illusions of theft

[egypturnash]

Folks who draw animal-head people can become weirdly paranoid about people stealing their ideas. Draw a lemur-person with purple fur, the feeling goes, and from then on, anyone who draws a purple lemur is a dirty low-down thief who's stealing your precious character - even if there are no points of similarity beyond (1) lemur and (2) purple.


I never thought I'd feel this sort of over-reaction. But I did, just now.



I drew this a couple months ago when hanging out with jonasbagel and kattything; it's a reference to his infatuation with GPS units, and the running joke of winged penises getting drawn on him. oCe and I had both graced his arms with quick-scribbled winged wieners, hers the traditional bird-wings, mine with little bat-wings, hence the easy conceptual cross-over with the old cartoon device of the angel on one shoulder, devil on the other. We all giggled at it.


Then, today, I was looking through new stuff on the VCL when I saw this:

The artist's description was 'I blame Shen for this concept. It's ALL HIS FAULT! *giggle*'.

Now, I'm sure it's not theft, just a fun and easy riff on the angel/devil shoulder sitters. Mine, as you can tell from the quality of the rapid scan, has not been previously put up online, or otherwise circulated. But I still got a brief, angry rush of 'OMG SHE ST0LE MY PENIS ANGEL THINGIES SHE'S A THEEF DIE DIE DIE'.

I guess I finally understand why people can react that way - and if you don't stop and think, but instead angrily cry out to the world that all purple lemur-head people are, forevermore, yours, damnit!, you then have a position that must be defended, or embarassedly backed down from.

Comments

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Oh, by the way: I am not accusing the creator of the second image of stealing from me, okay?

[adequatemagic.livejournal.com]

At the very least, you haven't drawn a red-ink-filled gore-fest of your character ripping this 'art thief's heart out or anything...

So you can feel good about that, too.

[supersocks.livejournal.com]

Silly Peggy, you should have protected your creative property by putting "Flying penises are (C) MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!111" in the description! Now you're screwed!

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

But if I did that, then I would just be giving them to oCe, if she ever went forwards with her plan to officially adopt 'MEEEEEE!!!1!!' as one of her pseudonyms!

Not that I have any plans for 'The Flying Peener Brothers' show or whatever.

[eselgeist.livejournal.com]

there's a panel in a furry comic i made for Anthrocon, like, three or four years ago, now, with a character waking up from a raunchy daydream, blinking awake with erections fluttering out of the panel on little wings to symbolize the leaving of the dream. does that count? hardly original visual image :^) but i know exactly what you mean. socially speaking,
it sometimes seems the best furry artist is the blind furry artist.. or at least the one working with blinders on; puns and sight gags are the bricks and mortar of artform, and there are only so many to go around :^P
i personally like your version better, if that helps *noses*

[paka.livejournal.com]

I've seen winged penis badges at Faire and know they were a period thing (sort of a novelty thing for 16th century types - all these devout people are wearing tokens of pilgrimage or order affiliation and, ha ha, you've got a little winged penis on your doublet).

Could the idea of a cockasus be so inherently funny that it crops up at random?

[amilori.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't classify your reaction as an *over-reaction* since you seem to have gotten over it relatively rapidly. You reacted emotionally, then looked rationally at your reaction and revised your opinion. As you said, "if you don't stop and think" then it *would be* an over-reaction.