Rants & Raves

THE CHECKERED DEMON NEEDS YOU

As frequenters of www.RCHarvey.com/Rancid Raves know, S. Clay Wilson, creator of some of the most savory unsavory comics characters ever to be beloved by fans, has been in the hospital for months, trying to recover from a serious Traumatic Brain Injury. His medical bills are too much for him to pay single-handedly even with his medical insurance, and some of his friends, led by cartoonist David Chelsea, have determined to raise funds to help Wilson and his family cope.

Says Chelsea: “S. Clay Wilson is a major figure in American comics, a founder of the underground comix movement. Wilson is known for aggressively violent and sexually explicit panoramas of lowlife, often depicting the wild escapades of pirates and bikers. He was an early contributor to Zap Comix, and Wilson's artistic audacity has been cited by R. Crumb as a liberating source of inspiration for Crumb's own work, and I can say as much for myself. I’d like to give a little back to the bad boy of comics..." Chelsea devoted his well-known 24-Hour Comic Challenge this year to raising money for Wilson.

Anyone who would like to extend a helping hand to the man who gave us The Checkered Demon, Star-Eyed Stella, Ruby the Dyke, and Captain Pissgums should visit the S.Clay Wilson Trust site. 

GEPPI UPDATE

Maggie Thompson, honcho at the Comics Buyer’s Guide (CBG), received from following communique from the financially beleaguered Steve Geppi: "In the past few days, there have been a number of rumors circulating about Gemstone Publishing. As has been the case with many businesses across a wide array of industries, there has been a reduction in staff at Gemstone, and this included the departure of many valued employees. This, however, is not the end of Gemstone Publishing. Our flagship title, The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, remains a vital tool for comic book collectors throughout North America and around the world and it continues to be a highly profitable item for the retailers who carry it. I look forward to making announcements regarding new developments for the Guide’s 40th anniversary next year. At this time, no final decision has been made regarding The EC Archives or our comic books featuring Disney’s standard characters, but it seems certain that both lines will continue in some form. We all anticipate resolving the issues facing us and moving forward, and I will be happy to announce the specifics once things have been finalized." I’m not sure this answers all the questions that recent reports about Geppi’s fiscal plight have raised, but it does seem, in a backhanded sort of way, to confirm reports about Russ Cochran and various Gemstone employees being freshly unemployed.

OLIPHANT

David Brill, a video journalist at sbs.com, talked with editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant in the closing hours of the Bush League as Oliphant was drawing a cartoon “recording the wretched legacy that Bush has left behind. Of course, I have mixed emotions about it,” said the displaced Australian. “It's a dichotomous thing because he's given me a great 8-year ride with a match-up of just the perfect villains. And cartoonists, as you know, depend on villains. And so I'm losing probably the best cast that I've ever had and one thing I just have to remember is that politicians will never eventually let you down. They're going to come through with something. ... One of my favorite targets is Cheney. He went out hunting with a friend of his one day and inadvertently shot his friend. And I always thought wouldn't it be nice if he took Bush hunting.”

Oliphant said he left Australia in the mid-1960s because “it was a very repressive time in Australia. And everything else seemed to be going on elsewhere, in this country especially. Civil rights was going on, Vietnam was going on, the protests, everything was becoming polarized and in Australia you could do cartoons about the weather."

For years, Oliphant gave away his original cartoons, but his wife, Susan, stopped him. They met 20 years ago while she was running a gallery in up-market Georgetown and the cartoonist was looking for somewhere to display his work. Now she’s aiming to build up a substantial collection of his work.

“Daumier's been my hero since I can remember,” Oliphant said. “Went to jail a few times for insulting the King and the government. And the drawings are so good, the drawings are so beautiful. That's always been a model for me. ... Being a cartoonist is a great privilege really,” he continued. “I say things that people want to say. I'm fortunate enough to have a forum in which to say it. And express the feelings of many people.” He was putting on rubber gloves preparatory to working in charcoal. He muttered a little about his usual targets, politicians all. The rubber gloves made him think. “Cartooning and proctology have an awful lot in common,” he said.

MAUS

Art Spiegelman’s Maus is ranked second in a list of the “25 most powerful books of the last 25 years” by Mental Floss, a bimonthly magazine specializing in fascinating trivia, like this: “The Maus Volume One book cover, which depicts two mice cowering beneath a swastika, has sparked some unexpected controversy. When the cover was used as the official poster for a major comics convention in Germany, police seized the artwork, citing a law that forbids the ‘glorification of Nazi propaganda.’” Maus is on the list because, as you must know, it “made the graphic novel a legitimate art form.”

GEPPI'S MONEY WOES

In the aggregate of his numerous corporations, Steve Geppi has become a spectacular deadbeat: he may owe somewhat more than $17 million to sundry suppliers and other entities, saith pwbeat.publisherswekly.com. The mounting debt threatens one of his companies that is crucial to the health of the comics industry, Geppi’s Diamond Comic Distributors. Geppi, his Diamond company and his Gemstone Publishing are being sued by a collection agency on behalf of Global Interprint for printing bills of over $373,000. Geppi also owes PNC Bank over $16 million.  And Geppi's Entertainment Museum in Baltimore owes more than $700,000 in unpaid rent, late fees and unpaid electric bills dating back to February 2007. Although most of the debt is piled up around Geppi businesses other than Diamond, pwbeat observed, “If Steve Geppi can't pay his bills, something has to give. It certainly puts all of Diamond's recent cost cutting measures —  new trade terms, layoffs and so on — into a new light.” DC Comics, according to a rumor that drifted this way, may take over Diamond under the terms of its contract with the company. For details about Geppi's debt woes, visit http://pwbeat. publishersweekly .com/blog/ 2009/02/18/ steve-geppis- debt-woes- growing/ You won’t find there any evidence of the latest rumor, though — namely, that Geppi has pulled the plug on Gemstone Publishing, leaving Russ Cochran and his Missourian minions high and dry.

INSIDE ANOTHER CARTOONING SCANDAL

Last December, while the scandal was still simmering, Hogan’s Alley talked online with “the ubiquitous Barry Blitt, uber-illustrator and the provocateur behind the New Yorker cover that lampooned how Barack and Michelle Obama would behave in the White House (as viewed from Crazytown).” Blitt said he generally comes up with his own ideas for covers and illustrations, and when he submitted the sketch for the controversial Obama Islamist cover, “Francoise Mouly, the art editor, got it right away,” Blitt said. “So did David Remnick, the editor. For me — and for the two of them, apparently — there was no mistaking the irony of the thing.” In the initial sketch, the Obamas were clad as Islamists. “This was after hearing one too many insinuations in the media. Francoise rightly suggested that Michelle Obama was being talked about more as a 1970s-era Black Panther — remember the rumors of a ‘kill whitey’ video? She also suggested a few of the outrageous accoutrements in the background of the Oval Office.

 The idea was to make the thing so outrageous no one could possibly take it at face value. ... When I handed in the finished art, Francoise said, ‘After this is out there, they won't be calling the Obamas terrorists, etc., any more.’ It felt like we were putting the lie to all that crap.” Then, of course, the feces hit the flabellum. Said Blitt: “Personally, I only saw it as satire of the right. But the ambiguity could only help get the issues discussed. Oh God, I just used the word ambiguity discussing my own work. I'm officially a jackass.” Has anything he’s ever done compared to the yelling and screaming over the Obama cover? “There's been nothing like this for me,” Blitt said. “I did two sailors kissing in Times Square — over ten years ago, before the Internet was as widespread and everyone had a blog. I think a lot of the hullabaloo over the Obama cover was Internet-fed; it spread like a virus. It's so easy to voice your outrage now.”

The current (that is 2009) issue of Hogan’s Alley, an annual magazine about comics, mostly of the strip kind but also including some magazine cartoonists and comic bookishness, is No. 16, due out momentarily. Google Hogan’s Alley to get to cagle.msnbc.com, where, if I’m not mistaken, you can find out how to subscribe and/or buy a single copy. Or type hoganmag.com in your browser; it’ll take you to the same place, only faster.

THE NIGHTMARE GALLOPS ON: PT 3

Alt-weekly comics are faring even worse than their mainstream brethren. Village Voice Media, which owns 15 weeklies including the venerable Village Voice, stopped publishing syndicated comics in early February. Creative Loafing, which owns five weeklies, did the same. All for the sake of bottom lines.

At his blog, Mike Cannon of Red Meat wrote: “It’s a sad state of affairs, and potentially the end of an industry — if you want to call it that — where a small handful of ragtag scribblers like me have slaved for many years (for very little money, if you ever wondered) to bring you a laugh or two every week. Times are tough,” he conceded, “but if the humble $10 to $20 that I generally get paid for a Red Meat strip is going to bring the whole operation tumbling down, then the alt-weekly industry is already dead on its feet.”

Matt Groening’s Life in Hell is still in about 40-50 papers, mostly on campuses, but that’s only a quarter of what its circulation once was, reported Michael Miner in the Chicago Reader February 12 (my source for most of this piece). Because of the success of Groening’s tv creation, “The Simpsons,” money isn’t an issue with him. “I like sitting down once a week and knocking something out all by myself,” he told Minor. “The rest of my life is full of collaborators. ... It’s very difficult,” he continued, “when you’re sitting there trying to come up with a punchline and you call up Lynda Barry and say, ‘Do you have any ideas?’ and she says, ‘Yes, quit.’”

Groening and Barry have been friends since college. “I know Matt’s conflicted about this and what he’s going to do,” Barry said to Miner. “Like everyone else, he’s in fewer and fewer papers. But he really does not want to give up his strip. He doesn’t want to quit. But quitting is lovely. I love to taunt him about how magical it is not to have a weekly deadline after 30 years.”

After the last paper kicks him out, Groening supposes that he’ll continue Life in Hell in books or online, but he’s in a unique situation: he doesn’t need the money from the strip. Most alt-weekly cartoonists have websites, but as Cannon said in his blog, “None of us make our  living from our websites. Let me repeat that: We don’t make a living from our websites.”

A longer version of this report can be found in the usual place, www.RCHarvey.com, Op. 240.

 

THE NIGHTMARE GALLOPS ON: PT 2

Death of a Newspaper; Triumph of the Comics

One of the most colorful newspaper circulation wars in the nation has ended after a epic century of underhanded skirmishes and bullying battles that began October 28, 1895, when the foundering Denver Post was purchased by a pair of bandits — a con man and a carnie, Fred G. Bonfils and Harry Tammen — and concluded February 27, 2009 with the last issue of its rival, the Rocky Mountain News, just 55 days short of the blow-out celebration being planned for its 150^th anniversary. Apart from the survivor, the only victor is the comics. The Post, eager to attract the erstwhile subscribers to the News, announced even before the last issue of the News that it would pick up and publish all that paper’s comic strips in the obvious hope that their readers would follow them to the Post. Seldom do we have so unequivocal a demonstration of the popularity and power of the newspaper comics section.

Starting on Saturday, February 28, Rocky Mountain News subscribers started getting the Denver Post on their doorsteps, and the Post’s comics section was twice its usual size. The paper added the News’ 29 comic strips and 8 panel cartoons to its own roster of 23 strips and 5 panels. (In contrast, as testimony to the appeal of comics over almost every other aspect of a newspaper, the Post picked upon only 10 of the News’ star reporters and columnists.) The new combined comics section was four pages long, and the Post, that day and for several days thereafter, ran full-page ads, each a sea of white space with 52-point type touting itself to the former News readers. “No matter which paper you got last week,” said Monday’s ad, “today’s is different. ... But you’ll see a lot of familiar faces.” The Post listed the former News stellar writers and concluded by trumpeting that in addition to these columnists, readers could find “all the Rocky’s comics and many of your favorite puzzles.” Then came the punchline that would conclude every such ad for the next week: “You’ll still get the News. Only in the Post.” (My favorite scrap of ad copy, which came later in the week, is: “The Post has Zits.”)

Post readers have a daily feast of comics, a line-up of strips and panels unparalleled anywhere in the nation. Even if the Post eventually cuts back the number of strips, the initial maneuver attests to the powerful appeal of newspaper comic strips.

For the entire history of the collapse of the News, including a report the teetering dozens of other U.S. newspapers — where all comic strips live, remember — consult the usual place, www.RCHarvey.com, Opus 239, which we’ve temporarily set up for Open Access.

THE NIGHTMARE GALLOPS ON: PT 1

We fear a trend may be setting in: Editor & Publisher reported January 16 that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution dropped 11 of its comic strip line-up, reducing the roster from 36 strips to 25. As we’ve speculated here recently, dropping syndicated comic strips is another way financially strapped newspapers can save money, several thousand a year in fees if they drop the most popular strips.

The Houston Chronicle announced in November that although they are printing all of their comics in color, they are dropping a full page of comics. The dropped comics will still be carried on their online offerings. Alan Gardner at the DailyCartoonist explained: “Why is the paper doing this? It’s a cost-cutting measure. The Chronicle has run more comics than other newspapers for years, but syndication fees and increases in the cost of newsprint make these changes necessary. The decision was made only after other serious cost-cutting measures were implemented at the paper.” And in early January, the New York Daily News reportedly dropped a quarter of its comics line-up, effectively five strips, saith Tom Spurgeon, quoted by Gardner. One we missed: last summer, the Baltimore Sun dropped a full page of strips, reported by Gardner.

On the other hand, Gardner says, the Florida Times-Union, which had previously announced that it would drop eight comic strips, has changed its mind: “They now say that they will not be making any cuts in their daily selections. The Sunday comic page will lose four.”

But the news ain’t all bad: as restaurants all around the country — around the world — anticipated dismal fourth quarter earnings, McDonald’s posted a profit beyond the estimates of hapless Wall Street. Said Lauren Shepherd at the Associated Press: “McDonald’s fared well in the quarter due largely to its low prices and the reach of its ubiquitous Golden Arches.” McDonald’s has also managed to “reduce operating costs and expenses despite higher beef, cheese, and other ingredient costs” while, at the same time, improving the quality of its food.

And then, strangely, we have the Denver Post, eagerly gobbling up the entire roster of comic strips published by suddenly deceased rival, the Rocky Mountain News. About which, more in a trice.

BONE: CROWN OF THORNS

Kate Culin at PW Comics Week says that Graphix, the Scholastic division that does comics and graphic novels for children, has released the ninth and final color volume of Jeff Smith's phenomenal epic fantasy adventure series Bone. But this last volume, Crown of Horns, is not likely to be the last Bone we’ll have to pick from Graphix: “The publisher will re-release Rose, a prequel about Grandma, a prominent character in the series, in the same color format as the earlier volumes. Smith is also interested in re-publishing Campfire Tales, which includes stories not in the regular series.”

THE ORIGIN OF COMICONS

During an interview by a couple of young wide-eyed Newsarama stringers during the late New York Comicon, Michael Uslan, Batmaniac and champion of comic book superheroes everywhere, reminisced about attending his very first comicon, which, he said, was 45 years ago in New York, “the first comic book convention ever held anywhere,” he intoned, grinning in smug satisfaction. He means, of course, the con arranged in the summer of 1964 by Bernie Bubnis, who also coined the term “comicon.” But it wasn’t the very first comicon: the first was convened a few months before, in April 1964, in Detroit by Robert Brosch. Uslan may be permitted his hyperbole, I suppose, if we assume that the New York affair was all about comic books and nothing else: the Detroit con, on the other hand, included science fiction and movies in addition to comic books. 

SCHOLARLY BOOK ON DOONESBURY

A new book and probably the first booklength critical study of Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury arrived last fall from the University Press of Mississippi, one of my publishers (and one of the better ones, at that). Kerry D. Soper’s Garry Trudeau: Doonesbury and the Aesthetics of Satire (186 6x9-inch pages, some illustration, all b/w; $22 in paperback, $50 in unjacketed hardback) is divided into chapters that discuss the history of the strip, analyze Trudeau’s satirical methods in the context of the medium, and examine the aesthetics of the strip. Soper’s is an ambitious project, and his having attempted it — and Mississippi’s having published it — is, of itself, testimony to the social status and influence of the comic strip. I haven’t read this yet, but I’m looking forward to it.

THE CONTINUING CATASTROPHE: PART TWO

We’re still guessing: has the “new economy” (i.e., the crashing one) affected the comics biz? Or not? The New York Comicon over the first weekend in February registered more than 77,000, over 10,000 more than last year’s crowd. And in ICv2 reports about 2008, graphic novel sales increased from $375 million in 2007 to $395 million in 2008. Manga, on the other hand, took a dip — from $210 million in 2007 to $175 million in 2008. Comic books also went down a little — from $330 million in 2007 to $320 million in 2008. Bending over backwards to look at the bright side, the ICv2 folks decided to combine the “domestic” market, graphic novels and comic books, to proclaim a slight increase from $705 million in 2007 to $715 million in 2008. But that gain was produced by bending over backward.

THE CONTINUING CATASTROPHE: PART ONE

While the rest of the business world reels its way into a recession, business at comic book stores may be doing just fine — revenues down just a trifle but nothing catastrophic — or not, depending upon who you read. Writing in the Comics Buyer’s Guide (CBG) for March, Denver retailer Chuck Rozanski of Mile High Comics fame says “our sales dropped a gut-wrenching 30% during the second half of October 2008.” But this “sudden sales decline only affected our online sales,” he goes on. “Our retail stores continued to show strong sales increases during October and November.” One of the reasons for this supposed success is that Rozanski cut prices, “going to far as to sell some comics on the website for only 38 cents each.” So is his business over-all good or bad? Doesn’t say. And he’s been no more definitive in subsequent appearances.

In May’s CBG, Rozanski reported that his “overall retail sales” increased 20% over the last 90 days, but that, he admits, may be because other comic book retail operations in Denver have failed, sending buyers to him, and because comic book publishers have raised prices. His online back-issue sales increased only 3 percent in January, but that’s because he didn’t invest in inventory; having no great wad of back issues to sell, he’s pleased he scored even 3 percent increase. He admits to sending mixed messages and goes on to warn that an “economic apocalypse” may yet arrive. On the other hand, he inventively recalls that “the modern comics industry was born during the Great Depression and Japanese manga sales were immense during the ‘Lost Decade’” in Japan. He may be talking out of both sides of his mouth at once, but he also reports that he’s bought a 32-acre vegetable farm and is now working to build up the topsoil. If that’s not an omen, then I’ve never seen an omen.

At the Los Angeles Times, Tiffany Hsu reported on January 26, 2009 that “comic book sales were down for most of 2008, even at behemoth publisher Marvel Entertainment. And many small comic stores are closing. ... Even after a year stuffed with blockbuster films based on comic books, growth in all sectors is stalling. There are no statistics available for comic books sold to customers, but the number sold to merchants is dropping.” In reaction, some smaller publishers are cutting back on the number of titles they produce and laying off staff. Hsu quotes Jonah Weiland, executive producer of the website Comic Book Resources: “I wouldn’t say comics are recession-proof [because they’re an escapist entertainment, which usually fares better in bad economic times], but everyone is preparing for a slump.” So is business over-all good or bad out there on the left coast? Doesn’t say, exactly. It depends on who you consult.

As recently as the end of December, I quoted a mid-December report from ICv2 that was quite sanguine about the state of the comics biz. Yes, a little slow-down, but not much. Mostly, everything’s just fine, thank you. Well, maybe; maybe not. The pulse of a nation’s economy beats fast or slow depending to a large extent on how buyers and sellers in the stock and other marketplaces view the future of their investments. If they feel good about the future, the pulse quickens and everyone’s financial circumstance is cheery; if they feel bad, nobody gets to go to the bank much and the economy tanks. Some economists are therefore reluctant to sound too many death knells because such pronouncements have a way of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies. Understandably, then, ICv2, a comics news and information website which has been operated since 2001 by Milton Griepp, once CEO of Capital City Distribution, is likely to put the best face on events transpiring on all sides around it. I don’t think, therefore, that I impugn Griepp’s integrity at all when I say that he, deriving a livelihood from the comics industry, doesn’t want to say something dire that will precipitate a decline in that industry’s fortunes.

NYTGBBSL

The New York Times, the nation’s August arbiter of art and merit, has just pronounced comics a legitimate form of publication — not yet an art form, maybe, but grown up and adult enough that books of comics (comic strip reprints, comic book compilations, graphic novels, and manga) warrant their own list, namely the New York Times Graphic Books Best Seller List.

On the March 5 version I noticed that IDW’s Terry and the Pirates by Milton Caniff (Volume 6, the last, for which I supplied the Introduction) was tenth on the list. I thought that was funny: how does a book get to be a “best seller” before it’s even in bookstores? I asked IDW editor Dean Mullaney about it, and he said: “Strange, indeed. In reading the fine print, though, part of the data is taken from retailers who ‘specialize’ in comics, so they're apparently using a mix of comics shops (non-returnable, so therefore actual sales), Amazon, and mainstream bookstores. I had a feeling they were going to start such a list because a friend of Bruce Canwell’s (Canwell is associate editor of IDW’s Library of American Comics) who manages one of the largest independent bookstores in Maine has seen graphic novels and strip collections on the weekly inquiries from the NYT on book sales. All good news in the growing respect our little corner of the world is getting.”

Here's how the list is assembled, according to the Times itself:

Rankings reflect sales of graphic novels at many thousands of venues where a wide range of books are sold nationwide. These include hundreds of independent book retailers (statistically weighted to represent all suchoutlets); national, regional and local chains; online and multimedia entertainment retailers; university, gift, supermarket, discount department stores and newsstands. In addition, the rankings also include unit sales reported by retailers nationwide that specilize in graphic novels and comic books.

To see one of the most recent NYTGBBSL lists, click here.

OBAMAMANIA

As you may have noticed in the excitement attending the inauguration of the first African American president, there was a special issue of Amazing Spider-Man, No. 583 in which the webslinger attends the ceremonies in Washington and sees two limousines crash into each other, and two Obamas come out of the wreckage. One, obviously, is the fake and probably up to no good. To determine which is which, Spider-Man introduces a basketball, which the real Obama can handle better than the fake. Spider-Man is thanked with a fist-bump from the new Prez. This special issue sold out before comic book stores got them on the shelves, said Kate Springer at kpth.com/Global. Marvel has ordered up repeated reprintings and is now well beyond the fifth.

On the Internet, first printings are going for Big Bucks. Its Obamamania in comics induced, at least partially, by President Obama’s reported affection for the wall-crawler. If he still has time to read comic books after saving the known world, Obama will find himself in several titles: as Newsarama has reported, he’s slated to make an appearance in Youngblood No. 8; a reprinting of IDW Publishing's biographical Presidential Material: Barack Obama, due in stores on February 4th; and the fourth printing of Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon No. 137, due on February 25. He was also on the cover of Mad magazine (soon to be a quarterly rather than a monthly — more bad joss). And he bears a remarkable resemblance to a certain United States President who's currently appearing (and is the target of a super-human assassination attempt) in Marvel's Thunderbolts.

And that’s not all the comics appearances of the Obama persona. Something called the Reliable Source tells us that caricatures of the Obamas have been added to the wall mural of comic characters and political notables at the Palm restaurant in downtown Washington — next to the one of George WMD Bush, who never actually dined there, the first president in the restaurant’s 37 years who did not.

The Washington Palm is a part of a chain of Palms that began with a speakeasy in New York. Located just around the corner from King Features offices, the original Palm became a hangout for thirsty King cartoonists, and other tooners, like moths to a flame, soon joined in the conviviality. After a few drinks, goes the legend, some cartoonists felt moved to endorse the place by anointing its walls with pictures of their characters. The original Palm doesn’t have many caricatures of political personages: that comedy is reserved for the Washington branch. There are other Palms in Dallas, Los Angeles, and San Diego — to name those I’ve been able to visit.

HERRIMAN

A new website was launched last month by the incredible Craig Yoe, georgeherriman.com. Among the strips, books, biography and other Krazy Herriman extranea is the “rareities” department, which, as an inaugural feature, included an interesting item. It seems, Yoe postulates, to be Herriman’s response to some long-ago fan’s request that the cartoonist type a short biography and draw a picture of himself and his characters on the same piece of paper. Which Herriman did. We can also see Herriman with his hat off, another supposed rareity. To see the entire document you'll have to go to Yoe's site, but here's the artwork:

FAIREY COPYRIGHT FLAP

One of the ubiquitous images of the last year is the “Hope” poster designed by Shepard Fairey -- a red-white-and-blue Barack Obama looking upward, as if to the future, the features of the future president etched in heavy chiaroscuro and highlighted with a splash of red along one side and dashes of blue and white. Fairey, a street artist in Los Angeles, acknowledges that his image is based upon an Associated Press photo taken by Mannie Garcia; AP says it owns the copyright on the photo and wants credit and compensation, given the considerable financial success of the image, which was reproduced on hundreds of thousands of posters and stickers. At last report, Fairey has appealed to a judge to find that his use of the AP photo is not in violation of copyright law. Fairey’s attorney, Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford U. and a lecturer at the Stanford Law School, believes Fair Use permits Fairey to do what he did — which was to convert the graduated colors of a photograph to a line-art image. The outcome of this contest could alter the Fair Use concept forever. While the case pends courtward, Fairey was arrested February 6 for “tagging” property with graffitti; the street artist was on his way to the Institute of Contemporary Art for the kick-off event inaugurating his first solo exhibition, called “Supply and Demand.”