"Good!" I said. "That's what I was going for!"

This brings up the question of how photo reference should be used, then.

With a live model, an artist can observe directly how lighting, say, affects what is seen by walking around the model with a moving light source. The same can be said of fabric likes silk versus wool or leather. A photo is static and makes it difficult to extrapolate how using a different light source or lighting conditions would alter the image under view.

The same could be said for how clothing folds around a human body.

It seems the creditable useability of photo reference, except for facial or animal likenesses, is limited.

That's why the dancers in the above painting hove closer to a swipe than to a mere use of photo reference. The "story" has based itself on the picture which, clearly, has been traced. (If it hasn't been traced, my compliments to the painter! Helluvan eye there, d00d!!)


*In an issue of NEXT MEN, I wanted a very specific street scene, outside Grand Central Station. My wife was heading into the City, so I asked her to take a few pictures, which she did.

I find myself in the skin-crawling position of defending Rob Liefeld, pointing out that there are, after all, only so many ways you can draw Captain America running straight at the camera with his shield arm and right leg forward.

Well said (and funny to boot <g>). Thing is, over the years, just about every dynamic super-hero pose has been done (and done to death). It's possible to sift through random comic books and find swipes that aren't there.

I don't think you can separate intent from the definitions of swipe and homage.  So, how do you define intent?  You look at the body of work of the artist in question.  If he uses past images sparingly and the ones used are iconic in nature - that's an homage.  If the artist uses a lot of other images; whether they be common panels, covers, or icons, frequently to get him from the cover to page 22 - that's a swipe.

WO

Erik Larsen wrote: One is arguably more honest about it-- but both are physically doing the same thing and taking the same shortcuts.

How is it arguably more honest?  What argument could you possibly make that a clear homage is not honest (or  more honest), especially if the inspiratory piece is well known and/or the signature on the homage indicates where the inspiration come from?  In my view, it's definitely more honest, and therein lies the key difference.

QUOTE: Other than the relative quality of the drawings involved--is there some quantifiable distinction that one should be seeing that qualifies one as an homage and the other as a swipe? Again--I'm not trying to be obtuse or anything else--I'm attempting to get clarification. I don't understand the difference.

I'm having trouble understanding your lack of understanding.  The differences to me are clear.  Going back to the musical analogy, let's say The cover FF #1, one of the most popular comic book covers ever, is the equivalent of the Beatles' "Yesterday" one of the most (if not the most) covered  songs in popular music.  "Covering" FF #1 is as much a shortcut as recording a rendition of "Yesterday." But would you consider the musician who recorded it as taking a shortcut?  It might be – and certainly, especially in the case of the musical artist, the benefits of a cover could yield financial benefits – but that's not necessarily the first thing to come to mind or the first reason the artist is doing the cover.  The first thing that I'd imagine generally comes to mind is that the coverer is a fan of the piece s/he is covering.  If you consider many of the artists who record covers songs for albums, they can probably get by without covering songs.  Thus, you might expect that they're doing cover songs out of love for the piece in particular and the medium in general.  Similarly, artists like John Byrne and Alan Davis certainly don't need to be copying well-known covers.  The examples named or posted are, to me, clearly for appreciation of their respective inspirations and the medium in general, which basically comes down to doing it for the fun of it.

Dan Burke wrote: An artist drawing a swipe DOES NOT want you to recognize the source. Therein lies a HUGE difference!

Exactly.  For the other half of the analogy, someone mentioned that Vanilla Ice's sampling of the Queen song "Under Pressure" (a well-known but less popular song than "Yesterday") is a swipe.  Perfect example.  In the case of Vanilla Ice, the artist is trying to "camouflage" his swipe within the song in a way that nobody will notice (of course, when confronted it, V-Ice denied he was sampling Queen at all).  I think the same the same goes for artists who copy poses from other works.  The work copied isn't likely to be well known so the copier is likely hoping most readers won't identify where it was copied from.  The fact that no credit is given strikes me as an indication of this.  In fact, I would generally deem that if the piece strongly suggests itself to be copied from rather than inspired by, but the piece it copied from isn't well known and there is no credit given, it consitutes as a swipe as opposed to a homage.  I do concede there is a possibility of of a gray area here, but overall, the distinction is fairly strong.  Consider the example below:

Here, the artist is not copying a well-known cover but a relatively obscure panel in a comic and his signature doesn't indicate he is crediting the source of the image, which he clearly copied, down to the shape of the hand and fingers and shape of the hand and positioning of the head.  Furthermore, the copy is being used for the cover, not just for a panel.  By not giving credit and signing his own name (and even signing the actual comic itself no less), he is obviously passing it off as his own work.

In simplest terms, a homage either is well-known (e.g. cover to ACTION COMICS 1 nd FANTASTIC FOUR 1) and/or gives credit, whereas with a swipe, the source is not obvious (at least immediately) and no credit is given.

As an aside, here is a page with some homage covers.

"When Rob lifted a key scene from Frank Miller's Ronin for the New
Mutants (or was it X-Force?) it was so blatant--how could he have legitimately thought that he could slip it by unnoticed?"

It boils down to the intended audience. If most of the readers of the New Mutants of that time were also Frank Miller Ronin readers, it would have been a homage. Otherwise it would have a swipe. Highly unlikely that the 13 year-old X-Men fans of the early 90's would have known much about a relatively obscure, direct to market book from a decade back.

QUOTE: For the record--I do not find it at all unreasonable to have an artist utilize compositions from another artist when drawing flashbacks. It makes that flashback look and feel authentic and it's visually interesting- -especially if it's translated into another artist's style (and it's even cool if the artist retains some surface similarity to the original artist's work--I like seeing John Byrne or Carlos Pacheco adapt Kirby). I do this myself-- all the time--when I do flashbacks--but I don't call them homages--I call them swipes. But that's me.

Fair points.  Even John Buscema admitted in an interview that he copied Kirby layouts.  I think it comes down to whether swipes are wrong and if so, if there are degrees of "wrongness."  Generally, I don't have any strong feelings against swiping, since it seems to be a standard thing in the industry, but I do think there is a distinction between a homage and a swipe.