Is Emily The Strange A Rip Off?

Emily the Strange? Never heard of her.

She is a popular icon in the Hot Topic community.

Eh, and Homer Simpson is nothing like Fred Flinstone, who is nothing like Ralph Kramden.

Siouxsie Sioux is a goth icon. Emily the Strange is a mallgoff joke.

Hot Topic has been known to rip people off before. No surprise here.

To add flesh to AndyIII's well pointed comment, there is a line between inspiration and plagiarism. I do not know enough about this subject matter to form an opinion, but the community will.

Emily has always been, to me, the worst thing about Dark Horse Production.

emily once kicked me and threw sand in my eye... she never looked the same to me after that...

Don't all goth look a like?

@Alex

Just about the same way all "norms" look alike, you mean?
;-P

it wouldnt be the first

http://www.kimbawlion.com/

go to the lion king? section.

As anybody who ever plagiarized, would tell you...

Ideas, ideas! Why..?

They just float around!

If they didn't acquire the rights to the character, it is a blatant ripoff.

Has the "statute of limitations" for copyright law really run out?

This is obviously way to close. Are Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and Marc Simont getting royalties from the sale of all that merchandise?

Wow...
And the original looks SO MUCH better...
(to me anyways)
the face, the eyes, the hair..
but most of all; the pose..

Nonconforming plagiarists. Heh.

clearly a ripoff. It's a whole lot more than a loose inspiration.

Are you serious? How do these characters seem similar?
You cannot copyright a girl with black hair and cats.

Ive read nate the great and this girl looks like this in ONE page of 25 books! You have nothing better to do with your time? That's pretty sad.

Amber, you can't copyright something as simple as a girl with black cats. But you can't deny that these pages are practically the same from their white mary janes, to the positions of the cats to the text that's only changed by two words. That is a rip off.

Very blatant ripoff and anyone who says otherwise is just angry that the thing they liked turned out to be plagerized.
I'm an artist myself and have had a few of my pieces stolen before and copied without my permission... it sucks ass and seeing things like this makes me angry.

I know it sucks when something you like is a ripoff, but I don't see how anyone could deny it in this case.

I really hate these character copy cases.
least that one is not as bad as sonic recolors...

maybe theres a reason for this.

though it wouldn't be as bad if that phrase wasn't there or maybe just keeped the same name, that would have been less embarassing!

whats wrong with copying a character? putting them in a new universe and exploring other possibilities? I think copyright law is BUNK. I'm an artist and freely share everything I create; all of creativity and imagination have been and will remain open for everyone to use and share.

Yup, it's a ripoff. Never heard of either of them. Doesn't look like I'm missing much.

whiff ... over my head.

I told a friend of mine this story, and he said he met the artist, who was a complete a-hole and tried to stiff him on a print job. Sounds like karma to me.

Never heard of this character but it's an obvious copy. Reminds me of the author who said that JK Rowling copied her.

1. Good artists copy.

2. Great artists steal.

3. Smart great artists destroy the evidence!

If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity.

(Nope, no attribution. How apropos!)

raina_c: Actually, it was J.K Rowling who was accusing someone of copying HER crap.

It inspired Orson Scott Card to write this great commentary: http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2008-04-20.shtml

I don't know which you were referring to, actually - but OSC's is at least somewhat facetious.

The original is much better

Why, yes. Yes, she is.

http://www.youngeomall.com/bemarket/shop/index.php?pageurl=page_goodsdetail&uid=2725

http://www.youngeomall.com/bemarket/imgs/save/upload/bookpage/kizC01_tardy_1.jpg

How can you say THIS looks like Emily the Strange? You cannot copyright a girl with bangs and cats.

Because that seems to be the only similarity. Why not look at every other girl with bangs or cats and say they should be sued for a character with Rosamond traits?

She bares no resemblance. OBVIOUSLY she has changed since that drawing.

Reminds me of another rip-off "artist"... Todd Goldman. He did the worst thing he could have possibly done. Ripped off someone who was very well known to the Something Awful Goons.
http://www.miketyndall.com/todd_goldman/

no way. emily ROCKS.

i agree with number 34 (Seriously?)

I suppose it's not surprising, if the original Emily image was practically a one-off for a skateboard.

The other Emily stuff isn't the same as this but it's undeniable that these two are pretty much the same artwork. They're so similar there wouldn't even be enough differences for a spot the difference panel.

So much for counterculture.

If you know anything about Emily you would know that A) a lot of Emily artwork is an homage to other characters and B) Hot Topic only sells her merchandise, they have nothing to do with making it.