I didn't realize so many comic characters were based of off, or at least influenced by, real world people.
How complicated would it be to actually get a recognizable actor's permission to use their likeness for new character on a cover? I would love to see them actually use Hugh Laurie's likeness for Cambridge on a Voyager Relaunch cover.
I'm not surprised - a lot of artists I know tend to use actors for frame of reference when it comes to people they're drawing who are original creations or have never appeared in a visual medium. I mean, part of my own process in writing often involves mentally "casting" someone in that role to visualize the character. Isn't that the basis of the 'Cast the Characters of Trek Lit' thread? It's not really surprising to me that comics do that.
Yeah, it's a pretty common thing. The part where it gets really interesting is when two different artists see the same character in completely different ways. This one sees the character as Actress A, but this one is using Actress Q as his inspiration... For instance, when he was drawing the X-Men, John Byrne modeled his Wolverine after actor Paul D'Amato in the film Slap Shot. A few years later, Frank Miller penciled a Wolverine mini-series, and he used a young Clint Eastwood as his model.
Yeah, but having a basic mental image for a prose story is pretty different from an artist actually using a recognizable person's appearance. If it seemed like it bothers me, it doesn't, I was just surprised. It makes sense, having some kind of a clear mental image of a character has to be a lot easier than doing it from scratch, especially when you're on fairly solid deadline like comic artists are.
Sorry about reviving an old thread, but CBR just did a story about artists using real celebrities' faces for comic book characters. Given the conversation we were having, I thought I would be appropriate to share it here.
True story: Many, many years ago, when I working as an assistant editor for a mainstream publisher, we got in a piece of cover art in which the artist had obviously used a certain obscure celebrity as a model. Obviously to me, that is. My boss, who was unfamiliar with the celebrity in question, was unconvinced until I ran out to a bookstore over lunch and tracked down a photo of said individual. (This was before Google was a thing; we were still using typewriters back then, not computers.) We ended up having the face repainted to avoid any possible legal headaches.
While we're linking to old posts, how about this one of mine? https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/comic-art-drawn-from-screencaps.284493/#post-11828869
Wasn't the Muhammad Ali vs Superman comic drawn with a bunch of celebrities in attendance. They then had to disguise some due to image rights or something?
Yes. Neal Adams drew a bunch of late 70s celebrities on the cover, and then someone at DC or Warners got skittish about using their likenesses and decided to try & get permission from everyone. When a few people turned him down, Adams usually disguised the person by adding a mustache (Look for Henry Winkler and John Wayne. They both have mustaches).