Joëlle Jones, currently an artist at DC Comics, has been accused by a user on Twitter (@samuli47) of allegedly directly tracing the art of Pepe Larraz, the artist who partnered with Jonathan Hickman to create the X-Men’s newest era over at Marvel Comics. The allegation spins out of the promotional art created for the upcoming Wonder Woman event, Trial of the Amazons. Plagiarism in the comics community is never something to be taken lightly, which is what makes the recent accusation against the incredibly talented Joëlle Jones all the more serious.
Jones is perhaps best known for her work on Lady Killer, published by Dark Horse Comics between 2015-2017, but she has worked in the field of comics illustration since as early as 2004. In recent years Jones came into mainstream popularity for her art in the DC Rebirth relaunch of Batman as well as writing an illustrating 2018’s Catwoman series. More recently Joëlle has gained critical acclaim for co-creating, writing, and drawing Wonder Girl, a series featuring Yara Flor, a Brazilian Amazonian first introduced as Wonder Woman in DC’s Infinite Frontier relaunch. Unfortunately, Wonder Girl, which had quickly become a fan-favorite series, was abruptly cancelled early, ending after issue #7, with the final issue going unpublished.
Twitter user @samuli47 appears to be the first person to have noticed the alleged tracing done by Jones. In a Tweet, they compared one of Larraz’s group shots of the new X-Men team from X-Men #1 (2021) to a drawing that Jones created as promotional art for DC’s upcoming Trial of the Amazons. Specifically, it is alleged that Jones directly traced the pose, positioning, and clothing of the X-Men members Jean Grey and Polaris when creating the art for Cassie Sandsmark and Donna Troy. When reached for comment Joëlle Jones chose to not provide a statement for this piece, and Pepe Larraz did not respond when reached for a comment on the current accusation of artistic plagiarism.
Uhm… huh. #xspoilers pic.twitter.com/P9VWeyQLQc
— Samuli (@samuli47) February 4, 2022
The similarities between the two pieces are truly striking, with both of Jones’ characters having identically drawn hands to the Larraz piece, Polaris and Donna sporting the same facial expression, and a seemingly direct copy of Jean Grey’s skirt onto Cassie’s body. Of course, these accusations are alleged, and tracing is a common practice in many artists’ lives, with many well-known artists re-using their own previously drawn poses (especially in group shots) to reduce their heavy workloads. That being said, plagiarism is never excusable. Both Marvel Comics and DC Comics have made plenty of mistakes in the past around using other artists’ imagery, and the publications certainly need to be held to account for any oversight they might miss.
Both Larraz and Jones are incredibly popular and talented artists in the mainstream right now, so it is disappointing to think that these allegations may be true. If anything, if plagiarism did occur, this could speak more to the comics industry unfair labor practices and expectations for their works, which recently led to the creation of the first officially recognized comics workers union, something that the comics industry has fought against for decades. Fans looking to make their own opinion about this discouraging accusation can head over to Twitter to see the alleged plagiarism of Marvel Comics artist Pepe Larraz’s work on X-Men by the Wonder Woman artist Joëlle Jones at DC Comics.
Source: Twitter
About The Author
