Comments on: Vertigo comics plagiarism scandal!

Vertigo comics plagiarism scandal!

UKnowForKids — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 07:52:30 -0800

Plagiarism scandal rocks DC's Vertigo line. A comics blogger has discovered shocking evidence of theft in Fables, Y: The Last Man, Sandman, and other major Vertigo titles. (Via Comics Should Be Good!)

By: kittens for breakfast

kittens for breakfast — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 07:59:18 -0800

Um...well, that was kind of a letdown. MGK has done better. That said, Horrific Tales from the Darkness of Our Own Subconscious might be my favorite subtitle ever.

By: papakwanz

papakwanz — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 07:59:41 -0800

Good photoshop work.

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:00:54 -0800

Brevity is the soul of wit. This is not brief.

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:02:00 -0800

But thanks for the post - Comics Should Be Good! looks to be a very nice blog.

By: XQUZYPHYR

XQUZYPHYR — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:12:06 -0800

Um...well, that was kind of a letdown. MGK has done better. I think the Civil War remix is sort of his "Rick James" moment- by that I mean it was the bit he did that was so awesome it makes everything else he does or ever will do not as good by comparison.

By: dirtdirt

dirtdirt — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:24:16 -0800

Note to future forgers: hand drawn golden age typography does not have drop-shadow filter applied. Other than that irksome detail I really enjoyed these.

By: es_de_bah

es_de_bah — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:24:18 -0800

kinda funny, but uh. Isn't the gimmick of Vertigo kinda that they take old, out-dated comic characters and pump interesting new life into them? So, like, isn't this kind of like calling the White Stripes on ripping off 60s and 70 garage bands? Or making fun of Law and Order by relying on topical allusions? There has to be a word for this type of failure in parody. Kinda the poetic version of "turn your sarcasm detector on," but along the lines of completely missing a shared reference and treating it like plagiarism.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:28:54 -0800

Oh, I so want to read those...

By: public

public — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:52:17 -0800

"Fableheads" were one of the earliest organizers of dedicated-subject conventions, and all 1,245 fans of the comic were killed at the inaugural convention when the roof collapsed. DC immediately cancelled the title and now refuses to admit that it ever existed. [emph added] .

By: public

public — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:00:46 -0800

Yes I know it's photoshopped :)

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:05:47 -0800

Comics Should Be Good! is one of my favorite ~~comic~~ blogs, always worth browsing. They're currently compiling the Top 100 Comic Runs as submitted by their readers.

By: bunnytricks

bunnytricks — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:23:00 -0800

I'm trying to imagine the 1950s version of the Invisibles. King Mob: SAS soldier in WW2, initiated into the worlds oldest conspiracy by a Sufi master in the closing days of the war. Deserts to California and becomes a Hell's Angel where he recruits... John-a-dreams: Jack Parsons, who lets a room of his boarding house out to... Fanny: a blacklisted transvestite communist screenwriter, who can only get work as a stylist for... Ragged Robin: Frances Farmer, who thanks to shock therapy developed psychic powers and sees the Christ of the new aeon in... Jack: Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli, a juvenile delinquent from Kenosha, Wisconsin who is destined to be the next Buddha, as long as... Tom O'Bedlam: Aleister Crowley can toss him off a skyscraper and not kill him.

By: Naberius

Naberius — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:38:10 -0800

I don't know whether to be upset or relieved that almost all of those whipped straight over my head.

By: jonson

jonson — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:45:42 -0800

I thought this was pretty awesome, and was surprised that no one had thought of it earlier. Nice post!

By: horseblind

horseblind — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:15:29 -0800

bunnytricks: FTW!

By: mgrichmond

mgrichmond — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:12:17 -0800

Isn't the gimmick of Vertigo kinda that they take old, out-dated comic characters and pump interesting new life into them? That was kinda how it started, when they finally put a unifying imprint onto titles like Doom Patrol, Animal Man, Sandman and Swamp Thing. Trouble was, Morrison was wrapping up his Doom Patrol run, while Animal Man was floundering after Morrison's departure. Ditto for Swamp Thing, which would never again hit the heights it reached under Alan Moore, then Rick Veitch. Within a couple of years, Vertigo would be better known for original titles like Preacher, Transmetropolitan (which started under DC's short-lived SF imprint, Helix), and Y.

By: malusmoriendumest

malusmoriendumest — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:46:05 -0800

Fake. Do not deface the image of respectable publishers with lies.

By: CheeseburgerBrown

CheeseburgerBrown — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:03:44 -0800

Oh, I get it -- he used Photoshop to paint out Garfield on every cover. No, hold on. Let me look more closely.

By: Gary

Gary — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:07:14 -0800

malusmoriendumest will now return to his ongoing protest of Mad Magazine. Paul Thomas Anderson is NOT working on a follow-up called "There will be Blecch".

By: Pope Guilty

Pope Guilty — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:16:38 -0800

Fake. Do not deface the image of respectable publishers with lies. I'm imagining the shrieks of horror emanating from your house whenever someone links you to The Onion.

By: turaho

turaho — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:47:00 -0800

Paul Thomas Anderson is NOT working on a follow-up called "There will be Blecch". I drink your milkshake! SPLORP! SLOOPLE! SLURK! GLUP! DRIPPLE BLIT. SHPLIPLE!

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:04:23 -0800

I seem to recall a comic where the super-villain had every single Super-Power, but if you named them out loud he would lose the power. Anyone know what I'm talking about? The irreverent writer was featured previously on MeFi, I just can't remember any of the details.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:05:02 -0800

I mention it only because I had the notion in my head that the publisher was Vertigo.

By: kittens for breakfast

kittens for breakfast — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:16:13 -0800

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:09:04 -0800

YEAH! Thanks, kittens!

By: bettafish

bettafish — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:07:33 -0800

Okay, whether or not the metajoke works, that is some excellent pastiching work there. I think the Civil War remix is sort of his "Rick James" moment- by that I mean it was the bit he did that was so awesome it makes everything else he does or ever will do not as good by comparison. See, I thought the Civil War remix was completely unfunny, but the Brand New Day remix? Comedy gold. But then, I'm really, really, really bitter about Brand New Day.

By: UKnowForKids

UKnowForKids — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:43:59 -0800

Glad that some enjoyed it, which is as much as I could hope for in my first posting in a year or two. And not that anyone's reading down here anymore, but Civil_Disobedient's question also reminds me of a moment in Grant Morrison's JLA run (I think it was a Mark Waid fill-in issue, actually), where Amazo attacks the Justice League. It's a bitch, because Amazo is a robot who (somehow) can duplicate the powers of every member of the Justice League, which recently added a bunch of new members. So in order to defeat him, Superman disbands the Justice League, leaving him powerless. God damn, I am a big fat nerd.

By: every_one_needs_a_hug_sometimes

every_one_needs_a_hug_sometimes — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:29:04 -0800

Oddly enough, I did catch a bit of plagiarism in the last issue of Jack of Fables. Jack conducts a con that is exactly the con that was in David Mamet's House of Games, and you know it was directly from that movie because the con was created specifically for David Mamet by one of his friends... Took me completely out of the moment when I recognized it... I thought it was going to be about that based on the title.