A fan project aiming to create a motion comic based on the Zack Snyder's original plans for Justice League 2 has been caught tracing artwork from other comic artists. Zack Snyder and his wife Deborah left the original Justice League in 2017 after fighting a losing battle with Warner Bros., combined with the trauma of losing their daughter that same year. Warner Bros. called in former The Avengers helmsman, Joss Whedon to finish and re-work the film into something far lighter in tone, resulting in a less than favorable end-product. Snyder's original vision for Justice League was recently brought to life as a four-hour behemoth on HBO Max after a huge fan-led campaign to #RestoretheSnyderCut.
Since the release of the Snyder Cut to much fan-fare earlier this year, a great deal of information has come about regarding Snyder's plans for two Justice League sequels. As those two film won't be happening, a Justice League fan-project led by LightCast aims to create a motion-comic detailing what would have happened in the films. Titled The Dreamscapes of Justice League: A Motion Comic, the project will adapt the storyboards created by Snyder, Jim Lee, and Geoff Johns and even has Darkseid himself, Ray Porter, serving as the narrator. The project itself is not-for-profit and will instead raise funds to support both the #RestoreTheSnyderVerse movement and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in honor of Snyder's daughter, Autumn.
Since the project's announcement last month some of the artwork has been shared online to further promote the comic. However, numerous Twitter users have highlighted that much of the art bears more than a passing resemblance to work produced by other artists for official DC comics, including Jim Lee, Rafa Sandoval, Jason Fabok, and Ivan Reis. While tracing is relatively common practice within comics production, it's often used for purposes of reference, whereas LightCast appear to be actively copying the artwork for their own project. Naturally this has not sat well with many fans, with one user, Walt writing: "I'm all for this fanmade comic, but not if it's tracing and stealing over other people's artwork." LightCast have since responded to the accusations in a statement on their own Twitter account, writing:
"We’ve seen a few concerns Re: JLMotionComic Art. Some of our art is inspired by the drawings of Jim Lee, Jason Fabok & Ivan Reis. Most of the drawings you'll see on this project will 100% be newly created original art & we're very excited for y’all to see it! You’ve only seen 1%".
You can check out the Tweets comparing the various pieces of art, as well as LightCast's response below:
The tracing of artwork by other artists has sparked a great deal of debate online, with some arguing that because Dreamscapes is a charitable project, and LightCast won't be profiting from the comic, then the images should be considered fair-use. However, others have pointed that regardless of whether or not the company will be profiting from them, not citing or even tagging the original artists remains highly unethical and equivalent to stealing, which is hard to deny.
Art theft is a significant issue for artists online, both in and outside of the comics industry, so it's disheartening to see a company actively participating in the practice even if its intentions are good. Moreover, attempting to claim that the panels are merely "inspired" by the works of Fabok, Reis, Lee, and Sandoval feels like an incredibly weak excuse, especially when the two images are compared side-by-side, as many Twitter users have done. One even created a time-lapse with two images of Superman placed on top of one another to especially damning results to doesn't aid matters.
For many fans, this will be enough to make them turn their backs on the project regardless of its charitable intentions, which is ultimately a shame for the charity it's intended to support. That said, LightCast's tracing of artwork and attempting to pass it off as their own is highly concerning and shouldn't be allowed to go unquestioned. Hopefully, if their Justice League 2 motion comic is to go ahead then they will at least credit the artists they claim "inspired" the project. We will have to see if there is any further response from the original artists or from DC themselves.
Source: Walt, Ishaan Sangha, LightCast / Twitter
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