Forgotten Fairytales Ripoff Drama

///Update 2:

Renselar has apologized to me, and has removed "Walls and Lies" as well as "Tuesday's Child" from his site, promising they were never sold and that he will never show them in public again.

He says the original photos were "on a CD-ROM that was given to him by a friend", and that the friend assured him that all the images on the CD-ROM were in the public domain.

"...I was badly misled and I therefore got it wrong. I’m angry too, because it means I wasted over 4 weeks of my time painting something I can never show."

Tell me I'm not the only one who tried not to roll my eyes. Really now.

Anyway, whether you believe the story or not, the important thing is that knock-offs have been removed and the man who made them has apologized and the works have been taken down now.

If you see works by other artists you know still on his site, please bring it up!

///Update:

Cross posting from Matt Thorn's blog post: Mr. Walker has apologized to Ms. Zhang and also to me. DiscoveredArtists.com has also removed Van Renselar from their online catalog. According to Mr. Walker, neither of the Renselar pieces based on Ms. Zhang’s work were ever sold through DiscoveredArtists.com. So, kudos to them. But Renselar is still peddling his knock-offs on his own site. Why not drop him a line and let him know what you think of his “original artworks,” as he calls them? While you’re at it, you also might want to check his catalog to see if he hasn’t borrowed from you as well.

///

No better way to start off a new year than some drama. Posting for the lulz and share along as you may.

I was browsing my Facebook's Photography folder when I chanced upon a link someone left on Forgotten Fairytales.

So I followed it, titled something like: The Spectacular Work of London Artist, Van Renselar:

The first piece of featured work in his article is a ripoff of one of my most iconic pieces, Forgotten Fairytales.

My original - Forgotten Fairytales, 2007

And he's supposedly a 52 years old man, really? Does he have no concept of shame and morals at all?

So anyway I posted about this on my Twitter and Facebook, and some people decided to leave comments on the page informing DiscoveredArtists that the work is ripped.

While I'm quietly waiting for my agent's return to town tomorrow to send them a formal correspondence, guess what, DiscoveredArtists replied in the comments section! (Not the artist himself, oh well)

Bitterness? WHAT bitterness? If anything yes I am sort of bitter that my work is being ripped off AND sold. Boohoo.

So clearly Mr. Brian Walker wants to be contacted directly, leaving his email, cell, tollfree number and what not, and I guess some of you went ahead.

But what surprised me, was when I found myself cc-ed in an email Matt Thorn had written to Brian Walker, alerting him that Van Renselar has plagiarized my work.

Matt Thorn, who's probably translated/is translating Hagio Moto's every English edition title, who appeared alongside Hagio Moto at her San Diego Comic Con signing last year, whose interview with Hagio Moto I had read, over and over and over, that had continued to serve as an inspiration to me for so so long, wrote an email for me. It's simple, professional and straight-forward. I was beyond touched, surprised and even honoured.

But guess what Mr. Walker replied!

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

The first thing you address is not about the plagiarism, but about how being alerted multiple times on an infringement could be a virtual harassment?

He didn't even do his research before the accusation, so much for working on the internet all day as he claims!

We're not even getting into details about the actual artwork itself yet, but I doubt it's going to be all sweet and rosy. What kind of people takes it out on others when they get called out on, seriously? I'm not impressed, DiscoveredArtists.