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All-American Men of War #89 Big Key (1962 DC Comics)Plagiarized by Lichtenstein
Edited by Robert Kanigher. Cover by Jerry Grandenetti. Stories by Bob Haney, Jerry Grandenetti, Morris Waldinger, Tom Nicolisi, Robert Kanigher, Irv Novick, Hank Chapman, and Russ Heath. Adventure tales of war and the military, including some humor—go into combat with All American Men of War! 36 Pages, Full Color. Cover price $0.12.
Story behind the legendary controversy:
“We have a term in the business called swiping,” Gibbons continues. “When you are stuck for an idea, you riffle through your comics, and you trace what somebody else has done. A lot of Lichtenstein’s stuff is so close to the original that it actually owes a huge debt to the work of the original artist. But in music, for instance, you can’t just whistle somebody else’s tune no matter how badly without crediting or getting payment to the original artist.”
In the case of Whaam!, that original artist was the American comic-book illustrator Irv Novick. Ironically enough, Novick was an officer at the army boot camp where Lichtenstein trained during the Second World War. After spotting Lichtenstein’s talent as a draughtsman, Novick took him off latrine-mopping duty and got him designing signs and posters instead. Gibbons would disagree with me, but two decades later Lichtenstein returned the favour by immortalising one of Novick’s panels as a masterpiece of modern art.
Artwork in question shown below...
Top: Lichtenstein plagiarized workBottom: Original artwork in this comic book
