Click to read Sara's amazing letter to a plagiarist!

And then…this happened, beginning a couple of weeks ago. Long store essentially short – a fantastic comedian Sara Benincasa (who is pretty much the coolest person on the planet to me now) contacted me about quite a sticky wicket. And hats off to her not only for her talent, but her quick moves and general coolness under what had to have felt like complete, well…crap.

The chain of events:

1. Sara Benincasa, an up & coming comedian hired “designer” to make a promo flyer and poster for her one-woman show Agorafabulous. As it turns out, that “design” was (unknowingly to Sara) a ripoff of a poster that I was hired to do for the band Spoon. My poster is the first you see below:

My design done under commission for the band Spoon in 2007.

2. The ripoff poster (mind-blowingly) was nominated for a design award with the ECNY Awards. The ripped off design by a real Wang is below:

My design stolen and re-sold to Sara Benincasa as "original".

3. My design was recognized by a savvy someone who alerted Sara.

4. Sara then emailed me immediately & before I even knew fully what was going on. I was out running errands before the SNOMG 2010 round 2 hit here and started seeing Tweets about me, but not to me, so I was trying to follow the leads when I got her email about the situation. Amazing.

5. Sara had already started taking down all images from her sites ASAP, and also had the design DQ’d from the award competition, and we’ve been talking ever since.

6. We’re definitely going to work together soon on a couple of projects. So, really? It’s all good.

Does the story stop there? It should, but it doesn’t:

7. THEN awesomely (!) a couple of days ago the “designer” (thief) emailed Sara asking why “his design” was no longer in the running for an ECNY award.

8. Oooohhhhhhhhhhh good times. This girl is fierce! Please CLICK HERE or the below giant link to read Sara’s open letter on her blog to The Wang who stole art & tried to profit:

Dear Loser: Letter from the Comic to a Young Plagiarist Que Sera Sara

UPDATE 1: Well, as it turns out, the same Wang also tried to initially sell another stolen design, this one from our very good friend and extremely talented Dan Stiles. Unbelievable. Dan’s beautiful Zero 7 poster is first, with The Wang’s ripoff following.

Dan Stiles poster for Zero 7. (Visit http://danstiles.com to see more of Dan's work.)

The Wang's stolen "design". Unbelievable.

UPDATE 2: The theft was finally acknowledged, and the Wang apologized, which is really appreciated. Apology accepted. Please do not steal my work or the work of others again and we’re cool. This goes out there to every designer and artist who needs to hear it.

So you see kids, you WILL get busted for thieving designs. And to boot? Something truly good and just might just happen to those you’ve wronged. Thanks to a Wang, a designer and a fun client have found each other. Sara Benincasa rules the skool.

I love a happy ending.

So, here is a cool thing that you might not know about. It’s called Rock For Kids, headquartered in Chicago, IL. They are a really wonderful organization that I work with by donating posters throughout the year, and they in turn have the bands sign them and put them up for fund-raising auctions to help fund their incredible year-round musical education programming. A little more about them from their website:

Rock For Kids is a non-profit organization that provides support, hope, inspiration and assistance to underserved children and teens. Realizing that music can be a positive motivator in a young person’s life, Rock For Kids provides free year-round music education for children in need. Rock For Kids positively impacts and celebrates young lives by offering access to safe and constructive learning experiences through which children may challenge themselves, build self-esteem and explore their own creative potential. Rock For Kids provides programs that cause children to feel encouraged, supported and valued. We believe that all children should have access to music education and be given the chance to explore their own creative potential in a safe environment. We feel no child’s future should be compromised academically, socially or emotionally simply because of economic disparity. Rock For Kids believes it is critical that all children experience kindness, security, compassion, personal success and individual creativity, as the smallest of these may inspire the course of a life.

OK! Hey now! So, Rock For Kids is having their 21st Annual Rock’n’Roll Auction on 12/4/09 in Chicago, IL at 7pm (VIP reception at 6pm) and there are tons of great items up for auction.

“Oh really, like what?” you may ask. Well, for starters this lovely signed-by-the-band copy, totally sold out copy of my 3rd Spoon poster is up for auction at the Rock For Kids website to help raise funds for their awesome work.

If you are interested, please bid! If you know someone who is a fan and would dig this, please pass it on. Help kids and save music too.

Here is a list of many of the items up for auction at the Rock’n’Roll Auction on 12/4/09 at 7pm (Simply browse the list to your left and bid away!)
You can also view many of those pieces at the Rock For Kids Flickr page here
And, you can purchase tickets to the gala event here!
For more information about Rock For Kids, click here.

Strawberryluna

Blog Archives

“Dear Loser: Letter from the Comic to a Young Plagiarist”, an Object Lesson in design-theft caution.

Dear Loser: Letter from the Comic to a Young Plagiarist Que Sera Sara

Signed & Sold out Spoon poster up for grabs at Rock For Kids auction!