Thread by @NebsGoodTakes

A thread documenting how Francesco Mattina keeps getting work at DC Comics despite having been caught tracing art SEVERAL times, and is now generating variant covers with AI 🧵

While I'm posting all examples I can find I'm still definitely missing some, so if you know other cases of Francesco Mattina's blatant plagiarism then feel free to post examples yourself!

His theft was first(?) noticed in May 2017, where Bleeding Cool posted an article noting that it looked like Francesco Mattina traced Ian MacDonald's premium Sideshow Collectibles art print (left) for his venomized variant cover of Jean Grey #1 (right)

Later in 2017, Jeehyung Lee accused Francesco Mattina of tracing his piece for a variant cover of Venom #150, where you can see that Mattina blatantly took his art, mirrored it, and tilted it

One week later, Bleeding Cool posted an article noting that it appeared Francesco Mattina had traced a digital Magneto sculpt by CG artist Daniel Bel (current art director of Sideshow Collectibles) for Mattina's venomized Astonishing X-Men #3 variant cover

In January 2019, Walter O'Neal III (former art director of Sideshow Collectibles) made a post accusing Francesco Mattina of tracing his Punisher art for a variant cover of The Batman Who Laughs Vol #2

While seemingly a generic pose, the hand and gun placements line up perfectly

In Walter's post, he also mentioned how Francesco Mattina had blatantly traced a Judge Dredd piece by Greg Staples (who has also made art prints for Sideshow Collectibles)

Walter then noted that Francesco Mattina's variant cover of Batman #55 had ALSO been traced from an older Batman commission by Gabriele Dell'Otto (who, btw, has also made prints for Sideshow Collectibles)

At the end of a Bleeding Cool article covering this incident, a post by artist Adi Granov (who, you guessed it, also sells prints on Sideshow Collectibles) was shown saying Mattina had traced his work too

Writer Rich Johnston then noted Marvel had cut ties with Mattina in 2018

In 2020, comic artist Alex Garner accused "comic artist" Francesco Mattina of tracing his Annihilation - Scourge Alpha #1 variant cover for a variant of The Flash #750

Naturally, Alex Garner also sells prints on Sideshow Collectibles

Additionally, while in the comments of Alex Garner's post, I saw that @Shawn_Strange_C posted this image showing Francesco Mattina had also traced his variant for The Joker #1

https://x.com/Shawn_Strange_C/status/1345798645573062657

Later in 2020, DC Comics rewarded Francesco Mattina's theft by letting him design the box art for Batman: Death in the Family

Reddit user /u/beyond9thousand noticed the entire left side was traced from a piece by artist Zeen Chin

reddit.com/r/DCcomics/com…

At this point you may have noticed that while Francesco Mattina does trace from other artists, he still has the technical ability to draw his own digital art, yet still chooses to plagiarize regardless

You may also be wondering why DC still works with him, and here's the answer

Yesterday, DC revealed their September 2024 solicitations, in which Francesco Mattina has variant covers for Superman #18, Batman: The Brave and the Bold #17, and Action Comics #1069

People immediately noticed that all three of these seem to be AI generated

It's VERY important to be careful when accusing artists of using AI, as these programs match the styles of prominent digital artists and blur the lines

Thankfully I don't have to be careful here, since Francesco Mattina wasn't careful either

Several artists have since called him out for this in the past 24 hours, including Adi Granov who was mentioned earlier in the thread

https://x.com/LanternJS/status/1802066451555078287

That all being said, DC has made it clear that they'll continue to work with Francesco Mattina unless there's enough loud pushback, which seems pretty achievable right now!

More examples of him stealing, this time from Artgerm

Even more examples of him stealing, this time from Ben Oliver