More NYC Thievery

Back in early August, while on a trip to New York City, I wrote this post about finding stolen samples of mine and other caricaturists I know used as display samples by artists who did not draw them. Ubercaricaturist Ed Steckley sent me this picture he took yesterday from somewhere in NYC showing a whole display full of my samples being used by a street artist. Sorry for the blurry picture, Ed must have used his cameraphone.

Yikes. Not only are they all mine but they aren’t even redrawn by the artist like some of them do. These were printed right from low res website images taken from my old website some time ago. The worst part is that the artist picked some of my worst samples! I wouldn’t have that Woody Allen, Whoopi Goldberg or Ricky Martin hanging up in one of my theme park booths if they were the last samples I had on earth! There is no accounting for taste, apparently.

Well, all I can say is best of luck to that artist. It must be a tough life trying to make a buck on the streets of New York doing caricatures, and I hope he is making ends meet. I wish he’d draw his own samples, but he is only hurting himself in the long run by putting up drawings of mine or someone else’s. That is a dead end road. Maybe the artists that draw in the streets of New York and elsewhere have no ambitions beyond hustling tourists for a few bucks every day, but if any of them do passing the work of others off as their own in order to sell a few drawings is not the way to reach them. It’s kind of sad.

That said, I still wouldn’t pay $5.00 for one of his drawings.

Later today I will be writing an “On the Drawing Board” post as I have several projects in the works. By the way, the gentleman who sent me this picture deserves a little plug. Ed Steckley has been a manager for me at two of my theme park operations for about 10 total years. He is one of the best live caricaturists I have ever seen, and is also a dynamite illustrator, painter, cartoonist and storyboard artist. He had a piece in MAD last year as well. Do yourself a favor and check out his work on his website. Inspirational stuff