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2000AD Sci-Fi Swipe File

Started by ming, 30 October, 2013, 06:21:08 PM

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ming

While strolling down memory lane today, revisiting those old Terran Trade Authority handbooks and associated artists, a few things surfaced which made me do a bit of a double-take...

I've probably been aware of these er, similarities, on some level for decades but seeing these images for the first time in a long time, just how obvious these swipes are came as a bit of a surprise, and as I spotted these in quick succession I'm sure there are more examples out there.

So, was Tharg aware?  Attentive people might recall I posted previously* about my brother swiping an image from one of the TTA books (then combining it with a background from another) and managing to get Tharg to print it.  First he received £5 and then, after being snitched on by other readers, a Rigellian Hotshot.  The harsh nature of Tharg's reaction suggests a guilty conscience may have been involved... It's somewhat comical that readers and creators alike were swiping from the same sources, anyway.

I'd be interested in seeing any more similar examples if anyone has 'em; if I come across any more I'll post them here.

Right, on to the Street of Shame.

Joe Petagno: cover art was originally used for a 1979 printing of F. Paul Wilson's novel Healer but was also featured in Aliens in Space (Hamlyn, Galactic Encounters series)
 

The Mophioso: art by Ron Smith



Tim White: cover art used for Robert Silverberg's Those Who Watch (1977 NEL edition)
 

Captain Skank's Calypso: art by Ron Smith



Tim White again (not certain where this was used but I think it was Omni in 1980)


Alan Davis: Harry Twenty on the Swiped Rock (1982)




* http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php?topic=28631.0
Image links have gone dead but here's a new one of Tharg's responses to swiping... "Only a grexnix would attempt to pass off somebody else's work as his own in the pages of my progs."  Indeed, Green Bonce, indeed.  I still can't get over the enthusiasm of those snitching Squaxx... If only they knew.


TordelBack

Brilliant work Ming!  For years I knew there was something familiar about Captain Skank's sea fortress, but I was thinking Millennium Falcon.

That High Rock design brings 'blatant' to a whole new level! 


smiffy

Mr Austin and a photo of Ms Shilleto, maybe?


Frank


COMMANDO FORCES

I can see this being an extremely enjoyable thread to keep popping into :thumbsup:

Mabs

Wow that is some seriously interesting (not to mention entertaining) stuff! Cheers Ming! :thumbsup:
My Blog: http://nexuswookie.wordpress.com/

My Twitter @nexuswookie

Dash Decent

I just spotted this last week, hunting through some old progs.  Mike Dorey obviously had some "Blake's 7" photos in his reference file, as demonstrated by "Psi-Testers" in prog 408:





- By Appointment -
Hero to Michael Carroll

"... rank amateurism and bad jokes." - JohnW.

SmallBlueThing

Oh grud, I loved those guns. The only scifi guns to ever look like real weapons that I'd ever seen. Even now they look so cool I can't stop drooling, and in comparison to the squeezy bottle and flex Liberator guns it was like Blake's 7 had suddenly grown a pair of supersize manplums.

This thread has the potential to be as much fun as Spinechat.

SBT
.

Steve Green

Yeah, I don't know about the gun thing, more a copy of a copy of a copy.


Skullmo

Quote from: smiffy on 30 October, 2013, 06:52:20 PM
Mr Austin and a photo of Ms Shilleto, maybe?



Amazing! Although, not sure how you spotted that one in the first place! ;-)
It's a joke. I was joking.

glassstanley

Doesn't the intro to the Harry Twenty GN go on about how difficult it was to design the High Rock and how the artist had to make models to show GFD that what he wanted wasn't possible? Certainly not if the artist only wanted to, er ... Pay tribute to an Omni magazine,

Steve Green

I seem to remember a blatant rip of a stormtrooper in a back page poster - maybe a summer special?

Doesn't appear to be in any of the posters on Barney...

Dash Decent

Quote from: Skullmo on 31 October, 2013, 07:32:35 AM
Amazing! Although, not sure how you spotted that one in the first place! ;-)

It was the two Tharg heads, they're a dead giveaway.
- By Appointment -
Hero to Michael Carroll

"... rank amateurism and bad jokes." - JohnW.

Recrewt

Quote from: Skullmo on 31 October, 2013, 07:32:35 AM
Quote from: smiffy on 30 October, 2013, 06:52:20 PM
Mr Austin and a photo of Ms Shilleto, maybe?

Amazing! Although, not sure how you spotted that one in the first place! ;-)

Huh, I was reading that exact prog just the other night - #713.  I did amire the cover as it is a great one although  I always thought it was based on that girl out of the flashdance movie.  I will never look at that cover in the same way again. 

Mick Austin did some great covers but now I am starting to wonder what image he used as the basis of this one:  :o :o :o



Skullmo

Sigh - I used to own that cover :(
It's a joke. I was joking.