I realize Rob could care less what I think by now.  He must have some thick skin to still be in the business.  Deserved or not, he's got to be the king of the criticized.  I suppose it's not too difficult to deal with if you've got a million $.  I have to think about it when I put gas in the car so maybe I'm just trying to put myself in his shoes without all of the circumstances that would go with it.

Chis- thanks for the link to the swipe of the week page.  It's been posted before but I gotta bookmark it this time.

This is an example of pure thievery imo. I hate this guy to no end. And it's not just what his entourage (the Bendis mafia) do to protect him. I mean, unless he has some sort of mental disability of course.

For the uninitiated. He does one sketch of a cute girl, then adds purple water color to it followed by some lingerie patterns around it. Photoshops that for 24 pages + a cover and calls it a comic.

In the first one, her handbag became the background...so I guess that sorts of counts as creative... I've added examples of his cutting edge storytelling as a bonus. There's more swipes floating around. He copied a condom ad as well with the same framing ect. He doesn't even bother changing facial features or expressions.

Check the above, the framing is near identical except for the negative space reserved for the logo obviously. It's still the same freaking picture eyebrow for eyebrow, highlight for highlight. Same clothing, same jewelry.

In those swipe examples, the artist couldn't be copying to solve a problem with perspective or storytelling. The figures are just standing in a static pose, being photographed straight-on.

Is his imagination so limited that he can't come up with a picture of a woman looking cool?

Lichtenstein deserves credit for what he did in terms of pop art. I could care less if he copied comic book panels or soup cans. In both cases, awareness was brought to the very plain and did have an effect of elevating it into mass consciousness.

My opinion comes from the particular panels Lichtenstein used. If we went back to the original page, or the original book, does anyone really thing Licktenstein was trying to steal the most dynamic panel he could to pass off as art? He was very conscious about his decision. They are plain, and they are meant to be that way. The panels many people would skip over in a comic, he brought out and reminded people that there is are in plainess.

I like his stuff and what he did.