Todd "Goliath" Goldman is an art thief
Perhaps you've seen some of Todd "Goliath" Goldman's 'art' before. There's a line of T-shirts called "Boys are gross; throw rocks at them". Pretty fucking stupid, it's a kind of post-feminist trash worthy of Paris Hilton. Todd got rich selling art on all kinds of crappy merchandize. Now about a week ago, it was discovered that one of Todd's paintings exposed in a Los Angeles gallery was plagiarized from Something Awful's Shmorky. It's a total rip-off.
As a result, plenty more plagiarism on Todd's part was discovered. Todd's reaction so far seems to laugh it off. He probably think this is just Internet nerds throwing a tantrum. But this story is gaining traction in the web-comic community. Now the LA Times is getting interested. People are angry. And Todd doesn't know what he's getting into once he's got the Goons on his back. Todd's been even caught plagiarizing Disney. Someone's gonna be in deep, deep shit.
Here's the thread on Something Awful forum. Here's an article about it on Juxtapoz.
posted by Sirkowski at 5:46 AM
17 Comments:
hun , you should see today's pvponline aboute that ....
http://www.pvponline.com/
Alright, Sirkowski! Anyone who has ever made anything they were proud of should have a bone to pick with the likes of Goldman. People who have ever bought anything from him should feel scammed, seriously.
Can you believe some idiots that post at Digg.com actually looked up an article about Shmorky on Encyclopedia Dramatica in order to defend Todd Goldman? That's worse than taking The Onion seriously. They brought up some piece of shit article to say that since Shmorky must be some furry-loving faggot that his work deserved to be stolen. Wow, how logical!
NO, just because it's the internet does NOT make it ok to take anyone's material. EVER. Everyone who believes that anything on the web is free domain is a jackass. An artist can be an asshole to everyone or totally suck as an artist, and it's still frowned upon to steal his/her work. Goldman must've thought he could get away with it because 1)It's an old comic strip, and 2)Shmorky is quite the quiet, humble, LIKABLE fellow that is usually too busy drawing to toot his own horn. Goldman must've thought that no one would notice and that Shmorky wouldn't raise much of a stink. I'm glad he thought wrong; he's just another art thieving bastard to make an example out of. He's certainly made a mockery of the web's art community.
It's a total rip-off that sucks...
Why is it if your going to STEAL art and use it people all ways fuck it up and make it look like shit?
I hope he gets in some deep shit! and has to pay the owner for his rip off cartoon from now till the cows come home!
I fucking hate ass holes who steal art!
'Artists' like Todd can't draw for shit. So they steal and hide behind the excuse that they are post-modernists. Their art is the appropriation itself. Art school are breeding ground for this kind of shit. Don't want to work? Don't have any talent? Just steal from people who are too poor to defend themselves, artists.
If someone wants to trace other people's drawings in their free time, that's no problem. But if you make an industry out of it, you're not an artist anymore, you're a con-artist.
Speaking of the art of "appropriation", someone should totally appropriate Todd's car. lol
pezzo di merda, he don't have the right to steal someone else art, I hope that shmorky will win some real money from this shithead.
Actually, he has a good chance of getting away with laughing it off because he's stealing from a 'lowbrow' source. In the 80's, an artist made a name for himself doing 'tributes' to classic comic books by literally re-painting the whole things larger than life. The classic "his kisses are dreamy but I wish he wouldn't beat me so..." Well, lots of the artists (and often company owners) who produced those could sure have used some royalties, and they took it to court, and lost. He'd only have to pay royalties, and then those tiny, if he mass-produced them. A more recent example is Disney's "Atlantis" that has a quasi-plagaristic association with the Anime "Nadia". But since anime was a loony fringe hobby, only a notch up from "Furries"...
Yeah, but there was no Internets or Goon Rushes in these days.
"Todd got rich selling art on all kinds of crappy merchandize"
C'mon... now that's just an exaggeration. Anybody as flaky as this guy couldn't possibly have the know-how to make a fortune -- plagarism or no plagarism.
From the sounds of it, he probably made a little pocket money, and then accidentally walked-into a couple of shining moments, but...
well, I'm not sure how much I believe he could have gotten "rich" off of plagarism.
I had a similar thought: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/52944433/
Alpha, we're taking about 90 million dollars in sales volume. I dunno what his profits are, but I bet it's more than just "pocket money".
Nice going Anonymous. :-)
Re: /Atlantis and Nadia
IMHO Atlantis wasn't copying Nadia, they merely both drew on the same sources. On the other hand Lion King was a total rip off of Kimba the White Lion and the "Oh, we must have been having subconscious memories of our childhood" explanation doesn't pass the smell test.
DaremoKamen
WHOA!! Ok, that's not very minor at all...
But... I also just read how Todd said he was prepared to make ammends to the original artist.
So... that suggests he's not flaky which means in turn it would NOT be impossible for him to make a fortune. A flake would try to dodge responsobility.
Hmmm. Still... I'm going to be thinking about this.
Oh he's flaky alright. His first reaction was to dodge responsibility and accused Shmorky of being a pedophile.
...and accused Shmorky of being a pedophile.
=)
Hyperlink! Hyperlink!
This is going to be AWESOME.
Oh, and incidentaly,
http://www.missdynamite.com/fanart/spgm/gal/gallery2006/gal0151.jpg
heh heh heh.
This rocks. I can't look away if I wanted to.
Sirkowski said...
'Artists' like Todd can't draw for shit. So they steal and hide behind the excuse that they are post-modernists. Their art is the appropriation itself. Art school are breeding ground for this kind of shit. Don't want to work? Don't have any talent? Just steal from people who are too poor to defend themselves, artists.
If someone wants to trace other people's drawings in their free time, that's no problem. But if you make an industry out of it, you're not an artist anymore, you're a con-artist.
Your 100% right.....and True!
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