If you've been paying attention to the comic news over the last month, you'll no doubt have heard of Rob Granito. We didn't really cover it because, well it seemed covered. But today I hit the point where I thought it was over, and then it wasn't, and this is just too fascinating not to comment on.
The short story is this. Rob Granito is a guy who went to conventions claiming to be a professional comic book artist with all sorts of credits, and sold sketches and prints, and most of it wasn't true. He had no credits, and no one at DC or Marvel ever remembered hiring the guy. The prints he was selling were often just straight up copies of the work of other very well known artists. It got around that he was doing this, and there was even a tale of Mark Waid and Ethan Van Sciver telling him not to come to any conventions anymore, after he invoked a non-existant relationship with the recently deceased Dwayne McDuffie. Several conventions dropped him from their rosters, and it seemed like it was behind us.
Today, however, it seems it is not over. I saw this on artist Ty Templeton's blog. Basically, Granito's wife said that lots of websites got lots of hits last month because of Rob Granito stories, and now we can get more, all for the following costs:
ALL WEBSITES: the following is a list of Rob’ interview fees
-e-mail interview (20 questions ONLY) $150.00 PayPal
-30 minute phone interview $200.00 PayPal
-1 Hour Phone or Skype interview $250.00 PayPal
In case you're out there, and not in the know about how this works, we don't pay for interviews in comics. It does happen in celebrity circles, but here the stakes are too low, and it's just not worth it, even for the "Charlie Sheen" of comics. If there's anything left to come out of this sordid affair, I'm sure it will, but anyone paying for it is going about it the wrong way.
I don't know. At first, I thought it was all a bit much, where everyone was going after this guy that most people didn't really know existed. But then when you see the anger from the artists who were plagiarized, you get a sense of how awful that must be. Someone took their work, which is hard enough of a way to make a living, and sold it as their own. It sort of flies in the face of all decency and the very idea of what "art" is. I can understand that sort of deep anger. At the same time, I can't imagine someone deciding that that would be OK to do, and not thinking they'd get caught, and then becoming a pariah to an entire industry. What do you do after that? Well, you try to charge for interviews, while massively mis-reading how comics journalism works, apparently. Either way, it's all very ugly, and you just kind of wish that people wouldn't do this to each other. I think of an Artist's Alley at a comic convention as someplace that's kind of pure, where it's just artists, and they're trying and trying, and when people notice and it catches, it's got to be incredibly rewarding. But you can't take shortcuts to get there, or it messes the whole thing up.
If I was Jerry Springer, I'd have a final thought right now, so just be nice to each other, and don't steal from people. Things should work out after that.
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damn…..
What a douchenozzle.
what an asshat
Well, when can we expect the talksplode?
$250 seems very reasonable for the Charlie Sheen of comics.
You should’ve just painted the “work” not your face. Ass Clown.
Loser! And his wife is obviously a pathetic POS too. So sad….
How is this guy even a person?
So will you guys be taking donations to do this interview? I’m sure it would be entertaining as hell.
@NathanNicdao I was going to say the same thing. Funny how he’s got all that paint on his face but none on the fingers holding the paintbrush.
He’s obviously a bit of a Sociopath isn’t he? He clearly doesn’t understand or register what he is doing, he’s just — you know– doing it.
Reminds me of the Stephen Glass Journalism story. Guy who just made up stories and interviews for some of the most prestigious American magazines and eventually got himself caught.
i saw that Ron Marz was considering calling him just to call him out on all his bullshit but was reluctant since he would be basically giving him money. I would definitely listen to an interview where this guy gets grilled Chris Hansen style but by no means should anybody be forking any more money over to this douchebag. He’s made enough already lying to the poor comic fans who were taking in by his “art” at conventions
I have to be honest: maybe I’ve gone soft in my old age, but I’ve had a hard time piling on since I saw this picture.
of course, it turns out these are Mark Bagley’s kids.
Dood is a pure douche. I hope that some of the legit artists who were ripped off get together and put together a few copyright infringement lawsuits against this guy. Forging/Copying art and selling it as your own could make for an interesting case. Infringement cases are heard in federal court with stiff penalties. Send him off somewhere, i’m sure he’d do well in a penitentiary.
I don’t know much about this guy other than the stories i read. It looks like he has some abilities, he prob could have made his own way in comics if he didn’t try the get rich quick schemes. I can’t believe people bought his work at cons.
I did not know about this guy. Sounds like a dick.
@wallythegreenmonster Heh. “Cons.”
The Calvin and Hobbs and Dwayne McDuffie stuff is where this goes from bad to real bad.
You can hear in the youtube videos, from some con-goer’s cell phone, that he doesn’t realize how fucked the things he had done are. He sounds like he was the one victimized.
Ron Marz has been tweeting about this d bag all morning. Pretty funny stuff.
@diebenny –yeah thats the thing..he thinks he’s legit. he thinks his process is the way to do things. He’s that one french fry that found its way into the Onion Rings and he can’t understand why no one thinks he belongs.
@dancanread –nice catch! haha
And Jim wins this round.
So please tell me that nobody is actually paying for this guys interviews…Even the above picture annoys me.
So now he’s trying to Granito the likes of Paris Hilton, by extorting an increased amount of money after a scandal? I must say, I’m not terribly surprised by this. This seems to be his only refuge after he was exposed. The only real way he’s probably going to make money is associating himself with this scandal.
And I love how, on Ty’s blog, Mrs. Granito calls Rob “the bad boy of comics”, like he’s fucking Sid Vicious.
if he went all “Sherrie Levine” (became famous for re-photographing famous photographic prints) and did some sort of conceptual art re-appropriation thing in a gallery context then MAYBE he could have gotten away with it on some level….but i don’t think he has the smarts to art speak his way into that box. Granted it still would have been a recycled idea. A thief is a thief.
For $50 I’d be willing to talk about my scripts for BATMAN: YEAR ONE and/or my run on UNCANNY X-MEN.
What I find most hilarious is that this guy didn’t even think of stopping to shill himself once he was found out. He immediately started to put prices on himself for interviews.
God what a complete and utter idiot.
I can’t believe the amount of work he put into this scam and how successful he was at it, and he obviously has some talent which is really sad…glad he was finally called out, what a d-bag.
I say we lock this chode in a room with Alan Moore for a few days. See if he’s sorry then.
That’s comics justice, mothafucka.
I was the ghost writer for this article. Just ask iFanboy’s ghost editors Cameron Murderpatricia and Don Dickard.
@Jimski – PERFECT comment. I think the comment of the week article needs to come back JUST so your comment can win it. Wow.
I really just want this whole story to go away. It’s sad.
@lifesend you’ve gotta be kidding. 😉
This is fascinating. I didn’t know anything about this until now. Maybe he can open for Charlie Sheen, painting one of his “Masterpieces” Bob Ross style.
This guy needs a thorough ass-kicking, period.
Calling this piece of crap the “Charlie Sheen” of comics is an insult to Charlie Sheen. I feel bad for the poor saps that paid this *explitive deleted* for a sketch or print.
@StupendousMan Let’s get a kickstarter going!
After reading those articles I am shocked by two things:
1.Trying to make money off of McDuffie’s work…just wow. At first I thought this wasn’t that bad, in early articles Rob just seemed really niave and kind of stupid. But that is just downright awful and disgusting.
2.Ethan Van Sciver’s wife is named ‘Sharis Bunny Van Sciver’? Bit of a mouthful.
@Cubman987, there’s on drawing ability involved on his end. He’s using projectors to trace existing art, and straight adding paint to large prints to try to pass them off as originals.
@MikeFarley …haw, stop.it.
He’s a d-bag that should count his blessings nobody has spent the time and money to sue his ass.
@Jesse1125 Agreed. What a horrible thing to pull, on so many levels.
I’ll echo what someone else said: He’s obviously a sociopath. To do this kind of stuff and keep it up for so long? That’s a legitimate psychological illness, which he evidently doesn’t mind having, and which his wife doesn’t mind either. How could someone keep up this charade? How could someone instantly come up with a story about being Dwayne McDuffie’s pal right after the guy dies? Does he psyche himself out and believe his own lies? If you hooked him up to a lie-detector, would it say he thought he was telling the truth about all this stuff? It’s effing bizarre, and no matter how nutso the guy is, he had to have known he was doing things that were immoral and probably illegal.
But… how can he be the “bad boy of COMICS” when he’s not actually IN comics? That would be like me claiming to be the bad boy of the Indianapolis Colts, even though I don’t play football or work for the Colts just ’cause I wore a Manning jersey around town….
If you weren’t a convention goer how would you really have known about this story?
Interesting- glad you put it up.
Did he actually resketch and paint the art he was stealing or was it more he made prints of the work?
Just curious if he actually had some skill and no creativity or was just straight up no talent.
@ericmci I saw it on Bleeding Cool. Rich writes:
“A customer bought a piece from Rob Granito at a previous show and discovered it had been swiped and that Rob wasn’t the Batman animated TV series artist he’d claimed. They complained to me. I looked into it, e-mailed Rob about the claims, saw how they didn’t stand up and when Rob stopped replying to mails, I ran the story. When other people added their own experiences with the man, I ran another story. That’s it.”
Then the convention goers (plus EVS and Mark Waid) ran with it at MegaCon the following weekend and confronted Granito.