Hi, I'm Tuffy. 
Is Pink an art thief? The singer seems to have appropriated images by New Zealand comic artist Martin Emond in her latest video, “U & Ur Hand.”
Here’s a rundown of the coverage so far.
WHAT’S THE PROB? See this damning side-by-side comparison of Edmonds’ drawings and video stills provided by New Zealand company Illicit Streetwear, which controls the rights to Emond’s work.* Even so, it shrugs off the swipe, saying, “we all realised Marty was well ahead of everyone in creating new looks and characters!!! At least its not Britney Spears huh!?” [egregious punctuation in original.]
LAWSUIT? In a news report, Illicit rep Steve Hodge sounds like a guy who’s trying to decide whether to sue. He refused to rule out the prospect when interviewed by ABC’s news service, which paraphrases his comments as: “It’s not fair that Emond was not recognized for his work. … Emond was living in Los Angeles and probably met the people who made the video. … people probably knew what a huge talent Emond was but none of them had the guts to use his art and pay him properly.”
DOES ILLICIT HAVE A CASE? Well, Klim of BigShotToyWorks found a very similar case in which Madonna had to pay up for borrowing from French photog Guy Bourdin. The Smoking Gun has the dox.
Meanwhile, readers at Metafilter ask where the line is between theft and homage, noting that Emond’s own work was awfully similar to that of British artist Simon Bisley. Oh, and he had a giant Calvin tattoo on his back. (But I heard Watterson gave him the OK for that. Bill was a big Rolling Red Knuckles fan.)
WHO’S EMOND? NZ weblog Spare Room notes that he “gained notoriety for his over-the-top illustrations in the 1992 comic book series White Trash, written by Gordon Rennie. He also drew for UK comic 2000 AD and D.C. comics’ Lobo mini-series.” 2000 AD was the home of Judge Dredd, which got turned into that Sylvester Stallone movie.
FOR EXAMPLES of fan outrage, see Deviant Art.
FOR A POSTHUMOUS retrospective (Emond killed himself in 2004), see James Sime’s article in Comic Book Resources.
FOR PIX of Pink peeing outdoors like some kind of bag lady, see HotOnlineNews.com.
*apparently. I couldn’t verify this.
technorati tags: pink, martin+emond, emond, illicit, copyright
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both Biz and martin worked togethre for 2000AD
Glann Danzig’s Verotic Comics
and a number of other books like LOBO(which Bisley created and martin did soem buest artwork in)
the similarity is in the materials they used and the extreme nature of the character stylings and teh ultra humorious violence
I am assuming they were friends since they it work appears on the same titles and I believe in the same books
I was introduced to Marty s work through his comic work
I think it is a crime to do this and because his work
might be similar to a friend that he used to collaborate with is not an excuse for what thei music video is….
[...] Pop singer Pink is being accused of ripping off images from the late Martin Emond for her new music video. FanDumb has an article comparing Emond’s illustrations and stills from the music video. [...]
Hey, we all have to pee sometimes. I pee in a box.
Well, they might be ripped off, but Mrs. P!nk really does pull them off quite well. I don’t think Martin Edmond would be mad at her.
You can’t go around saying “I don’t think Martin Emond would be mad at her”. That’s an assumption and no proof that he would, or wouldn’t be mad. It is totally irrelevent. She should at least credit him, at the end of that clip and apologise to the firm that hold the legal rights to his work.
Just because she’s some celebrity, doesn’t put her any higher above the law than some average Joe. Perhaps she is unaware of it personally, but the person who decided to take his work should definately be held accountable.
yes they are similar….
i think the big question is did Pink’s management contact Marty Edmonson’s management for permission…. has anyone checked into that?
or is everyone just assuming they were stolen?
Last I heard, people were assuming they were stolen in absence of any comment from Pink’s management.
I agree with you, Cbree. I just bet the director of the video, or Pink, or whoever decided to use the characters figured they didn’t have to ask because he was a dead guy from another country. Either way it’s pretty callous for one artist to use another this way. The sad thing is that if they’d simply put in a half-second credit acknowledging Emond, it would have made tons more people aware of his work.
Comparing her theft of his characters and art to his having a tattoo of someone else’s art is beyond ridiculous. A tattoo is a tribute. What she did, however, was use his work to further her own career. If she had asked for permission (as questioned above by Sam), I don’t think this would be an issue. Let’s pretend for a moment that they did attempt to contact them, but didn’t get a response or maybe even didn’t hear back in time for the video (all of which I highly doubt), they still should have at they very least credited the source. If anyone tried to “pay tribute” to Pink herself in this way (such as, I don’t know, using the same lyrics or dressing exactly like her or using any of her nicknames), there is no way in hell she’d stand for it and accept the pathetic excuse of paying tribute. Puh-lease!
Did nobody learn in high school that when you use someone else’s work in your own work (that being the key difference between a tattoo and a music video), you have to credit the source, otherwise it is plagiarism and theft?
So nothing was ever done about this?
Who’s Marty Edmonson? Who’s Martin Edmond? What do they have to do with this and why are you morons bringing them up?
And anyone who thinks Emond’s art is a copy of Bisley’s……. Well, I can’t think of a way to describe how clueless you are. You might be able to get an insight into artistic expression if someone rolled up a Rembrandt, set it on fire and stuck it up your ass. But more than likely you’d just defecate it like you did your brains.