#functionally but he loved the little doodles he could do (this later manifested in his tattoos)

[arsenicflame]

It used to be that he and Ed would sit together upon an evening, sharing a drink and some quiet time together after a long day. Ed would do all manner of things, puzzles, smoking, whatever's captured his attention at this moment- but Izzy would always do the menial tasks, the things he didn't have time for in his day, too busy running around from dawn till dusk. But in these quiet moments, he would get to do those small things, he'd get to turn his brain off and sharpen knives, or blacken leathers, but most often, he'd do the mending.

It became such routine that Ed stops noticing, it becomes just another thing Izzy does for him, another part of his job, add it to the list.

Eventually, as their relationship breaks down, they stop having their evenings together. But Izzy never stops mending Ed's clothes. He brings the pile back to his room, working by the light of a candle, returning the clothes before Ed ever notices they're gone. It continues even on The Revenge, Izzy scooping up Ed's repairs as he spends time distracted by Stede, by the crew, by his rediscovered zest for life. All the while Izzy goes on unnoticed, declaring his love in every stitch.

When things settle down after the reunion, Izzy starts picking up Stede's mending. He picks it up before he restarts with Ed's, still (justifiably) angry at everything that happened. But Izzy's duty has always been to his captain, and Stede's his captain now, even if he might not be ready to say it out loud.

He drags the clothes to his room, at first, things damaged in their sword fighting training and found in their raids, but Stede's way more aware than Ed, especially about his clothes, especially when he has so few, and he notices the repairs quickly. It takes him a lot longer to pick up that its Izzy doing it, assuming its the usual Frenchie / Wee John repair team, but one night Ed's telling tales from his past, and his nights together with Izzy come up, and it all clicks.

Stede wont stand for Izzy doing the mending in that tiny cabin of his, and drags him back up to the captains cabin. Its awkward at first, with tensions still running so high between all of them. The obvious issues with Ed and Izzy, the yet unspoken words between Ed and Stede, and the now new bond between Izzy and Stede that has this sitting between them- the fact that Izzy did it, and the fact that Stede noticed.

It was never a thing he and Ed addressed and Izzy doesn't quite know what to do with himself, with Stede taking an active interest in what he's doing- to be fair, Stede doesn't know what to do either. Even if he never said it in as many words, Ed's story showed him the sentimentality of this for Izzy, and he doesn't quite know how to react to this being offered to him- of Izzy offering this to him- he doesn't even know if Izzy truly understands the weight of why he does this, but Stede, looking in from the outside can see the meaning plain as day.

All he knows is that he likes it and he wants more- and maybe he wants more from Izzy in other ways too. Having him sat on their sofa with their mending, a kind of domestic bliss that he never had, but is maybe beginning to realise he wants. Its never like that with Ed, they feed off each others energy too much, get too amped up, but here, with Izzy, he can sit in complete silence but know he's not alone.

The first time he kisses Izzy is on one of those nights. He's just finished fixing Stede's favourite shirt and offered it to him to check over and Stede all of a sudden finds that he's unable to help himself, pulls Izzy down by that fucking necktie and kisses him so hard it knocks his glasses askew- things progress quickly after that.

After, Ed will be told what happened. After, Stede and Ed will stop dancing around where they stand. After, Ed and Izzy will finally talk about all the things they never said.

It ends much as it starts, with them sat together on an evening, with a drink or a book, chatting and laughing, with a pile of mending, fixed with love.

imagine izzy pulling out that sailor’s sewing kit and quietly mending stede’s torn clothes, without being asked to. this is something he did for ed all the time (ed Can sew but he gets too restless so it never gets done) and now it’s what he does for stede. stede loses his mind in a combination horny/sentimental way.

[pw-wp]

FAN ART: Weird subculture or Natural offshoot of Graphic Design?

IMAGE: Examples of fan art from the Deviant Art website.

My work often takes me to the hallowed halls of convention centers and community centers for annual gatherings of image makers of all stripes and their fans. These conventions, or “Cons”, be comic, horror, or video game themed, but one thing seems to be universal about them: Fan Art.

IMAGE: The fan-art-made-good example of Fiona the human and Cake the Cat from the Adventure Time cartoon series.

Fan Art is, essentially, art created by a fan-base centered around a specific property, actor, story, etc. It fulfills several purposes, from practicing art-making, community building, and, in some controversial cases (like most Cons one could attend), for profit. PBS’s Off Book program has explored how fan art is something that transcends media, stretching from graphic design to illustration and beyond (Brown, 2012). In some cases it can even influence the original product, as in the case of Adventure Time’s gender-swapped characters Fiona the Human and Cake the Cat (gender-swapped fan art creations of series leads Finn the Human and Jake the Dog). These characters proved so popular that series producer Fred Seibert greenlit an episode starring the duo (Brown, 2012). This is a grand example of fan art, but with the ocean of other offerings in the realm via online homes like Threadless, DeviantArt, and Mondo (at varying levels of quality and legality) and the recent experience of walking through mountains of fan art at a Wizard World Convention, I thought it might be a fine idea to look at the genesis of this subset of art.

Commissioned Beginnings

IMAGE: Top Row: Mythical figures drawn by Hokusai, Bottom Row: A selection of Mucha’s posters of Sarah Bernhardt.

Like much art, the term fan art is subjective. For example, if we consider religions to be organizations and gatherings of fans, why, we have fan art going back to ancient times of religious figures. Maybe the Venus of Willendorf had her own comic book. These images extend up to today, outside of Islam, anyway, and I don’t have years to write a single blog post, so we will narrow our scope a bit. Perhaps the best look at the origins of fan art can be traced back to the same beginnings, we ascribe to modern graphic design. I’m speaking, of course, about posters and Japanese ink prints.

Meggs notes that some of the early Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints that made their way over to Europe depicted Kabuki actors (p. 196, 2012). While the context is lost to many viewers today, these images functioned the same way as movie posters of actors function today. This is essentially the legit version of fan art- advertising art that is usually commissioned by the rights holder. It was not limited to just actors: like the posters of Superman or Wonder Woman on your kid’s wall, artists like Hokusai produced prints representing heroic warriors like Yoshitsune (Bouquillard and Marquet, pp.151-152, 2007)  It did not take Europe long to pick up on this trend, either.

Artists like Mucha and Toulouse-Lautrec immediately spring to mind. Ulmer writes about how Mucha practically produced a sub-genre of Sara Berndhart posters in the late 19th century, when the actress contracted him exclusively to produce the now immortal prints (p.8, 2007). It would not long before professional image makers like Mucha found themselves joined by amateurs as well, and not just in the schoolbooks of aspiring artists.

SKYGACK and the Beginnings of Cosplay

IMAGE: Original comic image and homemade costume of Skygack the visitor from Mars.

Innovations in printing lead to an image explosion around the turn of the twentieth century. Along with adverts, newspapers helped launch the comic strip, a medium that has since branched into the multi-billion dollar businesses of animation, comic books and films. It’s fitting then, since thousands dress up as Batman and Spiderman every year, that one of the earliest documented examples of fan art would concern cosplay (the dressing up as) a comic strip character.

According to Ron Miller, Mr. Skygack was the creation of cartoonist A. D. Condo and was essentially a fish-out-of-water gag wrapped up as a visitor from Mars (2013). The character proved so popular that Plunkett notes fans started to make costumes of the Martian for city events and parties (2016). Apparently it was such a big trend that the newspapers picked up on it, so we have visual evidence of it, over a hundred years later. While the creepy looking fellow is something of a footnote now, Skygack deserves at least a plaque in the inevitable fan art hall of fame as a pioneer in the field. While this fellow was all laughs and harmless fun, there is also seedier side to fan art, so much so that the label may not even be properly applied.

TIJUANA BIBLES and Selling under the Table!

Image: Safe for work covers of Tijuana Bibles.

Now comes probably the most controversial subsection of fan art: erotic fan art. No, there won’t be any NSFW images presented here, but it is fascinating to examine this subsection, considering it is most associated with Rule 34 of the Internet today.Rule 34, of course, is, as Dewey writes, “If it exists, or can be imagined, there is Internet porn of it” (2016). Like the pioneering days of film, video and art itself (exhibit A: The Venus of Willendorf, of comic book fame), fan art’s less discussed and notorius subset has a history dating back decades. Tijuana Bibles, sometimes referred to as bluesies or eight pagers were illicit, cheaply printed little tracts depicting your great grandpa’s favorite cartoon characters in sexually explicit situations.

These illegal little books were sold under the counter and included scandalous adventures being pursued by Popeye, Blondie, and even Mickey Mouse. While the quality for most is lacking, some actually include some fine draftmanship, enough so that places like Duke University have collections of the little deviants(David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, 2017). They served as an income source for many artists in the same way that illicit images produced on the internet are sometimes produced for profit. Indeed, they could even be used as stepping stones to “legitimate” careers. Faraci writes about how the initial Bazooka Joe (of gum comic fame) artist, Wesley Morse, got the nod from producing Tijuana Bibles (2012). The legacy of these little things extends out to today, and beyond just visual art. After all, we are all suffering through Fifty Shades of Grey movies thanks to written erotic fan fiction writing based on the Twilight series. One wishes the artists of the original Tijuana Bibles could have gotten a piece of that pie!

Beyond this somewhat seedy side of the fan art universe, not much of note has lasted the years between the early 20th century up to around the 1980s, outside the fantastic riffs of MAD magazine and the extreme world of Underground Comix in general, there is a style of fan art that is worth noting.

Before they were Pros: Fan art by Superstars when they were Young

IMAGE: The evolving skill of painter Alex Ross, as seen through his love of comic books.

Everyone has to get started somewhere. As Brown notes, oftentimes fan art is used as a way to practice the craft while having a guidepost and not needing the time to make new ideas (2012). This certainly makes sense. Even the author of this blogpost got his start from drawing horrendous Mickey Mouse doodles. The recent influx of artist books in the marketplace also provide the proverbial proof to the pudding.

Alex Ross is known far and wide for his painted depictions of superheroes. A collection of his work for DC comics shows that the man has been steeped in his subject matter for years (Kidd, 2005). His early drawings are certainly crude (he was, after all, five years old) but his efforts certainly pay off over time as his work gets better and better. He moves from doing fan art to inspired original characters, building his skill level over time before getting to college and mastering painting (pp. 21-28). Like many other comics artists, Ross does not appear out of a stump- he starts by emulating things he enjoys and grows into his own style and artwork. He is not alone in this- one particularly famous quartet of terrapins owe a lot to fan art and fandom in general

IMAGE: From left to Right: The work of Jack Kirby, Frank Miller and Eastman and Laird.

Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird have been very open about the inspiration that creators Frank Miller, Jack Kirby, and the character of Daredevil from Marvel Comics provided them in creating the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Farago writes about how both were inspired by artist/writers Jack Kirby and Frank Miller (p. 20, 2014). These inspirations, swirling about in the indie-publishing scene of the 1980s, were given manifest presentation in the first issue of the Ninja Turtles, which blatantly presents the heroes sharing an origin story with Daredevil (Farago, p. 20, 2014)- at the time being brought to new prominence by Miller. The fact that the comic book is dedicated to Kirby and Miller helps seal the deal.

The themes and art style of the early TMNT books has a healthy blend of Kirby dynamism and Miller inking techniques from that time. While not strictly an exercise in fan art, Eastman and Laird’s admitted admiration for the two other creators helped shaped one of the most dynamic franchises of the last thirty years. Like with Ross, the fruit of this labor shows the benefits of early, devoted fan hood combined with art making.

The Good, the Bad, and the Interesting Controversy

So we’ve seen a ton of interesting sides to this whole fan art thing. The good side has been expounded upon, along with the seedy seed, but what about the bad side? Well, the last bit of this blogpost will take a look at that and some of the controversy involved. Specifically, the copyright infringing, convention engulfing controversial side of the issue.

The culture news site Bleeding Cool has done fairly extensive reporting on the issue of rampant fan art at comic conventions. They have noted the uptick of giant collections of fan art that keep showing up at these fan gatherings, and how much these collections irk some practicing artists, who may rely on licensed image reproduction of everyone’s favorite superheroes to supplement their income in a tough business. One artist, Aldrin Aw,, was so frustrated at a  particular vendor selling “fan art” (which here mostly related to copying original art and adding digital effects) that he hounded him out of the convention (Johnston, May 2016). He also went out of his way publicly shame the “fan” artist on social media. The growing conversation around the fan art and bootlegging at conventions has also lead to greater efforts at explaining the legal repercussions of selling another person’s intellectual property throughout the community. Seth C. Polansky, a lawyer specializing in art and IP issues points out that much of what we consider “fan art” is, in a strict sense, illegal (Johnston, June 2016). That’s certainly a downer for a growing artistic subculture.

Thus, we find ourselves at a crossroads. A long-running subset of image making and artistic development that’s struggling to find a balance between a passionate hobby and legitimate money-making venture that crosses many redlines in the legal sense. Perhaps the best balance is seen in the work of studios like Mondo and Gallery Nucleus. Both offer a variety of fan art paintings and other works, but they are licensed. Unlike sites like Deviantart, much of this work is invited and functions in the same way as the commissions of Kabuki art cited above. Things have gone full circle, in effect.

Regardless of the many issues involved, fan art is something here to stay, and it has a pedigree. It will be quite interesting to see just how far it spreads in the future.

Sources for this writing include:

Bouquillard, J., & Marquet, C. (2007). Divinities, warriors, and legendary figures. In C. Henard (Ed.), Hokusai: first manga master (pp.145-157). New York: Abrams.

Brown, K. (2012, May 3). Fan Art [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/video/off-book-fan-art-creativity/

David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. (2012).Guide to the tijuana bibles collection, 1930-1998 [Data file]. Retrieved from https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/tijuanabibles/#historicalnote

Dewey, C. (2016, April 6). Is rule 34 actually true?: An investigation into the internet’s most risque law. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/04/06/is-rule-34-actually-true-an-investigation-into-the-internets-most-risque-law/?utm_term=.eed623bc895e

Faraci, D. (2012, July 25). Tijuana bibles from wesley morse, creator of bazooka joe (NSFW). Birth.Movies.Death.. Retrieved from http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2012/07/25/tijuana-bibles-from-wesley-morse-creator-of-bazooka-joe-nsfw

Farago, A. (2014). Teenage mutant ninja turtles: The ultimate visual history (1st ed.). San Rafael, CA: Insight Editions.

Johnston, R. (2016, June 10). Artists alley, art theft and copyright law- a lawyer speaks to bleeding cool. Bleeding Cool. Retrieved from https://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/06/10/artists-alley-art-theft-and-copyright-law-a-lawyer-speaks-to-bleeding-cool/

Johnston, R. (2016, May 8). Buzz sends tim lundmark packing at wizard world minneapolis comic con. Bleeding Cool. Retrieved from https://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/05/08/buzz-sends-tim-lungren-packing-at-wizard-world-minneapolis-comic-con/

Kidd, C. (2005). Mythology: the dc comics art of alex ross. New York: Pantheon Books.

Meggs, P. B., & Purvis, A. W. (2012). Art Nouveau. In Meggs’ history of graphic design (pp.196-231)(5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Miller, R., (September 19, 2013). Was mr. Skygack the first alien character in comics?. Io9. Retrieved from https://io9.gizmodo.com/was-mr-skygack-the-first-alien-character-in-comics-453576089

Plunkett, L.,(May 16, 2016). Cosplay is over 100 years old. Kotaku. Retrieved from https://cosplay.kotaku.com/cosplay-is-over-100-years-old-1777013405

Ulmer, R. (2007). Alfons Mucha. Los Angeles, CA: Taschen