Liveblogging from Sacanime with an art thief alert!
This exhibitor (name unknown) is selling across the hall from my table. As you can see, he is selling a wide variety of fandoms and intellectual properties, few, if any, are original pieces at all. Most of these are pieces of official art printed out and being sold at twenty a pop. This person is even selling a very popular Homestuck FANART piece into 3 different prints, the money of which neither the fanartist nor Andrew Hussie/whatpumpkin are seeing ANY profit from. Right now I don’t know the exhibitor’s name or alias, but my friends have told me that they’ve seen this exhibitor at multiple conventions, including large comic cons like nycc. This person is probably making thousands of dollars off of artwork that he pulled from google images. To add insult to injury, he is signing these prints as if he were the actual artist of these stolen images. If you see this vendor at Sacanime or any other future cons, anime or otherwise, PLEASE refrain from buying his stolen artwork! We’re working with Sacanime to deal with him right now, but because he makes appearances at a lot of cons (specifically in the dealer’s hall , where fanart/ip rules are a lot less strict) keep an eye out and let the con heads know. Right now, please signal boost so we can stop this vendor from profiting off of other people’s artwork and property! If you recognize the artist of the homestuck fanart (or any of the other pieces- I know a lot of his images are official comic art) please let me know so I can add that to this post. Update: his identity is Joshua Whitener of Secret Identity Studios. At SacAnime, he is listed as “the Hidden Cape. Please keep an eye out for either of these aliases at cons! , Update 2: they are also selling licenced Disney art (i.e official art) that they do not display in their portfolio. Pics forthcoming
Update 3: Reblogging for the night crew!
We took this issue up with the SacAnime dealer’s hall head, who did not take our claims seriously at all, instead chiding us for trying to stir trouble or “create animosity” between artists and dealers. The story they heard from Secret Identity/Hidden Cape studios is that they are “officially licensed” vendors of these arts. In other words, they’re telling convention heads that they’re just resellers of licensed artwork and telling customers that they’re the original artists and even signing official artwork under the pretense of such.
This is probably how they are able to get into so many cons- because the dealer’s hall heads don’t see them as “artists” but as “resellers,” even though there is no way companies like Disney (especially Disney) would be giving license to such unprofessional and obscure people.
Knowing this, it’s even more important that congoers speak out about them and spread word so that they do not get support for essentially stealing art.
It’s also extremely important that we find as many of the original artists as we can. While official licensed images are in their inventory, so are a lot of fanart prints. In particular, if you know the artists who drew any of the following, it’s important to alert them that they’re being ripped off and hopefully help them take action so that conventions can see that these people are NOT licensed resellers of ANY of the artwork presented at their booth.
Please let me know or tell the original artists of any of the following pictures that they’re being resold by an entity called “Secret Identity/Hidden Cape Studios”:
The Homestuck prints (I know the original image is one long, horizontal image, not cut up into 3 parts) (images 1 and 3)
Ryuko Matoi (Next to the Kingdom Hearts official piece) (Image 2)
High School of the Dead (I think?) underneath Ryuko (Image 2)
the purple-haired girl under that (Image 2)
Edward Elric (Next to the other purple-haired girl) (Image 2)
Wolf Midna and Link (under the “The Last of Us” bootleg) (Image 5)
I apologize for the blurred/unfocused images. More pictures might be coming, but if now, please keep an eye out for these vendors and future cons.
Update 4: Not really an update, but still compiling all the info into one post
Another practice this person does is to keep a bunch of inventory “in the back” so it isn’t on display. An example of this is this Elsa print, which is blatantly Disney official art. This Elsa wasn’t anywhere on display, but when the customer asked if they had the character, they were able to pull it out of their inventory and sell it to them.
Heyyy guyyyys! Remember these assholes? I saw them at another con semi-recently (I think it was Comikaze Expo in LA) and got some fresh evidence! Clearly, they’re still going around and selling shit. Unfortunate, but you can keep your eyes peeled and report them if you see them at a con near you!
I also got a business card from them. They also go by the name “Alternate Reality Studios” and have a website– www.alternaterealitystudios.com
You’ll notice that on their home page, there’s a couple images that exactly the same as some of the pictures on display in some of these photos.
If you recognize ANY of the prints in these photos (sorry for the blurriness), please alert the original artists and let them know that they are being sold unlawfully. I’ve already submitted a tip to Disney, but because of the range of IPs that they sell, it doesn’t hurt to give a heads up to some other companies.
Website homepage. Note the Joker sample images, which you can clearly see on display in a couple of the above photos.
As always, please signal boost! Yes, there are a bunch of big company IPs that are being stolen, but it looks like there are a bunch of independent artists’ stuff there too. It seems like they stick to California cons, but again, if you see them ANYWHERE, report them to the con head and get them kicked out!
Thanks!
***IMPORTANT EDIT***
I have removed two images that are NOT associated with Alternate Reality Studios/Hidden Cape/Secret Identity studios. Oly Pittman, as he’s been identified as, is NOT affiliated with them. He is a reseller operating under the consent of all the artists represented at his table.
These are the individuals/entities that we need to look out for:
Joshua Whitener Ryan Dawson “The Hidden Cape” “Secret Identity Studios” “Alternate Reality Studios”
These are the guys selling the Elsa print, a lot of the video game prints with direct promotional images, etc. (Mass Effect- Garrus, Fallout- Vault Boy, The Last of Us, etc.)
Reblogging for edits
Please reblog this post!
