A lesson in art.

[theweaselking]

From this book in 1978, we have this character, image, and text:


Look familiar?

How about this one?



Yes, that's the original image of Hot Topic kid Emily The Strange, "created" in 1991.

EDIT:
A response from the current owners of Emily

Comments

[elffin.livejournal.com]

And the linked website has just been brought to its' knees.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

flemco and I both just posted it. Who knows how many others did, too?

[elffin.livejournal.com]

Boing Boing.

*the sound of routers exploding into flames*

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Boing Boing did?

Uh, yeah, that would do it. Cory Doctorow has a much bigger Internet Cannon than I do.

[j-v-lynch.livejournal.com]

best comment there so far: "He's no Todd Goldman."

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

"Conan the Sysadmin! What is best in life?"

"To crash your enemies, see them offline before you, and hear the failures of their routers!"

[heraldofchaos.livejournal.com]

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

thats AWESOME

totaly stolen...

[heraldofchaos.livejournal.com]

you know i'm all for artists being inspired by other or older works. but give credit where credit is due...

SPECIFICALLY, if your work is an almost DIRECT copy of another work.

[itlandm.livejournal.com]

Could be a case of cryptomnesia. It is hard to remember everything you have seen in your life, especially if you were on drugs at the time.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

And so, since you don't remember it at all, you duplicate it down to details like type and colour of shoes, positions and sizes of cats, and precise wording?

[itlandm.livejournal.com]

If I understand cryptomnesia right, you remember stuff, you just don't remember that you didn't come up with it yourself. I know it firsthand only from music though, which is obviously less detailed.

I guess it is related to the way elderly people can quite earnestly tell you about some event they were present at, which you recognize from moderately well-known fictional literature.

(And of course, the right drugs can accelerate the process greatly.)

Obviously, copyright laws still apply. I think it would be very hard to claim independent invention in a case like this.

[doom-diva.livejournal.com]

OMG I have that book (well, my mom has that book in storage somewhere). Next time I visit I'm going to have to look for it.

[kafziel.livejournal.com]

From what I can tell, it was a skateboard sticker made by him, to promote his line of clothing.

[tsunami-ryuu.livejournal.com]

The art in the original is much cuter and has more personality.

MMM YES JUST A COINCIDENCE, I'm sure.

[squirrelonlj.livejournal.com]

It also looks stranger.

Emily the "Strange" is a total poseur.

[wherever.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I like the original a lot better. I always thought Emily was a little boring and flat. Makes sense when it's just ripped off from someone else.

I can understand wanting to create a spooky girl character. That kind of thing goes back to The Addams Family and Edward Gorey, and I'm sure even further. But to copy it so exactly and with the copied version having so little personality or originality...

[hypatiasghost.livejournal.com]

Ironic that a tee-shirt company that prides itself on being a purveyor of the message that it's okay to be different--better to be different, even--finds itself in this situation. There is nothing new under the sun.

I agree with an above poster that this is likely a case of cryptomnesia; the original artist didn't realize he'd seen this image somewhere. And yeah, I do actually believe that it's possible to reproduce all those details from memory without realizing you were copying them. I've written a cute little guitar riff that sounded very sad and lonely, only to realize one day that it was from another song.

The important bit is that the company worked to phase out the similarities between their Emily character and the Rosamund character when they realized the problem. I'm more or less satisfied with that.

[chrisrw109.livejournal.com]

The important bit is that the company worked to phase out the similarities between their Emily character and the Rosamund character when they realized the problem. I'm more or less satisfied with that.


Hrm.

I dunno.

The problem is that the establishment of the brand came about based on stuff that was 100% based on that other brand. So I'm not sure that phasing out the similarities over time covers the 'damage'.

They established the brand based on the over person's work, they then attempted to cover themselves by phasing away from that version. But there's no guarantee that whatever their 'final non-derivative' version is would have been as popular if their 'preliminary completely derived' version hadn't been it's precursor.

[hypatiasghost.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree. And come to think of it, maybe Ms. Sharmat and Mr. Simont would like some royalties to comfort them in their old, old age.

[chrisrw109.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that would definetly make things go a little more smoothly in their retirement. Blinged out Rascal scooters and all that.

BTW: I've meant to mention. Love the icon.