Hi Folks,

Sorry to be so late in chiming in on this thread; I did not see it posted last night and did not get a chance to check it out until my lunch break at work today.

Please remember that we are talking about a piece that was originally commissioned and drawn nearly a year ago, so my recollection is not perfect and I did not save all of the e-mails relating to it.

Earlier in the thread, JB posted a message I sent him on March 8, 2007; this was a Thursday and I was at work; most of the e-mail correspondence between Pat Ditton and I was on my computer at home.  I believe JB was ready to do the commission when I sent him the e-mail on March 8 and I knew Pat wanted the Jim Starlin version of Captain Marvel, so I sent JB a link to the most iconic version of the character I could think of for costume reference.  Please note, it has the nega-bands, but I did not specify these had to be in the illo.  That evening, I am pretty sure that I e-mailed Pat an update along with the reference I had sent JB and I do recall Pat saying the nega-bands were important to him.  Unfortunately, JB had already completed the commission, minus the nega-bands before I could relay Pat's message to him.

My lesson learned was to make sure I get as detailed a description as possible from customers before sending a request to JB.  For commissions with background, I send commissioners a copy of the message I send JB which details the commission request, so they can let me know if there are any tweaks necessary.  It's been almost a year now, and a LOT of commissions have been done in the interim in which all parties are happy, so it seems the present system is working.

I am sure Pat did not set out with the intention of screwing JB on the Captain Marvel's commission and I know JB did the piece with the intention of giving Pat exactly what he asked for.  Given this, Pat should not have commissioned Anthony to re-do/trace JB's original commission.  I have received a message from Pat and he told me he was sorry about the situation.  I am sorry as well and hope we can all move on.

Well, my lunch break is over, so it's back to work.  I won't be able to post again until late this evening as (weather permitting) I'm going to the Capitals game after work.

John Byrne wasn't paid for his work on the commission? His commission didn't fit the clients requirements (in the clients mind). So no harm no foul, it appened within JB's working rules.

Ditton hires another artist to "trace the art and include the bands on Marvells wrist."

New artist does the job, job done.

The question is not whether the artist should have done it or not, the question is did Ditton have the right to commission this piece and the answer is "yes".

Anyone can commission what the hell they please...you just go and check out what some people are calling art these days an see!

Now the bump in the road here is that Ditton turned down JB's original and ten commissioned a tracing of it. Which steals man hours away from the original artist. Man hours that were served under a commissioning from Ditton. Ditton ended up with the commission he wanted, via a long and winding path but to do so he failed to acknowledge the fact that without JB's unpaid contribution he would have had an awesome MAC original and not what he has now. Ditton needs to pay for the original commission because he has taken the visual product and then used that for his own gain.

-Darren