Don't Bark, just Bite

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When an artist shares their work for free online, it can be easy to assume the art is free for everyone else to use too. So you grab it and include it in your own project, and all of a sudden an artist is mad at you, their fans are calling you out, you’re getting threatened with legal action—or even scarier, the artist’s publisher is threatening you with legal action. One-shot comics and minicomics are especially susceptible to this misunderstanding because often they are seen as viral memes instead of art, or treated as public property. But is this really the case? This guide will help you navigate using art you’ve found online. We’ll start with three basic questions: 1. Do I need to ask permission from the artist? 2. Do I need to give credit to the artist? 3. Do I need to pay the artist? After that, we’ll offer some tips on how to approach the artist.

I wrote an article for Cartoonists United! CU has a great collection of resources to help the art community, and I was really excited to contribute.

If you don't know whether it's safe to use a piece of art you found online, if you don't know how to ask permission to use art, and if you are unsure of how to approach artists, read the article!

And if you're an artist who frequently finds your work being used without permission, spread this around so more people know the etiquette around using art online!

Hey everyone! We just wanted to take a moment to give a MASSIVE thank you to all the support you've given us. In these past two weeks, we've reached over 400 downloads for the Beyond Shapes & Beats zine! That's not even counting those of you who read online.

Now the zine may be finished, but we all know it's not over 'til it's over. We are considering the possibility running future JSaB zines and projects, and we'd really like to hear what you all think, both about the zine that just released, and the potential for future ones!

If you're willing to share your opinions, you can go to this form and fill out the questions there. It's very helpful for us to hear the opinions of our audience, so thank you if you decide to fill it out! The form will be open until the end of the month.

DM IF INTERESTED (Through Tumblr or Discord)!

purity politics

Anyways! HERE'S YOUR HANDY GUIDE TO WHAT CAN COUNT AS EYESTRAIN! I'm pulling this straight from the Artfight rules page about what needs to be labeled and filtered as eyestrain because it's VERY helpful and VERY accurate! I also know not everybody has an AF account and might not always have access to this handy guide, and this is an important resource; That's why I'm sharing it here! (under the cut)

PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY!!! THIS IS ABOUT THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF OTHERS!!!

Some AAVE speakers pluralize 'child' as 'childrens'. People get racist about this ("It's already plural!"), but 'children' actually comes from Middle English speakers doing the same thing: slapping their plural marker on word already pluralized by an extinct plural marker.

To oversimplify: in Old English, 'childer' ('ċildra') was the plural of 'child' ('ċild'). Middle English developed an '-en' plural marker, which we see in 'oxen'. Instead of updating to 'childen', people slapped their preferred '-en' onto the end of 'childer' - so now we have 'child-er-en'. AAVE carries on this tradition with 'child-er-en-s'.

"Pure" language is just impurity obscured by the passage of time.

I’m making FLY for all the Black Boys who got their wings too soon and for all the boys who need to see themselves reaching higher. If you want to help this story take flight, follow our Kickstarter ! 🪽💫💖