Anyone else remember "Hook-ups"?

[Heero]

this would actually make a great Let's Anime blog post. I had no idea Hook-Ups was so blatant in its copyright theft. It's one thing to borrow images from works that were never released in North America, but Akira and Gatchaman? Come on.

I'm honestly more "impressed" with the with the game character usage (especially the Capcom ones) since most of those have/had a much larger footprint in the US than your typical anime company (foreign or domestic).

[greg]

this would actually make a great Let's Anime blog post.

"Make it so!"

[usamimi]

It was very common and still is today for skaters to be somewhat guerrilla artists, either borrowing or stealing someone else's artwork and adding their flair to it for self promotion. Not that I am defending him or them.

Now that you mention that, you're right. I remember seeing one skateboard that was essentially the album cover to The Sundays' "Blind" album and I thought it was the coolest thing ever (I loved that album and Harriet Wheeler's voice). Ironically, the dude who had it didn't even know who the band was. Not surprising, since a typical skater wouldn't be into The Smiths-inspired dreampop. I do remember seeing so many other style copies used for skateboards.

It is true that skaters (and street artists as well) do that kind of stuff, mostly out of a love of the style/genre, but at the same time, selling stickers, t-shirts, and skateboards with basically stolen artwork on 'em probably wasn't the brightest thing to do. It makes me wonder if anyone ever did try to contact Klein and ask him to stop. I tried Googling about it but came up empty handed. It's good to see that it seems for the most part, they're sticking to their own art now, at least.

But in a way, this is sort of...quintessentially 90s, isn't it? Obviously, an anime fan (Klein) loved the art/style of anime, and I'd like to think he wanted to share that love with others who also dug it (because, really, in the 90s there weren't many t-shirt options for anime fans outside of the official stuff that only a couple of companies were releasing...which wasn't much, if I recall.) And something like this might've been some kids' gateway into the style, too, if they didn't know what it was or where it came from. (I mean, like I said, I didn't "get" a lot of these until I really looked at them just recently!)

[_D_]

Well, even today official T shirts and stuff out of Japan simply won't fit the average teen or adult over here. I took measurements for the new Yamato 2199 tees and their adult size large was about a teen medium over here. Definitely no XL size shirts. That seems to be the norm for shirts from Marvel and DC over here though (Adult M, L and XL). Ah well...

[Animusubi]

There are still companies basically stealing anything comics/anime related for merchandise. I remember Fuego was selling Sanrio/San-X/shoujo manga (with CCS, Sailor Moon, etc) coin purses a few years ago. None of them had the official logos on them.

Hot Topic still sells shirts from companies with stolen art on them too. There was a Battletoads t-shirt they had sold there with fanart from a well-known comic artist on it, done without his permission. And there's plenty of others there too.

Nintendo and Disney I know for sure sue companies using their work without permission. Others just don't bat an eye at it. Still it's surprising there was nothing on Hook-Ups, but I guarantee I showed this to artists and people in the art community, there might be more people talking about it and maybe doing something about it.

[usamimi]

There are still companies basically stealing anything comics/anime related for merchandise. I remember Fuego was selling Sanrio/San-X/shoujo manga (with CCS, Sailor Moon, etc) coin purses a few years ago. None of them had the official logos on them.

Hot Topic still sells shirts from companies with stolen art on them too. There was a Battletoads t-shirt they had sold there with fanart from a well-known comic artist on it, done without his permission. And there's plenty of others there too.

Yeah, but most of those companies aren't very large or popular, right? I know Hook-ups was never THAT big, but it did have a lot of popularity in the 90s and still seems to...

Oh man, speaking of Hot Topic! In their newest mass email they just sent out used this person's Sailor Moon fanart to promote their Sailor Moon products. I did a reverse image search on Google to find the original drawing (took less than 5 minutes to find), and the artist confirmed that she was not asked permission, and she's emailed them about it but has yet to get any response. What I don't get is that HT sells LEGIT Sailor Moon merch, so why did they chose to steal someone's fanart instead of using one of the literally HUNDREDS of official Sailor Moon promo art out there? O___o Ugh.

[_D_]

I remember all the knock off stuff out of China back 20 years ago. Manga, CDs, scrolls, etc. Taiwan was the worst as they claimed that since they never signed the Berne Convention documents that they were exempt. That might have been okay for their domestic consumption but then they started to export stuff big time. Remember all those Nintendo carts with the multi games on them? Man, everything back then was knock-off city. And it was hard to seize goods coming into the country as the laws didn't support it. As China got bigger though I notice a lot more licensed stuff from there at least through official channels. If there is knock-off stuff, I haven't seen it as we have no Chinese sellers like down in Toronto (ie. Pacific Mall). What's it like elsewhere these days?

[davemerrill]

When I first moved to Toronto (2004), the Pacific Mall and its ancillary Markham Chinatown malls were jam packed with all kinds of obviously not legit anime merchandise; DVDs, VCDs, CDs, the occasional old VHS. The Spadina Chinatown had four separate video stores selling bootleg anime DVDs, and even the old Chinatown on Gerrard had a few shops. Nowadays the anime boom is definitely over; there are still a few shops selling anime titles along with J-dramas and K-dramas and Pinoy and Vietnamese videos, but the all-anime shops have closed except for "Anime Xtreme" on Spadina, which surprisingly enough has mostly legit merchandise. The one last anime-only DVD store in the Pacific Mall has switched over to airsoft guns.

Pacific Mall used to be widely known as your headquarters for bootleg DVDs of Hollywood movies, but the MPAA staged a well-publicized crackdown and suddenly all the video shops started displaying signs reading "Asian movies only". It's still a fun place to shop, especially on holidays when it's the only thing open, but it's no longer bootleg headquarters.

Not that I endorse the purchase of gray-market items, you understand, but a lot of really obscure titles made their way to the Chinese market. It's the only place I ever saw any sort of release whatsoever of 'Prowes Sanshiro', for instance, and it's where I found out about the Chinese animated series 'Calabash Boy'.

[_D_]

Yeah, The Peg had a lot of stuff that was bootleg but I think the shops have all closed down. The best place for videos in the old days was Global Video. Lots of great laser disc material from there and started me off with my love affair with Chinese martial arts and other films. I was really sad to see it go some years ago...

[usamimi]

I know in Seattle, the International Models & Toys shop still sells a fair amount of bootleg stuff...the guy who runs the place will try to tell you that they're "legal releases from China", but we all know that's a load of crap. I was surprised that they STILL carry old SonMay CDs in there, not to mention old bootleg posters (though they have official wallscrolls now, too) and modest amount of bootleg DVDs with a few legit ones mixed in. It always made me wonder if some of their model kits were bootleg as well, but I have no way of knowing the difference, myself.