Inktober Book Plagerism Accusations
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@George-Broussard My impression from watching the mob is that a lot of the angriest/most vocal are unfamiliar with Jake's work beyond the "guy who tried to take Inktober from us by trademarking it" impression from last year. If they had been following his work and contributions, I think there'd be a little more willingness to wait and see what the official word is, and a little more benefit of the doubt. As such, they've decided Jake Bad >: ( without even having the full story behind last year's Inktober incident, much less any information on his overall character and contributions, or more concrete proof of these specific accusations.
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I watched Alphonso's video and I was quite shocked when he almost claimed to invent art teaching methods and art concepts like value numbering and using 3 values to show cube form in space (which I used to teach to teenagers in basic art course whithout even knowing of Alphono's existence ) and many more exercises like creating gradients, applying textures. His video became an absurd at that point.
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@George-Broussard A lot of his points are not strong at all... When you take a cursory glance, yes it looks similar for example the page for the additional tools. But if you think about it just a minute longer you realize: Okay but these ARE the tools of the trade. What is Jake going to do, recommend people use bleach instead of an eraser, because Dunn already lists eraser in his book? The graded palettes like light to light, dark to light, medium to light, it LOOKS really damning when he presents it like that because it's word for word, but those are the actual terms! I've had these terms taught to me in college and I've seen them in many art books in many different media, like watercolor and pastel. The cubes of different textures is also very common, if you Google "texture cube" you literally have dozens and dozens of pages of them. But to anyone who doesn't know that, Dunn's page and Jake's side by side DO look ripped off! Many people in his comments are saying while the techniques he teaches are common knowledge, it's the layout that's too similar. But even then, these are layouts common to art books in general. I remember getting a watercolor book from the library that was laid out just like this. A lot of white, spot illustrations, titles with short explanation paragraph. It's a common art tutorial type book layout because it's simply an effective format for the information being taught. It's been used for many different art books for decades.
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Wow, this is unfortunate. It's hard to be objective without having both books in hand, but after looking at Alphonso's video, yes if you cherry pick pages and compare them side by side with Jake's book, they do look very similar. I feel like I could also take Alphonso's book and compare them side by side with a couple of Andrew Loomis books which were first printed in the 1940/50s and get similar results, especially in his lighting/shade and value portions. Both books use similar theories, tropes, and drawing examples I've seen over many art books, classes, and tutorials.
I always hope to find a selection of art instruction books that are similar enough to reinforce the same concepts, but presented with the author's unique voice and art style.
If you look at quick flip-throughs of each book, they both look very well done, and different enough that they could reach different audiences with some cross over. Alphonso's looks very well articulated and gives a more traditional, serious vibe to it. Jake's seems a little more trendy and formatted to be possibly more easily digestible with how the information looks like it's broken up. It's what I might expect of any two books covering similar subject matter. The value of that is that you get similar concepts explained by two different artists, with different art style examples, and variety in the exercises offered- something I've always found to be very helpful.That's my initial gut reaction to the situation. I do have a bias toward Jake as I wasn't familiar with Alphonso before this- though he looks like a great instructor and his book looks very good.
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And Lightbox Expo has cut ties now, too--even tagging SVSLearn. <sigh> A lot of distancing happening. We all should be prepared for some unsavory posting, potentially.
For what it's worth, I dropped my DeviantArt membership, too.
Last night I went to Jake's Patreon and subscribed. I know it won't be much, but he deserves to be heard, and in the face of this swift approbation and given everything he's done for my own personal development as a student I felt it was the least I can do. Even if he does try to defend himself, in the court of public opinion it seems clear he's already been tried and sentenced.
It also appears that most of the more experienced folks in the industry and the folks who know Jake are reserving judgement but protecting their brands. I fear it will take a lot of time and patience to move forward. That, however, doesn't negate Jake's obvious capacity to teach nor ability to communicate that knowledge to others, which we've all been privy to. Let's hope the scorched earth so many feel comfortable with can still nurture something.
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@Lee-White this is what I was thinking! I made a simple comment on instagram that I was excited to get my pre-ordered copy of Jake’s book and since then I’ve had like 10 random people throwing shade my way for ‘supporting a thief’ and ‘promoting stolen work’ and that I should ‘cancel that order immediately’. It’s ridiculous. I tried to reply back to one person by saying “Thanks but I’m still going to purchase the book. I’m a supporter of Jake Parker and I’d prefer to hear what he has to say on the matter before passing judgement based on one party’s point of view” - of course they had their settings set to not allowing comments that mention their name (didn’t know this was a thing). But yeah, it seems it might have been a good idea for Alphonso to shoot Jake a quick email or phone call addressing some of his concerns first to allow Jake to reply before throwing up an hour long video crying to all of his thousands and thousands of followers who are now shitting fireballs all over the internet. This whole thing upsets me.
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The video that I watched where a man reviewed Alphonso's books, mentioned Inktober at the beginning of his review. I wonder how many book sales he's gotten over the years due to Inktober and Jake. I wonder if that's crossed his mind?! He may lose sales when Jake's book comes out, but that's how it goes. Without Jake and Inktober he might lose even more.
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@Marta-Kitka right?! But then I'm not sure what I expected from someone ballsy enough to use the name in the video title of the person they are accusing. Right now its just an accusation not fact so its really slanderous.
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@K-Flagg I think Alphonso should have thought about it for a week or two before he made his video, he really overreacted and I seriously don’t believe he himself came up with everything he mentioned in his own books, it’s impossible. Unfortunately Jake’s last youtube video is already being flooded with negative comments and accusations.
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I’m very happy to read Jake Parker’s reply he posted on Instagram.
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@korilynneillo I just looked up on the internet what was the "cancel culture" and the mechanism of it. Thanks for pointing this out. It is exactly what is happening right now...
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@Marta-Kitka you can be assured that he know what he is doing and to what it hopefully will lead to...
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@Julia It's crazy! The Illustration Department podcast had a really good discussion on it a while back if you'd like to learn more about it (plus it's just a great podcast!). The episode is #13 with Leila Sales, who wrote a kidlit book about it.
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@George-Broussard Wait, WHAT!? Deviant dropped inktober events over this? WOW. I admire your cancelling your account with them. Did you let them know why?
Lisa Burvant
www.lisaburvant.com
Instagram & Twitter & SVS: @burvantill -
Start here: https://www.lettershoppe.com/blog
more on her IG
https://www.instagram.com/lettershoppenation/with the story from side of one of the models she infringed on https://www.instagram.com/evyan.whitney/
read the IG story "Lettershoppe" -
What year did the first Inking course come out here on SVS?
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One thing I find interesting (and unfair) is how quickly a chunk of the art community can turn against a person. Regardless of the goodwill that has been built, the countless hours spent offering free advice and support and all around good personness (thats a word, trust me), that people will disregard all of that in pursuit of drama and to find a villain to focus their energies on. A story can just take off and if a strong enough fan base gets a hold of it, oh boy, hold on. We've seen that will Ellen DeGeneres--She's done amazing things for the world for years and years yet now the story and momentum has shifted against her for what is perhaps perceived vs. what is known.
I'm not totally sure what the takeaways are either but its just something that rattles around in my mind. The bigger the audience gets, the harder it becomes to control messaging and even the most thoughtful, well backed up evidence is disregarded for drama posts on social media. As humans, seems like we have to strive to be the absolute best versions of ourselves, continue to be selfless with our community and do the best we can-perhaps if a cancel culture issue comes up, the damage may be reduced.
What an absolute clustermuck…Devastated for Jake and disappointed beyond belief on how this is playing out.
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@AnthonyWheeler I found this post announcing the class in Sept 2015:
https://forum.svslearn.com/topic/422/just-launched-how-to-ink?_=1598659531264
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My heartfelt sympathy that this is happening. I don't think anyone here could deny Jake's reputation as an artist, being a person of integrity, or his generosity as a teacher. My pre-order remains as long as it takes.
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@burvantill said in Inktober Book Plagerism Accusations:
Wait, WHAT!? Deviant dropped inktober events over this? WOW. I admire your cancelling your account with them. Did you let them know why?
Yes, I did. It won't matter but there needs to be some pushback against nonsense.
