Is It Okay to Redraw?

Many artists perfect techniques and learn more about their own styles by emulating famous works of art. To say you are "fixing" the original, though, sounds like fi ghting words. The original work in question this month is a cover Campbell himself parodied: Mary Jane trying to comfort herself as Spider-Man swings away. Bleeding Cool ran two stories about it by Rich Johnston. In the first, he calls the amateur's fix part of a critical trend against lazy sexist comic art and admonishes Campbell for burying an amateur. In the second, Johnston updates how Campbell is promoting other amateurs and selling his version of "the fix" on eBay to benefit the Fresh Arts program.

J. Scott Campbell

"A critic does not need to be able to do the job to criticise the execution of it," Johnston wrote, but that's the part that spoke the most to me. I didn't grow up knowing that people repaint famous paintings all the time. Meanwhile, my mom asked me to edit her scripts but I wasn't allowed to say anything critical unless I could do it better (see Page 22). So, I get the amateur's thinking and empathize that this is probably not the way they wanted to go viral, but don't come for people who get it done on deadline. Do your own version for yourself. "Gotta say, he Matrix dodged criticism with this move," is one of the fi rst comments on the second bleedingcools.com story from longboxof90scomics. Follow Campbell on Twitter to see him promote other people's redraws. —MV

Fans who didn't see Mary Jane as mid action the way Spider-Man is have complained about the TAS #601 cover forever. Madeline thinks of herself as a feminist but also thinks "the fix" is super boring.

A screenshot of the original post on Tumblr

Screenshot of J. Scott Campbell's version for sale on eBay to benefit the Fresh Arts program

While Luis will use actual photos as reference art, he has been emulating his favorite comic artists for ages. This week he wanted to use his Micron brushes to recreate some of Michael Turner's work. He can tell you what he would fix about his own version, but not Turner's. As Campbell tweeted, that would be "tacky."

pencils/inks by Luis Vega, photo by Madeline Vega

The cover that inspired Luis's version

Michael Turner