Possible, tho' if comminsioner  is sent an image by JB to approve or disaprove the commision, posting it online had no barring -- they have what they need to do this sort of thing right there.  Posting it online simply establishes a time record of when JB did the images originally so it is at least provable that these copies are indeed copies.

Beyond that, in cases like this you would hope a word of mouth about this guy gets around so other freelancers don't risk taking commisions from him.

I can see that if the commissioner thought that they were receiving an average/common rendition of Mar-Vell with the Nega bands and the energy blasts coming from the hands like in the majority of his illustrations, that the buyer might be very upset with the drawing and not want it.

However, because JB was clear about it being the Adams/Avengers depiction of Mar-Vell from the beginning as JB described, the rejection of this commission is completely out of line and to have it altered on top of it would be the final insult.

My first thought at seeing the swiped piece: Nelson.  Bad me.

OK...in no way am I defending the action of tracing off John's commission as a means of skipping out of paying John...many of you know I, too, am a professional illustrator and therefore can relate to this issue a bit closer, perhaps, than a non-artist...

...but in the interest of debate, how is this different than any of the other "recreations" we've seen not just by JB but from other artists across the 'Net?  MAC did change a few details and texures, and attributed it "After Byrne" on the piece.

Not saying I agree with Pat and/or MAC that, presumably, it is not different in their view.  I am wondering, though, if that was Pat's justification for doing this without considering it to be intellectual theft.

Pat is claiming over at IMWAN that he actually thinks the MAC version looks superior.

Yeah, right.

Okay, is IMWAN having trouble at the moment, or something? I made a post admonishing Pat over this and was posting a response to another post he made but it wouldn't go through and I've been getting a General Error message. Says too many connections.

Pat said that he commissioned the MAC swipe out of spite. I was posting a response asking him why he didn't just do it himself, since he's done re-creations before, instead of paying Anthony to do it, when IMWAN crashed for me.

If anyone can get in and read that thread, please ask him that question for me.

And Eric:

Byrne drew the picture and didn't get paid and Castrillo "redraws" it and
does get paid. Something doesn't seem right to me. Maybe Ditton will ask
other higher priced commissioners to draw him pictures and then back out
and hire lower priced commissioners to trace the commissions, thus saving
some money.

Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what may happen, since sadly there are probably a lot of slimeballs out there who do exactly that.