Scandal hits the comics art world as popular cover artist Rian Gonzales faces accusations of tracing another artist’s original work for an upcoming variant cover of ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #15. The controversy centers on claims that Gonzales intentionally traced the work by an artist known as Nina, who drew this piece as a birthday present to an artist friend named Juby.
Here’s Gonzales’ side of the story later referred to on X as a response to “backlash and violent reactions”.
According to all parties involved, efforts were made to resolve this issue peacefully and offline. However, both Nina and Juby have raised concerns about the semantics surrounding the situation. Despite Gonzales’ claims to the contrary, the issue remains significant—largely because the artist denies tracing and insists they were only referencing, which blurs the lines further.
You can compare the original and cover artwork below to form your own opinion.
Both Juby and Nina have rightfully stated online that this type of behavior shouldn’t be condoned. Professional artists should never copy other’s work and claim it as their own, especially to a big publisher such as Marvel. To call it out would help the industry for the better overall and for what it’s worth, Nina has also gone out of the way to share resources for artists looking for references including using https://unsplash.com/ for photos and acon3d.com/en for a reference library. It should also be noted that all 3 of these people are professional artists who’ve published for major companies – so this type of traction wouldn’t likely occur had it been a smaller indie creator that was traced.
Gonzales’ artwork has risen in popularity in the past ten years published in places like Marvel, DC, Boom, and Archie, and then hit a wide audience being featured in her variant cards in the video game Marvel Snap. As to how long she’s traced or copied others’ original artwork, that issue has now come into question. According to Juby, Gonzales has also gone on to delete other works on her socials since speaking with Nina.
Still, regardless of what comes out of this, I and everyone inevitably involved in reporting on this must stress to fans: don’t be that person that results to bullying or hate. Be disappointed. Speak out against what’s unfair. But never result to threats over fandom.
I say this because many people are fans of Rian Gonzales’ artwork and heritage, especially regarding her Filipino background, as much of her color work can be traced to color palettes that are pretty native to the Philippines. She’s really beloved over there (speaking as a Filipino myself) and if you don’t know this, our people have a longstanding history of producing some of the best comic artists in the industry. There’s a large degree of pride here. And a bigger fandom than the average American comics person probably realizes.
Accountability for sure. Apologies most definitely. Though above all else, Gonzales needs to address the issue about tracing versus referencing.
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