Every single link in that quote is a link to a comprehensive ink drawing book that is/was widely available. Even if you don’t count the ones that are out of print (but are in libraries, art classrooms, and are available online) you’re still looking at *at least* ten, one of which has been in continuous publication for 100 years and two of which are differentbooks written by one author. Also I own two books that aren’t even directly linked here (both about cartooning) that include comprehensive pen and ink techniques as part of a larger whole and cover materials materially similar to what Dunn is saying was plagiarized, and that’s not even getting into the really specific and narrow “pen and ink animals” “drawing in ballpoint pen” “pen and ink landscape” “pen and ink for comics” “pen and ink and watercolor” “pen and ink and charcoal” books that are out there that also cover basic pen and ink technique in a pretty comprehensive way. There are so many pen and ink instruction books that attempting to open links to all of them in the various places that I found them crashed my browser.
He also really, really doubles down on “there is no functional difference between these sections and the layouts are identical” when A) there is a functional difference because Dunn wrote a technical instruction guide and Parker wrote a low-key how-to book for casuals that is primarily about motivation and mindset and B) Dunn’s book has a strong vertical layout and Parker’s is square.
It is making me bugfuck crazy that he’s claiming these two layouts are duplicates.
One of these pages is twice as tall as the other. One has a centered brushstroke font as the header with descriptions under each of four tools; One has left-aligned text with a sans serif header and single-word descriptions next to nine tools. One has tools that are presented illustrated at an angle that points to the gutter of the layout, one has tools that point to the center of the page. We are, literally, not the same.
My second favorite quote from the lawsuit is this:
“Dunn has found many supporters online, who believe that Parker has committed plagiarism and infringed on Dunn’s copyrighted works.”
Friend, what your twitter followers think isn’t legally actionable.
The suit claims that the uses of Dunn’s work were numerous and far reaching, but looking at the images used in the filing it kind of looks like Dunn hasn’t gotten a copy of the book and is still screencapping from the ten images on Amazon. Shoutout to this absolute maniac on Pinterest who not only did a side-by-side comparison of Inktober All YearandPen & Ink Drawing but also compared Pen & Ink Drawing to a bunch of other ink illustration books. Also I’m pretty sure Inktober All Year Long is unreleased and the lawsuit is based on sales continuing until December 2020 but I can’t find the book anywhere new or used and the few people who have reviewed it have claimed they got it because Amazon sent it to them on accident after delivery was cancelled and every seller that I can find that had links to it lists it as backordered or now has a 404 error for the book.
Here’s another pertinent quote from the suit:
Authors instruct on pen and ink drawings in multiple ways. Dunn’s work, however, is not the result of restating standard methods or formulae, but is his original expression born from his creativity.
I do continue to feel really, really bad for Alfonso Dunn, because it really seems like he spent a lot of time reinventing the wheel and is upset that a similarly popular artist is also making a wheel. Like, in the original video he REALLY fixates on the idea of “varying” strokes, and insists that the use of the word “varied” or “variable” must be plagiarized from him because he spent so long coming up with the right word to use for that technique - but the 100-year-old pen and ink instruction book I discussed earlier has a multi-page layout about varied strokes.
Anywaythe lawsuit was filed in September of 2021 and so far it’s been just a shitload of extensions to serve papers and motions to dismiss and motions to extend the time to respond to the motion to dismiss.
I don’t think that Parker is perfect (I actually find him pretty annoying and I do agree that it is very questionable to claim exclusive ownership of an event that became popular because of millions of participants) and I don’t think that Dunn is malicious, but in this case I do think that Dunn is wrong. This guy has a take on it that pretty much aligns with my opinion.
And I’m interested in the outcome of the case because a lot of the claims that Dunn made in his video and appears to reiterate in the case have to do with attempting to claim exclusive rights to teach art fundamentals using extant language, so that’s actually pretty important!
Anyway I am going to continue to Be Weird about it.
