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Press Release: Rob Granito- Comics Most Wanted

11 April 2011 21 Comments by

Rob Granito IS “Comics Most Wanted”!

For immediate news coverage: First off, we want to let you know we are working on bookings for Mr Granito at bookings@robgranito.com

Give us a few days to get this up and running. In the meantime, please contact me here with any questions at ali.oneartistschoice@gmail.com

Mr Granito will possibly be at the Legends of The Ring Convention in New Jersey this May, doing sketches of pro wrestling legends. More News to come.

And now, onto the news release. We are trying to set up a PayPal for interviews for enterprising sites/blogs. It should be payments@robgranito.com but it is not working at this time so check back with me by Wednesday or Thursday if you want to schedule and pay for an interview with Mr. Granito. More importantly, Mr. Granito IS working on his one-man show, “Rob Granito: Comics Most Wanted!”

The following is from a live conversation I recorded and transcribed, and NOT an e-mail exchange:

Mr Rob Granito:  “My thing is, I never want to try and hurt anyone, you know. I mean I messed up in not properly listing the homages in my work. But dude thats all it was, thats all it was. The fans, the kids, they like to have those tributes to covers and stuff they liked growing up. I saw that one Alex Ross did, well he did a few, and noone is calling HIM a fraud. Alex Ross did those silverage Marvel covers right? Its a homage, I am creating some iconic imagery for the fans. Thats the thing. It was never about the money with me its about those fans who smile when they see the art on the wall when they go home.”

But you have been very infamous on the comic websites since that first news report. How does it make you feel?

Mr Rob Granito: “I mean Im surprised it started with one guy, one dude who doesnt even know me, and hes ripping me to shreds without even getting the real story? I mean the thing I want you to think about is that, a good example is a name that came up a lot and he also rips me to shreds, but you know who does a tribute style to the Batman animated universe? Thats Ty Templetom, I mean the dude is doing the same thing. Now thats no disrespect because I love his work but dude is doing the same thing I was doing a homage to how the DC animated universe looks, and nobody is ripping on HIM! Its crazy.”

How do you feel about being the bad boy of comics?

Mr Rob Granito: “Well I mean I cant say I prepared for it as you know but you know people like controversy and I do have that controversial side to me, to give the people what they want. I mean Im just out to have fun, not hurt people, and if I offended people, dude, relax, I apologize and I’ll try to fix it. But tearing me to shreds like this, I don’t know. I have that controversial side and it seems to have people talking, wondering what Im gonna do next and I understand that. They want excitement, they want the controversy. I mean I was proving it before this started because when Haiti happened, you know the earthquake and stuff, I mean, I dont want people to DIE and my heart goes out but I was like, why should I care about Haiti? Im right here in THIS country. And I mean, people couldnt believe it. But I have that edgy side and I didnt get to show much but its there and I’ll show it when I talk about this on the panel or however it presents itself. If people have made me the bad boy of comics I guess it means I am. That works!”

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21 Comments »

  • Jamal Igle said:

    Having read this, I really wanted to ignore it and move on with my life, but since he and his “staff” have made more than one reference to me in the past weeks I thought I would give a blow by blow response :

    Mr Rob Granito: “My thing is, I never want to try and hurt anyone, you know. I mean I messed up in not properly listing the homages in my work. But dude thats all it was, thats all it was. The fans, the kids, they like to have those tributes to covers and stuff they liked growing up. I saw that one Alex Ross did, well he did a few, and noone is calling HIM a fraud. Alex Ross did those silverage Marvel covers right? Its a homage, I am creating some iconic imagery for the fans. Thats the thing. It was never about the money with me its about those fans who smile when they see the art on the wall when they go home.”

    No they were not homages. A homage is a tribute to a concept or design based in ones own style. What you did was trace, copy and regurgitate the artwork of other, more talented artists than yourself. to Add insult to injury you didn’t give credit to the original artist. Now you try to equate the atrocious monstrosities you drew to the work of Alex Ross. There is no similarity to what you and he did, even in concept or execution. The Silver Age marvel covers that Alex did were officially commissioned by the copyright holder, Marvel Comics, and drawn and painted in Alex’s own style. He didn’t use a lightbox and badly trace them. Whenever he worked over the artwork that was based on the original he Gave them their proper credit.
    To say it wasn’t about the money is also a disingenuous statement. Of course it was about the money. You traded on the naivety of others by claiming credits on work you had not even a fleeting association with. So either you’re delusional or liar, I know, having had contact with you more times than I care to admit to I vote the latter.

    But you have been very infamous on the comic websites since that first news report. How does it make you feel?

    Mr Rob Granito: “I mean Im surprised it started with one guy, one dude who doesnt even know me, and hes ripping me to shreds without even getting the real story? I mean the thing I want you to think about is that, a good example is a name that came up a lot and he also rips me to shreds, but you know who does a tribute style to the Batman animated universe? Thats Ty Templetom, I mean the dude is doing the same thing. Now thats no disrespect because I love his work but dude is doing the same thing I was doing a homage to how the DC animated universe looks, and nobody is ripping on HIM! Its crazy.”

    Again you seem to miss the point of our collective ire. Ty Templeton, a career cartoonist, was hired by DC Comics to draw the image you stole from him. He had their permission, you did not. You did not have his permission to trace his artwork and exploit it for your greed and self serving motives.

    How do you feel about being the bad boy of comics?

    Mr Rob Granito: “Well I mean I cant say I prepared for it as you know but you know people like controversy and I do have that controversial side to me, to give the people what they want. I mean Im just out to have fun, not hurt people, and if I offended people, dude, relax, I apologize and I’ll try to fix it. But tearing me to shreds like this, I don’t know. I have that controversial side and it seems to have people talking, wondering what Im gonna do next and I understand that. They want excitement, they want the controversy. I mean I was proving it before this started because when Haiti happened, you know the earthquake and stuff, I mean, I dont want people to DIE and my heart goes out but I was like, why should I care about Haiti? Im right here in THIS country. And I mean, people couldnt believe it. But I have that edgy side and I didnt get to show much but its there and I’ll show it when I talk about this on the panel or however it presents itself. If people have made me the bad boy of comics I guess it means I am. That works!”

    You are not the “bad boy of comics” you have done nothing of note to earn that title. I can think of a dozen people who could make that claim before you could ever make such a ridiculous statement. You claimed credit for work you never did or had any association. You claimed relationships with Dwayne McDuffie and Dave Stevens, and that enraged me more than you will ever know. Then on top of everything else, instead of offering any type of actual apology or statement of true remorse, you went shady. You’ve spent the past two weeks trying save your ass by posting on various blogs and websites under at least seven assumed identities? (All originating from the same IP address) There’s nothing you can do to “Fix” what you’ve done outside of genuflecting in front of each creator, photographer, model, company head you stole intellectual property from. You can try to make financial restitution, but I doubt that would satisfy anyone. You can burn every print you’ve made, every piece of cloned artwork you’ve created, and sign an affidavit saying that you will never ever attend another comic book or genre related convention anywhere in the world for the rest of your life. How dare you equate your situation with the tragedy in Haiti but I guess it just shows how much of a sociopath you truly are.

  • Terri Boyle said:

    oh lord… He honestly doesn’t get it. All things aside, doing “homages” would be find if you actually did the work. Lightboxing/projector-ing someone’s work isn’t YOU creating. That’s you ripping off someone who spent hours making/finishing that piece. And here’s a quick clue phone call out for you: Ross does his own artwork. By hand…without “tracing” devices.

    Granito was ripped up by a community pissed off that he stole from people and claimed credits he didn’t earn. There are thousands of people who want to work in the comic industry that won’t. You don’t see them doing what morally-broke Granito did. Pack it up, Bud. Fade away and you’ll be lucky to just walk away with the “emotional” bruises from when this all came to light last month.

  • Rob Granito's Ghost Artist said:

    This is SO bleepin’ stupid, I can’t stop laughing. Rob Granito (and Allison Granito, by proxy), you are NOT the bad boy of comics. You aren’t even IN comics. You’ve never worked in the comics field. You’re not a working artist. You’re an art thief, a common grifter, and there is a very simple of difference between what you do and what others do. They’re artists. You’re not.

    Here’s the deal, Rob (and Allison, who typed up that fake interview with her own husband, pretending she’s his manager and not the poor fool who married him): There is no way that anyone will ever pay you for an interview, let alone for a ticket to a stage show. You’ve never done anything to deserve or merit it.

    What you fail to understand (or, at the very least, disingenuously pretend not to understand) is that what everyone is upset about isn’t that you swipe–it’s that you swindled people by lying about your credentials. Artist rows are intended for artists, and those who sell and sign prints on this rows are assumed to be people who work in the comics and/or animation fields. Those paying you for your prints and signature are doing so under the pretense that you’ve actually worked in the comics and/or animation field, thereby making you relevant to the industry. When you set up a table and lie to people that you worked on the Batman animated series, or that you worked on Calvin & Hobbes, or that you worked for DC and Marvel, or that you worked with Dwayne McDuffie and Dave Stevens, even though NONE of that is true since you don’t have any actual credits to your name and no one in the industry will vouch for you, then you deserve to be in jail, along with other thieves, liars, conmen and lowlife societal dregs.

    You keep comparing yourself to people like Charlie Sheen, Alex Ross and Ty Templeton, who have achieved success in their chosen fields, but the comparison is a ridiculous one, Granito, and here’s why: You’re not Ty Templeton. You’re not Charlie Sheen. You’re not Alex Ross. All three of them worked hard to get where they are, and have actual talent and credentials. They didn’t like, cheat and steal to achieve fame. You did.

    You never belonged on any artist rows, since you’re not a working artist. You’re not a comics professional. You’re not even remotely connected to comics or animation, since you don’t work in those fields. You’re Bernie Madoff, if Bernie Madoff were illiterate and untalented. You stole people’s money based on the false premise that you were an animator, when you were actually just a guy who donned silly-looking overalls under the mistaken impression that artists wear those, smudged your face (but not your hands) with children’s art-set paints that no credible artist would ever really use in their work, slapped paint on the edges of other people’s paintings and photographs to hide the fact that you didn’t create them, and proceeded to sell those fakeries as your own to unsuspecting buyers. And all of the money you took from people for the work you pretended to create was the spoils of a criminal.

    You’re pathetic–and so is your wife, since she can’t even be bothered to learn how to punctuate, spell or write press releases before posing as your manager. You guys are ridiculous and embarrassing, and there will have to come a point at which you’ll both finally realize that giving yourself stupid titles like “the bad boy of comics” only serves to work against you. You can’t be the bad boy of a field you don’t work in, and everyone is mocking you for saying things like that. You want to be taken seriously? Fine. Go away. Stay silent for a year. Stop having your numbnuts wife represent you, since she’s only making you look worse every time she sends something out. Take some art classes. Learn how to create art. Then try putting in an honest and humble day’s work. Until that happens, you’ll continue to be seen as a joke and nothing more.

    Bad boy of comics? No. You have that backwards–you’re the comic of bad boys, in that you’re as inept at criminal activity as you are at painting. You give petty thieves a bad name.

  • shah said:

    Rob u r an ASSHOLE…. Do u even know what is tribute art… U take the whole damn art work of others and claim as ur own… u fabricated ur resume and no ones knows who u r…

    U said u work on Garfield I hope Jim Davis goes after ur ass….really…

  • RC said:

    To paraphrase from Seinfeld: Rob Granito isn’t “the bad boy”, he’s the bad artist, the bad son, the bad friend, the bad businessman, the bad convention guest, the bad credit risk, the bad date, the bad sport, the bad citizen, the bad tipper….

    Hopefully, this “interview preview” will dissuade anyone dumb enough to even have been contemplating paying these clowns from wasting their money–you’re not going to get anything remotely resembling a straight answer from this idiot.

  • Ty Templeton said:

    Well, Rob, you’ve convinced me of your complete innocence. I’m sorry I ever doubted you, or called you a lying, no-talent fraud married to an ugly, stupid cow, who both should be frog marched into jail. That was probably an overreach. You sound like a great guy, especially with that edge of controversy about telling the people of Haiti that you don’t care about their suffering; that takes a bad boy attitude and ramps it up. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize instantly that we’re colleagues in the comics industry together, since I’m doing the same stuff you’re doing, and there’s no difference in our careers.
    Well, that’s over, and we’re all good now, right? Well, except for making sure the Legends of the Ring convention knows how edgy and bad boy you are, so they know to give you a special table, in keeping with your bad boy street cred.
    I knew if there was a way to talk your way back into the good graces of the comics industry, you’d find it. Brilliant PR work, you two. Only a complete and total idiot wouldn’t be convinced by this comeback interview.
    A couple of very minor points, though: you’ve not addressed the part where you pretended to work for Marvel and DC when you didn’t and invented projects that didn’t exist, and then sold your traced-from-other-people’s artwork at criminally inflated prices because people believed you were the person you were posing as. Oh, and you’ve not mentioned the part where you printed out photographs that you didn’t own the rights to, and put them through a photoshop filter and pretended you “painted” them, and sold them as your work. Or the artwork you scanned, and deleted the existing signatures of, and then signed your name over top of where the original signatures were. Or the photographs of you posing in front of the prints of other people’s work, holding brushes in your hand as though you were painting them. Oh, and you didn’t talk about the part where you hired other artists to do convention sketches for you, and then offered prints of those sketches for sale on your website with your signature on them. And you didn’t mention the part where you lied about being a ghost artist for Brian Stelfreze, when cornered that your credentials included work that Brian had actually done. And you didn’t address the part where you pretended to be your own fans on different message boards, calling yourself the Bad Boy of comics, just to see if it caught on.
    But otherwise, it was a completely convincing interview. Welcome back to the warm embrace of the comics community that is willing to forgive and forget. In fact, next time you’re in Toronto, look me up. I’d love to take you out to dinner, and discuss a project I’m writing that I think you’d be perfect for.
    Seriously…come talk to me in person. I’d love to meet you.
    Ty Templeton

  • Rob Granito's Ghost Artist said:

    Ty Templeton, you are my hero.

  • shah said:

    Ty u r hilarious……and my hero too…love u man…

  • Rob Granito's Ghost Artist said:

    Oh, and to Allison Granito: Regarding the name “Rob Granito: Comics Most Wanted!” you might want to properly punctuate the name of your show before shopping it around to prospective venues. I am positive no one will ever let your husband present the show anyway since you’re well-outed as inept frauds, and since there’s NO ONE who wants Rob Granito, in or out of the comics industry. But the very least you could do, as a marketing-person-who-is-not-just-Rob’s-stupid-half-illiterate-wife-wink-wink, is to learn how to use basic punctuation–in this case, an apostrophe, which should appear after “Comics” (unless the show’s title refers to someone’s list of comic books they’d most like to track down in the dealers’ room). The bottom line, Allison: You are entirely incompetent as a marketing person. You show NO ability to write press releases, and everything you’ve sent out to blogs so far has been shockingly awful. It’s as if you’re setting him up to fail. Maybe that’s your goal all along? If so, bravo.

  • Jeff Pedigo said:

    Oh, Rob, don’t forget to clarify on what capacity you “worked on” Calvin & Hobbes and Garfield, too.

  • DJ Biollante Powers said:

    That’s it…there’s no saving him. After he was outed at Megacon, I thought that there was at least be an attempt at redemption (however weak it may be). However, he’s gone so far down the road of selling himself out that it’s become ridiculous. Rob Granito isn’t just a fraud. He’s a prostitute. A whore. A slut.

  • PM Gal said:

    Someday, if this guy ever actually understands what he has done, really SEES what it means to be a real, creative, working artist, he will choke on his tongue and die of shame.

    But, I don’t think that will happen. He is beyond redemption, shame and remorse. He is that dangerous combination of clueless while feeling entitled. He is owed nothing. He owes much. I sincerely hope he does pay, with jail time, financial ruin and shunning.

    The Haiti comment makes my blood run cold. I think that, more than anything, should seal his fate.

  • Tom Luth said:

    So, Rob will be doing sketches at Legends of the Ring? Don’t tell me, he will be doing drawings of Andre the Giant swiped from Shepard Fairey? “Obey,” indeed.

    BTW, having worked as an assistant in the past to a few comics artists, the idea of taking any credit for this is beyond absurd. It was a great opportunity and a training ground for me, not a place to boast my creds in public. I don’t list these on my resumes, or elsewhere. I only list gigs where my name can be seen in the credits. So, the idea of taking credit for work one hasn’t done makes me very uncomfortable. Altering your claims, later on when cornered, to ghost artist, assistant, or whatever doesn’t help much.

    Rob, grow up, and start a new career in a completely different field.

    t

  • God Of Thunder said:

    Wow, that was so stupid, it’s actually funny.

  • nando said:

    wow, this asshat finds new and better ways to dig his hole deeper, huh?

    meanwhile, to TY and Jamal, your art rocks!
    congratulations for being well known for producing good art and not for lying, cheating, stealing, etc..

    since when does anyone consider it desireable to be a ‘bad boy’ of art.
    in that title alone he’s admitting he sucks at comics.

    cheers,

  • Rob Granito's Ghost Artist said:

    Not to worry, folks. Rob will NOT be at the wrestling con. This is an official statement from promoters of Legends of the Ring: “We have absolutely no idea who Rob Granito is. This is a WRESTLING EVENT… NOT and I REPEAT NOT a COMIC BOOK event… Mr Granito has NOT contacted us for a table and even if he did the tables are long sold out!” So fear not, gentle beings… Rob Granito has been lying yet again.

  • William Cash said:

    Uhm, forgive me for interjecting, but did anyone also mention that the Cad who shall not be named also dropped the names of deceased professionals as if he had known them personally – which is the reason why Mark Waid went on the prowl in the first place?
    Just thought I would bring that up to make sure all bases are covered.

  • Scott said:

    So it looks like he’s getting out of drawing comic characters badly and will now be drawing wrestling characters badly. You KNOW he’s stocking up on bodybuilding magazines as we speak, looking for photos to trace off of. You KNOW it. lol

    As long as he’s not at comic conventions, he can fleece the ignorant wrestling fans, I guess.

  • Rich said:

    Wouldnt you need to actually have worked on at least ONE comic to call yourself the Comics Most Wanted or the bad boy of comics. If not I used to pretend I was an astronaut as a kid, I’ll start calling myself NASA’s most Wanted. I’ll start doing interviews about how NASA is keeping me from going into space because my only experience is claiming to be the first man to walk on the moon and lies about working on the movie Apollo 13.

  • Joe Corroney said:

    Great post, Jamal. Well said.

  • xevo said:

    Rob Granito is the Milton Berle of comics.