[Hat tip to Chris Shields]
Any artist will tell you that a great inker can make you look even better. The art of inking has been around since comics themselves. From legends like Kevin Nowlan and Dick Giordano to contemporary legends like Karl Story and Scott Williams, just to name a few, have done tremendous work on making great comics. There’s awards for inking, as well as tutorials and they’ll tell you that it’s more than just being a “tracer”.
Chasing Amy reference’s aside, there seems to be a bit of debate over at DeviantArt, the world’s biggest site for amateurs and pros alike to display works, about the art of inking. Over at Jeremy Dale’s DA blog, I read this, basically stating that art that isn’t yours is not allowed. Yes, that includes penciled artwork that you happened to ink.
You are not particularly clear in your reply, but from what you have said I would assume that this “inker” simply took sketches and drawings that were the work of another artist and “inked” them without first obtaining proper permission to do so.
This practice is in violation of our copyright policy since you must obtain a proper license to use any material which you intend to use (“ink”) before you submit it to your deviantART gallery.
That was DA’s response to artist Bob Almond about the situation. So basically, Deviant Art told this inker that nothing in his gallery “may not contain material or images which were not created entirely through your own effort”, and his images were deleted. I don’t get this rule and needs to be altered. What about collaborations? Or colorists? It’s utterly mind-boggling that an art site would see things in generalizations and black and white.
I’m sorry, but this is just ridiculous. DeviantArt needs to rectify their rules because not only is inking a legitimate artform, the talented men and women behind the brush and pens need to be recognized.
August 25th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Well, from a legal standpoint, if I were DA, I wouldn’t want my site hosting images that were potentially copyrighted and used without permission by the penciler. Of course inking is an art, but I wouldn’t want to be sued by the penciler if somebody uploaded the image without permission. Though I don’t know anything about copyright law, so I don’t know if there is a potential legal issue there or not.
August 26th, 2010 at 8:09 am
Yeah, sorry, this sounds more like the argument against “sampling” than one against inking. If an inker can provide some sort of evidence of permission, I’ll lay odds the upload would be fine.
Now if they have other things made of “reclaimed art” (i.e., lifted) that are not being taken down, there may be an argument. But this sounds more like ass-covering than art critique,
August 26th, 2010 at 9:04 am
It’s nothing against inking though is it. It’s about inking other peoples work without permission. Very different.
August 26th, 2010 at 9:13 am
I agree with Ian. Based on the quote you gave, it seems the problem isn’t with inking, per se, but more with uploading work you didn’t have permission to be inking/posting in the first place.
August 26th, 2010 at 9:57 am
It seems that Deviantart should have the same policy that it does with fan art. There is a whole dedicated category to fan art that they feel is perfectly acceptable since I assume it is labeled as such. It should be the same with coloring and inking. We were given practice pages in school from DC and Marvel comics. As long as it’s clear you are not the penciller and it’s in the correct category, it shouldn’t be an issue.
August 26th, 2010 at 10:24 am
lulz, ink is like octopus pee
August 26th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
That’s the thing, it’s weird to think that there is a huge selection of trademarked characters, but something that is inked gets taken down because the work wasn’t their own. It’s not just a copyright issue.
August 26th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Methinks they’re taking the whole “inkers are tracers” argument from Chasing Amy to task.
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July 28th, 2012 at 5:14 pm
I know this is an old article… but I love how they don’t consider inking an art but they have a section for game screen shots…. since when did taking screen shots of your characters in WoW constitute art?