Did Mattina Base the Venomized Magneto Cover Off Another Artists Work?

Comicsheatingup.net got roped into the Lee JeeHyung claim about Mattina possibly sourcing his art for the . Conversation went on about the Venom #150 Fan Expo Exclusive..
Our own Alana noticed this one, and mentioned it in the comment section. So for comparison, the  Astonishing X-men #1 Venomized Magneto Variant and and the digital sculpture by Daniel Bel.
While the angles are not 100% exact, the little details like the collar and the bands on the legs and arms make a strong case that the Astonishing X-men #1 Venomized Magneto Variant could have used the Daniel Bel digital sculpture as a reference. So what do you think? Comment in the comment section below.

57 thoughts on “Did Mattina Base the Venomized Magneto Cover Off Another Artists Work?”

  1. I spoke with Daniel Bel on ArtStation about this artwork he didn’t know of Mattina until now. Here’s his reply “well I think that he inspired in my work, wich is ok for me. Maybe too much inspiration haha” Still on the search for more Mattinaized covers. The Gamora #2 Mattina variant I know I’ve seen somewhere else too, besides the cover of Jason X. I think it was a punisher art print.

  3. The Magneto one is a bit of a stretch. I lost count of how many times Steranko’s work has been copied or homaged if you will

    2. I don’t think it is a stretch at all. In fact, it looks exactly like Mattina used this as a model for the Magneto cover. Bang on. I’ve lost all respect for Mattina now. I’ll be listing the books I own with his artwork soon. Purge them from my collection. Boo-urns, Mattina.

  4. Isn’t this a common pose drawn of Magneto. Seems like I see Magneto posing like this all the time in comics.

  5. This is getting ridiculous.This is not a unique Magneto pose. Nor is a girl sitting with her legs crossed with a dangling shoe. The pose itself isn’t plagiarism. I’ve seen plenty of hack rip offs over the years and this is not it. I’m not a huge Mattina fan by any stretch but this is getting out of hand. You can find the similarity in the poses of the art of anyone. Had he used the same lighting, exact costume, expression, shading, crosshatching, etc that’s one thing. Here you have a floating magneto with one hand lifting something with his power in front. Never seen that before. How novel an idea. Google Magneto and 1 in 5 pics look like this.

  6. This pose is common, but people change it up so that it doesn’t look like the other artist work. If you look at the back hand where he is (choking Spiderman), the hand is in the same position. It’s not rotated to grasp Spiderman’s throat. It’s the same way as the sculpture and Spiderman’s head is resting on it. The things people do to get famous.

    1. I agree. This one is not as bad I would think if he did use it for his own image. It’s a classic type of super hero pose, if this was the only one, this would be very hard to prove in a court case me thinks.. especially since one is a statue, the other is a graphic image.

  8. There’s a few tells this venomized cover is a replica of this amaxing statue. The hand as Jesus said, the cape on the left same curvature, legs at same angles, feet at same angles, tilt of his helmet same position, lines of muscles and leg lines match up perfectly, and the bands on his arms, legs and his matching neck piece as Anthony mentioned.

    1. Also were the debri hits his leg on the statue, Mattina put a Venom tendril hitting the leg in the same exact place. Also the debri on the bottom looks very similar to the debri of the statue on bottom. Way to many coincidences.

      1. In the same way they say that it is now impossible to create a truly unique piece of music as all possible combinations of notes have been used by someone before….
        Perhaps we shouldn’t really care too much about this because after all how many new poses can there possibly be of Magneto or the Phoenix?
        They have featured in thousands upon thousand of comics, cartoons, films etc, so much so that it is probably like my first point about music…. I’m sure if you were to freeze frame the x-men cartoon for the 90’s you could argue that all poses are copied from a scene in that and then venomised…..

  9. In this particular case, yes, you can see the inspiration/influence, but, no, I don’t think this is plagiarism. The giveaway is the collar; this piece is walking the line, but doesn’t cross it in my opinion.

    1. I doubt it. This is small potatoes stuff unless there ended up being a lawsuit. I think it will all blow away. People don’t talk about the Greg Land porn tracing any more.

  11. I’m pretty sure he is using the actual images and adding his touch to them. Like he starts with another artists work and embellishes it to suit his need, the jean grey one is the most telling, and as Alana said the middle magneto image in her examples looks exactly like his venomized version.

  12. Wow venomized Magneto looks like Magneto and the venomized Pheonix looks like Pheonix. I would argue that technically with comics your kind of suppose to base your artwork off others stuff, right? We could also make a case that the statue took influence from other sources. Yes there are indeed similarities, and yes there is a compelling case that Mattina’s art was based off others, but there are differences. I can see if we wanted to say he took the lazy route when constructing these images, but it certainly isn’t plagiarism or a replica (which I think are pretty harsh and unjustified words in this case). I guess I would say this is all could be a slippery slope. Next are we are going to accuse artists for making the Empire State Building in a Spider-man comic for making it look exactly like the what, wait, could it be, the Empire State Building. Should there also be a literature cited page at the end of comics so that way every time Magneto says he wants to “destroy the human race”, hulk says “smash”, etc. it gets correctly cited?

    1. I was curious about buildings and public views.. I found this: https://www.asmp.org/copyright-tutorial/photos-public-buildings/
      “In addition to property-release issues, you also need to think about copyright concerns vis-à-vis buildings if they were built after December 1, 1990. Before that, buildings did not have copyright protection and were thus, by definition, in the public domain. Shoot away.”
      So, one can draw (or photograph) the empire state building all they want.. the looks of the building have zero copyright protections. Very interesting indeed. 🙂

      1. That is interesting. I live not to far from a historical site that was used very heavily for the movie “Tom and Huck”. You know the one where Jonathan Taylor Thomas played Tom Sawyer, yadda yadda yadda. When you enter the neighborhood, which is all old homes and bldgs., there is a sign stating no commercial photography allowed and I always thought that was interesting. Maybe there is some special ordinance or something. I wonder how many buildings are used in comics past this date and if there have been any copyright issues..

  13. I personally will still continue collecting Mattina work because I really like his painting style. That’s what I appreciated the most of his work. In the case of plagiarism, maybe he did get to inspired by the pose, but the rest is his own style. Anyways “stealing” from other artists isn’t new. People didn’t stop purchasing Led Zeppelin and they were one of the biggest plagiarist in rock.

    1. I will still collect his stuff as well. I think it was Greg Land that was tracing his own work and porn work and still does great covers.

    2. The ‘Led Zeppelin’ stole music ‘thing’ is a joke. Every artist is inspired by another. In Mattinas case, imo, he has blatantly used other artists images and has made subtle changes and tried to pass it off as his own original work. Not inspired by, or borrowed. He toke them and claimed them to be his own after making subtle changes. You can draw any character in a classic pose. But when those poses are overlapped and it is exactly the same broad image, all angles of limbs and even each individual finger is exact as the original, that is stealing.

      1. Except Zepp has been both lost in court and has also settled out of court over the issue of plagarism on some of their songs. So, they were clearly more than just “inspired”. I get what you’re saying, but just the worst possible example. Since they’ve literally been forced into paying money, multiple times, due to stealing. I do find that argument worrying though, since you’re basically giving anyone carpe launch to rip off another artist and call it “inspiration”. I take it back, actually. Zepp was the perfect example for you to cite.

      2. I can’t find one example of Zeppelin losing in court, or settling out of court, on any plagiarism charges. They were recently in court for Stairway, but they won that case. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/led-zeppelin-prevail-in-stairway-to-heaven-lawsuit-20160623 If you, notjon, have an example of these supposed court losses suffered by Zep or any member of the band. I would love to read about it. Please indulge. Page has admitted to using other artists compositions as inspiration and altering said influences, by giving them a personal touch. Admittedly, that sounds sketchy, but that, consciously or subconsciously happens all the time in modern music. I chalk it up to inspiration.

      3. Exactly, the fingers on jean grey line up exactly when you compare his venomized version to the sideshow Print he ripped off

  15. What do I think?
    I think an artist used another artist work for reference. I think that’s okay. I think art is entirely subjective. Marcel Duchamp BOUGHT a toilet, installed it in an exhibit, and it became ART. Who amongst us can define art for anyone other than ourselves? I think anybody can try, but everybody will fail. Furthermore, a collage can be nothing more than the work of another replicated and rearranged to reveal new meaning. Does Mattina’s cover not present new “venomized” content with its alterations? Lastly, as Alana stated above, the “plagiarized” artist has no issue with what was done. Can we all please stop being offended on someone else’s behalf if they themselves have no issues with what is occurring? Please?!

    1. Who is drawing the shitload of Michael Turner variants that are still coming out years after he died?
      This sounds like a faux controversy drummed up by people who want to drive down the price of rare Mattina variants so they can scoop em up cheap…. I’ll buy anyone’s Red Hood Lost Days #1 variant for $50 who wants out

      1. This isn’t drummed up by collectors it was brought to Anthony’s attention by the lawyer for Lee Jeehyung an artist who will most likely be seeking damages from Mattina in court for his Mary Jane swipe.

      2. I wanted to give Mattina a pass too. I could overlook the Mary Jane, but when you put the Phoenix swipe and Magneto swipe with it it makes the evidence for something not right perhaps illegal going on. How many more covers does he have swiped from other artists we have yet to discover, I bet it’s a lot more. Look at it from the artist who had their work taken. Mattina gets paid big $ to do a store exclusive the original artist gets nothing not even a credit, I imagine not everyone is nice as Daniel Bel in letting Mattina take their work.

      3. As for the Turner stuff. They are old sketches by Turner colored by Peter Steigerwald and in some cases redrawn by Peter as well.

      4. Lol. I am not trying to drive down the prices on anything. The whole thing started with an email threat of legal action with a link to a Facebook site for the artist. Claims were made that he has done it before.

    2. If one doesn’t like this, why does it have to be on someone else’s behalf? I’m pretty sure everyone’s opinions that are expressed here are of their own doing and not on the behalf of anyone. Are your statements and feelings based on Mattinas behalf, killerwit? I believe you are then guilty of the exact (as silly and narrow minded as it is) thing you are accusing of others.

    3. Art is subjective, but stealing art is not. No one is debating the subjectivity of art here. The Duchamp eg. Is irrelevant.
      A collage is not, and does not meet your definition. One is not forced to use someone else’s work to make a collage. For eg. I could use my own art to make my own collage.
      lastly, if you put new colour on someone else’s artwork, it is not now your artwork. Every cover swipe and Homage cover has a credit to the original artist they are copying. Mattina failed to do that and, imo, that’s what makes this sketchy. He stole the artwork, made subtle changes and then passed it off as his original work.

      1. Duchamp is relevant because he did not create the urinal, but it is still considered an original work of art by him. I mentioned him because I felt that illustrated that the act of stealing art IS subjective.
        One can indeed not like this on their own behalf. I, personally, do not care for his covers. I was questioning people being offended or dubbing it immoral when the one person who has the most right to do expresses the opposite opinion. My statements are based on my feelings about the reactions I’ve read in this reply thread. I don’t think myself narrow-minded nor silly, but, hey, when in doubt, attack someone’s character, I guess.
        A collage can indeed meet my definition, but it does not have to do so. That is why I stated that a collage CAN be, not that it MUST be as I described.
        I must also disagree with this statement: “lastly, if you put new colour on someone else’s artwork, it is not now your artwork.” This is exactly the argument that I am debating against. I refer you to another Duchamp work: L. H. O. O. Q.
        Duchamp is a total Mattina!
        Next.

      2. Duchamp is completely irrelevant in this case. What he did was take an everyday item (like the toilet) and “repurpose” it as art (I put repurpose in quotes because he didn’t do anything at all, he just called it art). Similar to taking a book and repurposing it as a doorstop.
        Mattina isn’t taking someone else’s illustration and calling it something else or using it in a different way, he’s taking someone else’s art, making minor changes, and then calling it his own. It’s still an illustration and he still calls it an illustration, so there’s no repurposing whatsoever.
        If Mattina WERE like Duchamp, as killerwit claims, a more apt example (just off the top of my head) would be taking another artist’s illustration and calling it frying pan.

      3. If Mattina did a cover of Iceman (for eg) in a ASM 300 Pose, Then claimed it was his original concept and artwork, do you think McFarlane would be cool with that? Do you think anyone would consider it to be a Mattina original? No and no.
        Next.

        1. If Mattina did an Homage cover to ASM 300 than no problems. If he did iceman in a different setting in the exact same pose than that is something different.

      4. I did not say an ASM 300 Homage. I said (iceman in) an ASM 300 pose, then claimed by Mattina to be his original concept and artwork. Homage is the imperative word here. The examples brought to light of Mattina using other artists work, no where did Mattina give credit to the (alleged) original artist. He claimed the work as his own.

      5. Enrique Garcia, I’ll concede that my comparison to Duchamp is not apples to apples, but not that his work is irrelevant to this discussion. By repurposing the urinal as art without any real enhancement, he, to me, illustrated that it was already art in its own right before his influence, no matter how (bodily) functional that art was. With that in mind, Duchamp’s move is an even more blatant attempt at stealing someone else’s work than of what Mattina is accused. Yet Duchamp’s name is still writ in the annals of art history.
        To be clear, I understand your and JayClue’s argument, but I do not find the cover and the digital sculpture to be “the same” by my own standards and definitions.
        And, JayClue, I’m not mad at you for plagiarizing my statement of ‘Next.’
        I found the move quite artful.

  16. Seeing the other examples he draws too directly from his influences for my liking. He seriously should be citing the source of his inspiration directly on the page if he is going to so blantly copy.

  18. The only thing I can say for certain is I will no longer purchase anything Mattina. My choice. That is one less customer and I”m quite certain I’m not the only one. I made this same choice with Greg Land years ago and have stuck to it

  19. Magneto has appeared in this pose hundreds of times, so it is hard to accuse anyone of plagiarism here. If someone lined up all of the times Magneto has appeared in this pose, you could probably also accuse many other artists of ripping one another off. And there are only so many variations you can make to Magneto’s costume; the depiction of it is going to look similar, and you don’t want to make it unrecognizable either.
    I can see the Mary Jane incident, though. Those glass slippers give it away. At first glance I was thinking, we’ve seen that pose hundreds of thousands of times, of a sexy woman slouching, but the identical placement of the shoes in that very specific manner aligned with that exact pose, is no coincidence.

    1. Can you show me these 100s of other times Magneto is posed like this? People keep saying this I’ve yet to see anyone post a picture from another artist in this pose. We will transpose the Venom Mag over all of them I know which one is going to match already.

  20. Whole lotta love was plagarized. James Dixon was awarded a settlement and writing credit for it in 1985. James Holmes sued over “Dazed and Confused”, the case was dismissed with prejudice in exchange for an undisclosed settlement amount. That means he agreed never to sue over it again in exchange for the settlement. They pay Joan Baez royalties for “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” and list her as a coauthor after she found out about their “creative license” in the 80s. Howling Wolf, thanks to a lawsuit, is now listed as a co-author on “Lemonade Song” because of what a blatantly rip off of “Killing Floor” it is. If you didn’t find anything you didn’t look very hard. You can just google them and find a ton of stuff. Even RS has a most blatantly rip off article. Love ’em or hate them they’ve stolen a lot of stuff and been sued for it plenty of times.

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