Did Marvel and Disney just rip off a Dutch hardcore band’s artwork?

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By ( Metal Hammer ) published

A graphic artist has called out Disney+ and Marvel for similarity between Werewolf By Night poster and T-shirt artwork for hardcore band Born From Pain

Wolf posters
(Image credit: Midi/Disney+)

A graphic artist has accused Marvel and Disney of ripping off a piece of artwork made for Dutch hardcore band Born From Pain.

Estonian-born artist Midi called out Marvel on Twitter, claiming that the poster for recent Disney+ show Werewolf By Night bore a striking resemblance to a design created in 2016 for one of the band’s T-shirts, based on the song Lonewolf.

Midi tweeted: “I might be crazy but did marvel just rip me off? I did this art for born from pain around 6 years ago.”

The artist showed shots of the two pieces of art side by side, pointing out similarities between specific details in the images: “As a vector artist i can tell that these rounded ends mean the art was auto traced and then edited.”

Midi added: “Thing is a lot of these lines are mistakes because i was inexperienced in animal heads, and they copied my mistakes, which i clearly see.”

Speaking to The Direct, Midi expanded on the similarities, pointing to the animal’s chin, teeth and snout. MIdi claimed that the original image was “traced” in a vector graphics program, before elements were digitally manipulated.

“It's very hard to find art since I'm a lesser-known artist outside of the niches I work in, but I interact with a lot of comic book artists and I have this art In my Twitter feed and on my Instagram page. My wild guess is that this designer/artist saw my interaction with other comic book artists and saw this art, or was following me.”

After several other Twitter users offered their support, Midiankai said that “legal steps” had been taken. The artist tweeted: "Didn't expect this to blow up and thought I'd be ridiculed for this, but I'm so overwhelmed with the support I've received from this community! From my side, i already took some legal steps towards this case. Once again, thank you for your tremendous support."

Metal Hammer
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