywhere, I think, including Amazon: A Constellation Album: Stars and Mythology of the Night Sky

To commemorate the finishing of my short comic for Mark McKenna’s Bananatail, a couple of guys I know interviewed me about my foray into comic-dom. You can listen to me babbling on (and I do babble! I digress alot too!) about my process and my art on Deconstructing Comics, a podcast focused, appropriately enough, on comics.

Before you do, a DIRE! warning: I literally could only listen to 3 minutes of the podcast before my skin crawled straight off at the sound of my own voice. I sound much, much studlier in my own head. Having said that, you might find a nugget of interest in there, if you can get past that unearthly screech and the fact that the whole thing sounds like it was recorded over a couple of beers in a noisy, smokey bar/coffee shop with overly-loud mediocre psuedo-jazz limping out of the sound system. Which, curiously, it was.

The curious thing about Ursa Minor is that, in order to include Polaris, the little guy needs a big ol’ tail. Which, in my opinion, makes our diminutive ursine friend look a whole lot like a beaver. My working theory is that the artists who drew the original constellations had never seen a live bear, but rather went by the descriptions furnished by witnesses. Seeing as I’ve met and fled bears in the wild myself, it’s my opinion that most witnesses don’t spend alot of time memorizing the little details.

These critters, and their fifty-odd friends, will grace the pages of P.K. Chen’s book, A Constellation Album: Stars and Mythology of the Night Sky. This will be my first book, to be released this September. Each piece of art was cut from a single piece of paper (Yay! No glue!), and fashioned to fit around the particular constellation’s stars. I’ll be posting more about the book as it comes closer to launch.

Illustration Friday