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Marvel Aliens: Omnibus 1 Features Cover Swiped From Tristan Jones Artwork

Recently we reported on the upcoming April 2021 release of Aliens Omnibus 1 from Marvel. Kicking off the reprints of older Dark Horse titles had us impressed with its line up featuring a number of more rare comics which have never been previously collected.

In Marvel’s announcement, we saw the direct market cover featuring the original series artwork of Mark A. Nelson, with news that we’d be seeing the primary cover art for the volume by Marvel artist Greg Land sometime soon.

The artwork was shared on twitter exclusively from Near Mint Condition:

Having not been familiar with Greg Land’s work myself, I honestly thought the cover looked decent enough, until some concerning information started to surface on Twitter…

It’s become clear that Greg Land has ‘swiped’ (plagiarized) the cover using the artwork of one of the most celebrated Alien comic artists in recent years: Tristan Jones.

Community member SizzyBubbles noticed a similarity with the Alien egg in the piece as well. I checked it in Photoshop and sure enough, the lines matched up exactly. It’s the life-sized NECA Alien egg.

 Marvel Aliens: Omnibus 1 Features Cover Swiped From Tristan Jones Artwork

Negative sentiments on this copycat art have been making the rounds on Twitter, with solidarity for Jones shown from fellow industry artists.

Ben Templesmith, co-creator of ’30 Days of Night’

Dave Rapoza, Marvel and Magic: The Gathering Artist


 RJ Palmer, Contributor to Titan Books ‘Alien: 40 Years 40 Artists’

And those are just a select few. The fanbase isn’t particularly happy about this either. Greg Land has a controversial history in the comics industry, with his Wikipedia page introduction noting:

“Land has been criticized for the extent to which he relies on photographic reference for his art, and for his repetitive use of certain facial templates and poses when rendering characters.”

Fandom Wiki site Marvel Database describes his history as such:

Brian Cronin of Comic Book Resources remarked that Land’s art in Uncanny X-Men #510 is “possibly has the most harmful art to a story that I’ve seen in a comic,” saying that the Land’s limited supply of poses and use of the same models for multiple characters “results in terrible art and particularly terrible storytelling.”

Although the use of photographs as models is long established in comic book art, Land has been accused of going beyond the accepted bounds of photo use. Land’s layouts and poses were so distinctive, detailed and repetitive that critics suspected that Land was lifting photos into his pages outright and using minimal Photoshoping to alter the picture and make the work appear an original drawing. Land says that he does Google searches for references, but denies accusations that he does digital manipulations which has since been proven untrue by various factors on the Internet, who have taken his pictures and post them over posters, movie stills, porno images, his own work and other comic book art to showcase that he has traced them indefinitely.

There are currently a number of people who have petitions and groups dedicated to have him fired by Marvel, though Joe Quesada had stated that he wouldn’t fire him because it would be unfair to Land.

This is a misstep for Marvel with the Alien license, damaging what was increasingly good-will from fans after the impressive Omnibus line up announcement. The appropriate action in our view would be that this cover art be pulled and an apology is given to Tristan Jones. Here’s hoping this is the last we see of Land’s involvement with the Alien property for Marvel.

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  1. Perfect-Organism
    Quote from: HuDaFuK on Sep 17, 2020, 08:34:56 AM
    Quote from: judge death on Sep 17, 2020, 05:08:10 AM2: Not giving artist money by royalties, as artist do have the same rights as music creators but its rare here.

    I don't really see how this one can be considered Marvel's fault.

    If they were legally required to pay royalties, they would. If they're not doing it, it implies artists don't have the same rights as music creators, in which case it's the law that's the issue and not Marvel. And as someone (I forget who, sorry) pointed out earlier in this thread, Dark Horse apparently didn't pay all their contributors royalties further down the line, and I don't see anyone criticising them for doing exactly the same thing.

    Musicians ARE artists.

    It really comes down to your agreement prior to starting the work.
  2. SiL
    "Work for hire". Basically the comic companies paid the artists to perform some work under the understanding the artist doesn't own the work, the company does.
  3. judge death
    Oh? Didnt know that or missed it if it was mentioned earlier, well then I can remove that point from them. Last I checked on dark horse was that they paid the artists when using their art later on but its...15 years? I checked that so it seems things have changed. Well now I will dark horse minus points and mention it when fit. Thanks HuDaFuk :) hmm what happened with the law of copyright and artist where as a creator of something you have the right to be paid for using ones art/music etc? Know some smaller comic studios doing it, so guess its a contract detail? :/
  4. HuDaFuK
    Quote from: judge death on Sep 17, 2020, 05:08:10 AM2: Not giving artist money by royalties, as artist do have the same rights as music creators but its rare here.

    I don't really see how this one can be considered Marvel's fault.

    If they were legally required to pay royalties, they would. If they're not doing it, it implies artists don't have the same rights as music creators, in which case it's the law that's the issue and not Marvel. And as someone (I forget who, sorry) pointed out earlier in this thread, Dark Horse apparently didn't pay all their contributors royalties further down the line, and I don't see anyone criticising them for doing exactly the same thing.
  5. Corporal Hicks
    Quote from: Nostromo on Sep 16, 2020, 01:32:19 PM
    Quote from: Russ840 on Sep 14, 2020, 05:29:49 PM
    Can be pre ordered on Amazon now.


    Hallucinating much? Lol. A lot of new schills in here. Dude, until they change the cover, apologize, and also hire Tristan and fire the scumbag who made that crap, here's my answer to the wackjobs at Marvel and Disney: just replace things with wackos.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DvYVTEyJ6c

    No need to attack your fellow fans dude. It's not cool.
  6. judge death
    Quote from: Gentleman Death on Sep 16, 2020, 10:27:25 PM
    So, what if you just don't buy the one with Lands cover...?
    For me its more reasons than only this cover issue with marvel:
    1: Marvel stealing designs from fans, examples, ships, charachters, lore ideas etc from fans for years especielly in the star wars franschise but also happened in their other ips.
    2: Not giving artist money by royalties, as artist do have the same rights as music creators but its rare here.
    3: their whole disrespect for previous comic makers as if all they did was bad and their own comics will be amazing(when doing the same ideas).
    4: How marvel have become political aware and woke with their old franschises which turned me and others away as they redid iron man and others, now they focus on new charachters named snowflake, boomer etc and changing what we older fans loved, yes im an old marvel fan from the 80s.(ok that maybe dont count as old)
    5: Plagiarism, and in the alien related tristians design being used and traced and copied and marvel allows such behaviour and done so for a long time and its not just one artist.

    Ok if one only look at it from alien related then marvel havent done much wrong but I look at marvel from what they were and how they behave overall, a official excuse/apology from marvel on this and improvment on what happened with tristian would improve things on my end but as you wrote: nothing will happen from this and Im 80% sure we will see marvel do something similair in the coming year or 2 years, maybe some fans alien design they like and use and then claim as their own or similair is my guess now.
  7. Local Trouble
    The best thing that can come out of this is raising Tristan's profile in a positive way.  Apparentlly Greg Land admired his work so much he had to plagiarize it, so maybe Marvel should throw money at the guy who can actually draw these things on his own.  And give him his own book.  And turn it into an MCU movie.
  8. Perfect-Organism
    Yes, the support for Tristan's defense in this matter seems to have waned.  That's how it usually goes, and it is incumbent upon the party that has sustained damages to act in their own legal defense.  Taking on Marvel seems unlikely in that approach.

    What will likely happen though, is Mr. Land will do it again, and there will be a similar response.  This will create a significant body of evidence that proves his actions were numerous through their precedents.  At that time, legal action should be easier, and perhaps done in concert as a class action in partnership with other victims.

  9. SM
    I wouldn't call Alchemy, Survival, Havoc, or Stalker even remotely "mediocre".

    Four issues doesn't automatically make it a good story.

    That said, Tristan getting ripped off aside, the over the top anti-Marvel sentiment is a bit dumb at this point.
  10. Rambo
    Well up to this point the franchise has only been Dark Horse, so it might be a little early to compare a month of Marvel to 30 years of DH. I'll always be biased for DH, but their handling of the series was not always great and there were a lot of cheap pursuits of money and poor production for long stretches.

    After Berserker from 1995 to 1999 they couldn't even muster up a four-part series, just mediocre 2 and 3-parters and nine one-shots. After Destroying Angels they had four years of low-quality crossovers 1999-2003 (Green Lantern, Superman II, Judge Dredd II, Batman II). Followed up by 6 years of no content whatsoever 2003-2009. I love where DH was going the past few years with unproduced screenplays and tie-ins to the originals, and I trusted them more than Marvel, but it's too early to judge and it's certainly not impossible to do better than DH (even after this cover fiasco).
  11. judge death
    Hopefully this will be what most fans will do xD
    https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/7d6993df-3d77-4fbb-878f-4afdb136d515/de55c9r-a49f644e-2ab9-4baf-8921-3bdb083cc6aa.jpg/v1/fill/w_896,h_892,q_70,strp/yes_please_meme_by_warrior1944_de55c9r-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD0xMjc1IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvN2Q2OTkzZGYtM2Q3Ny00ZmJiLTg3OGYtNGFmZGIxMzZkNTE1XC9kZTU1YzlyLWE0OWY2NDRlLTJhYjktNGJhZi04OTIxLTNiZGIwODNjYzZhYS5qcGciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTI4MCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.V0r-mCBzkEpuZUIKAOb_EZQ_Hn2jMfYKzsHcaKFL5-E

    But as I see many will buy the marvel collection I doubt it, but the alien franschise was its best at dark horse and as they say: they kept the franschise alive on their own and not treating it like Marvel do or the past artists and how they behave as a corporation.
  12. Perfect-Organism
    I have to say, this will not be comfortable reading.  I've read several Marvel Omniby and while there is a sense of majesty in holding such a big book, there is really no ergonomically fun way to read these.

    ...and if there are no changes to the cover, this discomfort will be overshadowed by the weight of conscience on the chest...  ;)
  13. Kradan
    Quote from: Whiskeybrewer on Sep 13, 2020, 10:42:32 AM
    Oh now that's just low.

    *Slow Claps* Well Done Greg Land *Slow Claps*

    what a dick


    Also im actually looking forward to reading the full version of Countdown.

    Once they sort the omnibus cover of course

    I'm willing to bet they won't. From what I've heard Land was caught before by Marvel fans and I'd guess that Marvel comic fanbase is much larger and NOISER than Alien's


    Quote from: Darwinsgirl on Sep 11, 2020, 06:29:42 PM

    I find it ironic in one sense. Walt Disney early on in his career created a comic character called Oswald the Rabbit (before Mickey Mouse). It became very popular at the time. Made someone lots of money.  He didn't own it even though he created it. After that experience he made sure he "owned" his creations. I would think he would side with Tristen Jones on this if he was still here. This is from memory so if I mixed up something apologies I didnt Google it. My memory is not as good as a computer's. :laugh:

    Ironic indeed. I don't think the old man imagined what his company would become
  14. Whiskeybrewer
    Oh now that's just low.

    *Slow Claps* Well Done Greg Land *Slow Claps*

    what a dick


    Also im actually looking forward to reading the full version of Countdown.

    Once they sort the omnibus cover of course
  15. Darwinsgirl

    I find it ironic in one sense. Walt Disney early on in his career created a comic character called Oswald the Rabbit (before Mickey Mouse). It became very popular at the time. Made someone lots of money.  He didn't own it even though he created it. After that experience he made sure he "owned" his creations. I would think he would side with Tristen Jones on this if he was still here. This is from memory so if I mixed up something apologies I didnt Google it. My memory is not as good as a computer's. :laugh:
  16. judge death
    Indeed as nostromo says, and marvel isnt new to this type of stealing but I have put prof and examples some pages back and some of the twitter announchments some days ago also deeps down into the rabbit hole of what marvel is doing.

    But then again its to be expected as the white slavers: disney has once again got under the spotlight of treating their workers badly and even using concentration camp prisoners in the making of mulan movie....and reports from the lion king and how the production of star wars movies shows what we can expect from disney and marvel.

    Cant say im feeling safe for what they will do with the alien franschise and so far theres only signs for the worse and reports of reboot of the alien franchise with new ripley and making aliens v2 movies....

    And wouldnt call that collection great as its already released in dark horse collections besides countdown which is to me unknown comic that is easy to find on the web for those who want it that badly but it wont be an excuse for marvel in how they treat previous artists and what they are doing, for me.
  17. Nostromo
    Quote from: Perfect-Organism on Sep 09, 2020, 02:48:08 AM
    Disrespecting Tristan Jones, is disrespecting Aliens fans.  We love this guy!  Great artist!

    This 1000%

    Guy should have his own Alien series going.


    Wow, haven't been here for months. Who's this Land dude, wtf? Marvel hired this jerk off? From his wikipedia page:


    Plagiarism accusations

    Land has been accused of going beyond the accepted bounds of photographic reference, lifting images from sources that include hardcore pornography, and copying them into his pages outright with minimal Photoshop alterations to make the work appear to be an original drawing, a reputation he developed from his work on Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate Power. Land has agreed that he does employ photo reference to a large extent, and that he uses pornography as a source, but denies that the extent to which he does so is questionable. The A.V. Club included him in their 2009 list of "21 artists who changed mainstream comics (for better or worse)" for this reason.[1]

    Commenting on Land's work on Uncanny X-Men #510, Brian Cronin of CBR.com remarked that the issue "possibly has the most harmful art to a story that I've seen in a comic," saying that Land's limited supply of poses and use of the same models for multiple characters "results in terrible art and particularly terrible storytelling."[2] He was also mocked for his limited use of facial expressions on the Thing.[3]

    Land has also been accused of directly swiping art from other comics artists, and is considered "notorious" for tracing his art from other sources[4] to the point where some fans make a hobby of finding the original sources Land traced for his art.[5]

    Land's art for Marvel's Aliens Omnibus was pointed out by artist Tristan Jones as containing direct copies of various pieces of Jones' own Aliens artwork.[4][6] Similarities were also found between elements of Land's cover and an Alien portrait by Andy Brase, a catalog photo of a sculpted Alien egg toy by NECA, and a screenshot from the Sega video game Aliens: Colonial Marines.[7][


    Quote from: judge death on Sep 01, 2020, 06:59:11 PM
    Quote from: 426Buddy on Sep 01, 2020, 05:49:40 PM
    Yeah thats terrible, fire this Land guy and get Tristan. What a disgrace, stealing from othe comic artists.

    Looks like he forgot the inner jaw too.

    HAhahahaha what did I say about marvel?! xD Shouldnt come as a surprise, afterall in their star wars comics a lot of the space designs are stolen from fans and traced/copied and the art is a let down after the first couple of comics:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgGr5p53tH4

    This is just the start of things and you can guess how the stories will become. RIP Dark horse, this is one of many reasons Im sceptical about marvel doing aliens comics and will probably skip them and ignore them completely.

    Note: Found out that their art they reuse for the collections and marvel releases wont give any money to the original artists or royalitys etc, Im so skipping marvel and sticking to getting my dark horse comics.

    Wow, what a fkin embarassment. These morons basically kill off anything they buy...

    Here's to the Marvel/Disney Stars Wars and Alien franchises:




    Quote from: Kradan on Sep 01, 2020, 08:55:33 PM
    Oh, that f**k is just f**king with us at this point


    What's it? Being outraged fan never felt that good

    Yea no sh!t lol




    Quote from: Bug hunt wilson on Sep 02, 2020, 06:02:37 PM
    This a bad start for the alien marvel comics and marvel has a know history of letting stuff like this happening and I can tell worse stuff is coming

    Ya think? After seeing this dumbasz dumbo shiet, i don't think I'll be going to the theaters to see Marvel or Disney movies even. To come out with the first issue in this fashion...Dumbo must be running things there.


    Quote from: judge death on Sep 04, 2020, 01:27:04 PM
    Quote from: Perfect-Organism on Sep 04, 2020, 12:53:18 PM
    Certainly Marvel deserves a chance to address this issue and take responsibility.
    They havent for years with star wars, their avengers stuff, conan etc where they have done the same, and nothing said about the artist gets royalitys etc.

    Have not much hope for marvel suddenly changing from what they´ve done for 5+ years xD

    I know ay, I'm sitting here reading for the first time what they've been doing to Star Wars for 5  years, and than I'm reading the sheep saying let's give them a chance. Lmfao. HHHHoooo wer funked now Binshop.

    Btw, that was one ugly mfkin Alien on that cover.
  18. Prez
    Quote from: SM on Sep 07, 2020, 01:29:04 AM
    Quote from: tyrannosaurusjones on Sep 06, 2020, 11:58:56 PM
    Ah, this barely affects me. It sucks because it affects everyone else I know and it's making life difficult for the shop, but we'll get there. We have to really. How's it going on your end?

    Same old, same old.  The First Lady and I are fortunate that we have jobs that allow us to work from home, and I do not miss the commute at all, so it can go for a bit longer as far as I'm concerned.  However as you said, it's all the people who aren't as lucky as us who are being more affected and the wider knock on problems from that.

    Quote from: SiL on Sep 07, 2020, 01:06:50 AM
    Quote from: SM on Sep 06, 2020, 06:57:47 AM
    Hope you are otherwise well considering we'll be locked down a bit longer, yet.  :)
    Hope you're all OK down there :( Just waiting for the idiots to sink QLD soon.

    I dunno, you guys have open a lot longer than us and it seems like it's not getting out of control.  Be interesting to see what happens with the border restrictions with the election coming up.

    Man us peeps in South Australia have got it pretty easy compared to other states (fairly relaxed across the board). Keeping tabs on my mates & relatives in Melbourne (some are doing ok, others not so good).

    Stay safe my fellow Aussies.
  19. SM
    Quote from: tyrannosaurusjones on Sep 06, 2020, 11:58:56 PM
    Ah, this barely affects me. It sucks because it affects everyone else I know and it's making life difficult for the shop, but we'll get there. We have to really. How's it going on your end?

    Same old, same old.  The First Lady and I are fortunate that we have jobs that allow us to work from home, and I do not miss the commute at all, so it can go for a bit longer as far as I'm concerned.  However as you said, it's all the people who aren't as lucky as us who are being more affected and the wider knock on problems from that.

    Quote from: SiL on Sep 07, 2020, 01:06:50 AM
    Quote from: SM on Sep 06, 2020, 06:57:47 AM
    Hope you are otherwise well considering we'll be locked down a bit longer, yet.  :)
    Hope you're all OK down there :( Just waiting for the idiots to sink QLD soon.

    I dunno, you guys have open a lot longer than us and it seems like it's not getting out of control.  Be interesting to see what happens with the border restrictions with the election coming up.
  20. tristans_bones
    Quote from: SM on Sep 05, 2020, 10:45:18 PM

    Or it backfires and T ends up getting seen as 'difficult'.


    Yeah, this is something I've been battling with. It's not my intention at all to be seen as this. I don't actually WANT anything from Marvel except for this to just NOT happen to anyone else.

    Would I come back to work on Alien? Yes. Would I do Predator? Yes. But the day Dark Horse lost that, I moved on emotionally. I'll always have those stories in my back pocket. But at this point it's all incredibly disheartening, demeaning and flat out insulting. And that's all on Greg. The guys at Marvel have fires to put out constantly, and maybe you could argue that one dude that hired Greg to do this in collections is vaguely responsible in a round about way, but this is on Greg as far as I'm concerned.
  21. Xenomrph
    Quote from: SM on Sep 05, 2020, 10:45:18 PM
    Quote from: Perfect-Organism on Sep 05, 2020, 04:23:24 PM
    Quote from: Kailem on Sep 05, 2020, 04:13:49 PM
    The other obvious effect this could have on any of Marvel's future Alien/Predator comics is that if they ever finally did wise up and offer Tristan Jones a job at this point he might feel very well inclined to just tell them to take a hike.

    And given how with all the exposure this has gotten so far it would be a tad hard for them to claim ignorance of the whole thing, I can't say I'd blame him.

    Giving Tristan a job at Marvel would be the best thing that could come out of this.  The media attention he is getting now is very helpful for his cause.  This should not make things awkward at Marvel.  It would be a step forward for Marvel.  Marvel has taken up the causes of the black community, the gay community and women's equality, so perhaps the next step is to respect the intellectual property rights of the artist community.  It would stand to reason.

    Or it backfires and T ends up getting seen as 'difficult'.
    This.  There is no "intellectual property" issue here, he was drawing something FOX (Disney) owns.
  22. SM
    Quote from: Perfect-Organism on Sep 05, 2020, 04:23:24 PM
    Quote from: Kailem on Sep 05, 2020, 04:13:49 PM
    The other obvious effect this could have on any of Marvel's future Alien/Predator comics is that if they ever finally did wise up and offer Tristan Jones a job at this point he might feel very well inclined to just tell them to take a hike.

    And given how with all the exposure this has gotten so far it would be a tad hard for them to claim ignorance of the whole thing, I can't say I'd blame him.

    Giving Tristan a job at Marvel would be the best thing that could come out of this.  The media attention he is getting now is very helpful for his cause.  This should not make things awkward at Marvel.  It would be a step forward for Marvel.  Marvel has taken up the causes of the black community, the gay community and women's equality, so perhaps the next step is to respect the intellectual property rights of the artist community.  It would stand to reason.

    Or it backfires and T ends up getting seen as 'difficult'.

    Quote from: Kailem on Sep 05, 2020, 04:25:17 PM
    Quote from: Perfect-Organism on Sep 05, 2020, 04:23:24 PM
    Quote from: Kailem on Sep 05, 2020, 04:13:49 PM
    The other obvious effect this could have on any of Marvel's future Alien/Predator comics is that if they ever finally did wise up and offer Tristan Jones a job at this point he might feel very well inclined to just tell them to take a hike.

    And given how with all the exposure this has gotten so far it would be a tad hard for them to claim ignorance of the whole thing, I can't say I'd blame him.

    Giving Tristan a job at Marvel would be the best thing that could come out of this.  The media attention he is getting now is very helpful for his cause.  This should not make things awkward at Marvel.  It would be a step forward for Marvel.  Marvel has taken up the causes of the black community, the gay community and women's equality, so perhaps the next step is to respect the intellectual property rights of the artist community.  It would stand to reason.

    My point is, if they don't lift a finger to do anything about his work being blatantly stolen why would he want to work for them?

    Man's gotta eat.
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