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Technically, she IS doing it with Disney books. I wonder if they'll notice?

Some more insight into this subject:

http://irenevartanoff.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/is-sharon-moo dy-a-copyrighttrademark-infringer/  

Moody's paintings are tricky business - really they are still life paintings of a comic book. And well done at that. They look photorealistic, which definitely requires a lot of skill, unlike what Lichtensteal did.

The original artist of the comic should be credited somehow, no doubt about it in my mind. But in most still life paintings, the maker of the vase the flowers are in, or the bowl the fruit is in, is not credited. Someone made that beautiful vase. Don't they deserve credit? The maker of the table the vase is sitting on is not credited, etc. Any artist who is drawing or painting from life is really plagiarising to a great degree. The artist drawing from life is copying what exists already in the world, which they did not create themselves. The 'art' is in the composition, the color, the technique, etc. From a technical standpoint, Moody's paintings are pretty good. I doubt anyone looking at these paintings would think they are anything but a copy/still life of an extant comic book. The artist is not claiming to have created the object that is the subject of the painting anymore than a landscape artist claims to have created the landscape, but it still comes across as wrong to me in this case.

Is it copyright infringement? Probably. Is it moral? Probably not. Is it lame to paint a still life of a comic book that features someone elses uncredited artwork? Personally, I think so, but it is a matter of opinion. Is it 'good' art? Other than being obviously very technically proficient, it doesn't do much for me personally.

Question for the forum - if these were photographs would your opinion change? Is it something about the medium that makes it wrong or is it wrong no matter the medium if the comic artist is uncredited?

With vases, buildings and other things that are usually depicted in still lives, the copyright relates to creating copies of the item itself. And for many such items, there is no copyrightable design variations or the item is so old that any copyright is lapsed and it's in the public domain.

Even a building still under copyright can be depicted in its real life context, however using it in different, contexts might violate some copyrights. But what you can't do is create another building from the same blueprint without consent from the copyright owner.

Comics are a visual medium. They have been made with paper and ink and any variation of painterly mediums. Moody's work copies them line by line, in a visual medium.

If she did that with any modern piece of "legitimate" art produced in the last 50 years, the reaction would not be positive in her own field. Especially if she failed to acknowledge the original artist.

Because her work would be derivative, and it really has nothing of note to communicate.

My references to vases wasn't about copyright - it was about giving an artist the artistic credit they are due.

What she has done is in no way equal to making another buliding from the same blueprint. She did not make an actual comic book out of paper and ink that is an exact copy of the origianl. That doesn't mean what she has done is 'art' or 'good' art or a moral act or that it doesn't infringe on copyright. 

Moody's paintings are not copies, they are paintings of objects which happen to be comic books. This is also not equivalent to a copy of, say, the Mona Lisa. Moody is clearly not trying to pass these comics off as her own creation, though an uninformed observer might mistake them as such.

"She did not make an actual comic book out of paper and ink that is an exact copy of the origianl. "

No, she made a piece of two-dimensional visual art that was exactly the same as another piece of two-dimensional visual art. She used copyrighted works and trademarks without permission and without properly acknowledging the artist or the owner of copyrights and trademarks.

Copyright of comic books is not tied to the physical or printed book, but to the image. The image was copied exactly, and offered up commercially for sale. Her whole shtick is that her art is extremely photorealistic. There is no transformative component in her work. There is no context to make it transformative. The copyrighted and trademarked art is the centerpiece of the image and apparently the sole purpose of the image.  The folded pages only add a bit of interest, a way to show off her ability to capture the light changes on curved paper.

And it's also not a trompe l'oeil. It's mounted on a wall, but painted as if seen from above. And the viewing angles when seeing it from above would not sustain the illusion either.

It is only a trompe l'oeil if it can be mistaken for the real thing,  as if that is the real thing hanging there on the wall.  That is not how a real comic would look pinned to a wall. 

A trompe l'oeil is an illusion that can only be broken through proximity. The images she did of comics are not proper illusions as they do not accurately reflect gravity.  

Knut, if you take an accurate read of my post, it is an agreement with your point. You are trying too hard to find something to disagree with. In the next sentence after the one you quoted, I said "That doesn't mean what she has done...doesn't infringe on copyright." My point in the line you quoted was only that what she did is not equal to making a building from the same blueprint.

For the record I do not approve of what she is doing - I am just calling it what it is, formally, which is a photorealistic still life painting. It is not a forgery or a copy. There is copied and copyrighted content and subject matter used, but in no way is she trying to pass the content off as her own. That doesn't make it ok. There is no other content in these paintings but the copyrighted material. There is an empty, non-descript, monochromatic background and that is all. If this was a painting of a scene in a busy Starbucks with someone drinking coffee and reading a comic on a laptop, and a knowledgeable observer could identify the issue and artists of the comic, would that be ok? Technically, I still think it would be copyright infringement, but I doubt anyone would be getting worked up about it. Whereas, Moody is probably going to be looking down the barrel of a cease and decist pretty soon if she hasn't already.