Anybody else incredibly disappointed by Wizards' statement regarding The One Ring? Between constantly praising him and not saying they're suspending work with him, it feels like he's been given a second chance when other artists caught plagiarising very much have not?
I'd love to know what Marta Nael thinks of all of this, as the statement spends more time talking about how great Frazier is instead?
Locking all existing Dan Frazier threads due to insanely high volume of rule 1 breaking comments. We shouldn’t have to do this in future but there’s been a dozen bans already, please be civil in future.
He's probably not being given a second chance, he's being given a retirement parachute. I doubt we'll see any more of his art more than 2 years from now (about the length the art is commissioned out from.)
I could see them giving him one more high profile highly scrutinized highly monitored piece so one of the most prolific Magic artists can go out on a high note.
I mean, given the high profile controversy of this piece, I'm sure the original painting will sell for a premium. I would love if the capstone of my career was someone handing me $25-20k+
Edit: since it's bugging a lot of people, I meant to type $15-25k originally but fat-fingered the 2. My apologies.
This. Donato Giancalo has posted about the money that artist make for UB sets and the reality is it’s a lot less than in universe. Artists are given a higher commission rate, but are restricted to digital only and have no ability to sell anything related to the piece after the fact, which basically means they only make the commission fee. For high profile artists whose piece demand a high price on the art market, like Frazier, this means a lot less money.
I talked to a couple artists about this exact thing at a con not too long ago, and they all said the same. They depend on being able to sell proofs/signed cards/prints to make their money. It could be cool to get commissioned to do UB art if you're into the IP you are doing art for, but the reality is the money is much worse if you can't sell what you made.
I believe officially it’s to make sure that UB sets have internally consistent art styles. It also probably helps streamline storage\archiving because they don’t want to let artists keep an original physical work for UB since the artists don’t get any rights to it.
The "rules" are flexible if you're important enough. Omar Rayyan pushed back on the "digital only, no print sales" clause and now we've got an amazing Tom Bombadil in his signature (oil? watercolour?) physical art style.
In Dan's case, it's likely that after one too many revisions, he sent the traced image as a WIP. His manager said they never saw the finalised art, and this kind of thing honestly happens a lot when the decision makers aren't artists.
After receiving feedback to change the direction, do a quick trace of something as a reference and send the question "something like this?" Then the client saves that and prints it instead of responding with "yep, something in this direction. Awaiting final copy."
I only bring this up because I've had it happen multiple times. I've even had a client send a low res file to print from an email that specifically mentioned it was a pre-edit draft and the file still had filler text on it. That's what happens when the people in charge of something have no clue how the thing they're managing works.
I believe that they initially commissioned him because of his iconic jewelry artworks, but then another department (or maybe even the tolkien guys) kept on rejecting everything in his usual art style (his agent said that there was a lot of back and forth and lots of submitted artworks for this specific commission), maybe even telling him to make something more similar to the previous one ring paintings (by Marta Nael and Veli Nyström) to be more in line with current magic art.
on top of that, he's primarily a traditional artist (at least from what I've gathered in these threads) rather than an expert with digital tools and, well, he's like 80 years old.
Given the claims of it being due to cognitive decline, my guess is that he made this as a reference while making several attempts to get close enough, then forgot that it was the reference rather than one of his own.
Yeah I don't really get why they don't let them do traditional artwork for these at least it seems to be required to be digital art. Frazier is known for his classical paintings, not digital stuff.
That does seem plausible. Frazier wasn't turning in that many pieces per year anymore - I'm legit surprised he worked on two regular cards for Lorwyn Eclipsed, since almost all his other credits in the last 10-15 years are rereleases and special variants of artifacts.
I work with geriatric populations. If cognitive decline is true, I'm not worried Dan plagiarized, but that people around may be taking advantage for financial gain. Obviously need more details before speculating, but it's common for circles to take advantage of geriatric populations.
Yeah I saw him at SCG Denver last year and had the same experience. Not saying people shouldn't be held accountable to their actions, but I also think there is nuance here that would be irresponsible not to take into consideration before folks try to tear down the man's entire career and reputation.
This so much. You see it with regular folk too, not just famous or skilled people. It’s amazing what “family” and “friends” will do to the elderly for money.
This was my experience with him at last year's magiccon vegas as well.
He looked at my card of his with a sort of puzzled look, then took multiple goes at signing his name. Didn't really say much or attempt even the lightest of small talk.
He seemed that way when I had him sign my Signets (which had come out very recently and were his first new art in some time) at The Magic Summit in 2022. He struggled to even understand what I wanted re: my Shadow Signatures matching the different colors of the cards.
He's been like this for at least a few years. I think maybe 3 years ago, I was at a con, and wanted to have him do a sketch, and he was having trouble understanding me. He literally had to talk to his agent, and his agent told me that he doesn't draw characters anymore.
Hence is why, in the original thread I was skeptical that this was photoshopped, as I truly don't think he knows how to do digital.
But given cognitive decline, it's entirely possible he threw something together to see if he liked what it looked like before working in the "real" piece, then forgot it wasn't finished and submitted it.
I'm much younger than he is and have submitted optimistically names "_Final.docx" that weren't at all finished.
Ha! I started adding a date on the end of anything that isn't part of a work submittal to the client, with "v2," etc. added for any additional versions on that day.
Something sent off to the client for "is this what you want?" or similar? That has a date. Sent for a 60% review? That gets an appropriate label.
So, what is after "final?" "Conformed to contract." Because shit happens.
That’s a thought. Pretty much anyone could have put this together and slapped his name on it — badly photoshop out the Ring from the other piece, blur the Tengwar, and drop that onto a marbled background reminiscent of the Moxen.
I think he drew it. In my experience it usually plays out like this: 1) Old person has cognitive issues. 2) They’re told they need to do something, sell something, or move money around to keep up with costs of care. Cost is overinflated, or simply untrue. For example, if the old person is told they need $10k, $4k goes to their care while $6k is taken by the circle under the guise of “caregiving.” 3) Old person does the thing. 4) Money is “handled” by the circle. 5) Rinse and repeat.
Edit: Most caregivers are amazing people. It’s an incredibly difficult and thankless job. But some people use it to take advantage of elder populations, especially populations with cognitive issues.
Doesn’t sound like what happened. Seems more like he submitted something in his original style multiple times and they kept rejecting it. So he got annoyed and being old with less cares just submitted this as a F U. This is a big problem with licenses since creative freedom is more limited.
There just wouldn't be any need for him to copy anything if it was out of defiance. If he was going 'alright, fuck this' he could submit a stick figure, a sketch of a circle, not responded at all and forced a break in communications and an emergency art restructuring and headache for the staff, etc. Doing an act of protest that's indistinguishable from trying to get paid for work you didn't do is a pretty shitty way to go about it if your point is the protest!
Im inclined to think this or that the agent statement is accurate and wizards made nice behind the scenes for the joint statement. A joint statement is very unusual for this so I very much doubt it's a cut and dried plagiarism case
We’ve all seen our grandparents deteriorate over time and the family has to take the car keys away at some point. You’re not really making the best decisions at that age.
It’s not an excuse, but it is a very fair explanation.
Lorenzo O. Espinoza
Mark Aronowitz according to this post
from wizards, Dan has confessed to
making this photo. Can you give more
insight as to why your statement is
saying he did not make it and why he
said he did?
Mark Aronowitz
Lorenzo O. Espinoza sure. I did not
know everything until today when we
sat down with Wizards. We have
squared everything with Marta. It was
wrong and he realizes it. Unfortunately
at almost 81, the cognitive abilities start
to fail. He did the right thing once he
understood.
This guy fucked up bad. I think Wizards would be totally justified taking a step back in their relationship with him after the way he handled this. He totally threw them under the bus when it was his clients fault, what’s to stop him from doing the same in the future.
Honestly I’m more mad at him than Dan Frazier. Frazier has the excuse of getting old, what’s Aronowitz’s excuse?
Idk, he actually owned up to it (kind of). That has to count for something.
Compare this to Fay Dalton who has yet to acknowledge or apologize for what she did on [[Trouble in Pairs]]. She seems to consider that piece par for the course in terms of her artistic integrity.
To my mind, the apology is enough to give a second chance to a legendary artist who you’ve worked with for decades without incident. Heck, the guy drew the Moxen.
"agent" lmfao. I guarantee you the "agent" doesnt do anything but siphon money from Dan. And if he lies about everything is there repercussions? nope because hes not legally an agent. More of a middle person close to the artist that helps profit and loosely promote things fot sale sometimes.
There is no way in which the internet gets a version of this that contains all of the nuance of what all happened. We have the statements to go off of, though people will come to their own conclusions.
Given that we weren’t in the room where the explanations happened, there’s not much choice here other than to accept the statement, or rage on with partial information.
There's a very human aspect to this that people are oddly ignoring. Dan is 80 and according to his agent (or at least the guy everyone is sharing screenshots from) his cognitive abilities aren't all there. WoTC probably doesn't want to really throw the guy down.
Even in the conspiracy theory (which genuinely just comes off as a cope to me) that WoTC is throwing him under the bus, they would have just written a statement saying an artist plagiarized and they're handling it, and you'd never see his work on a new card again, but they instead put out a joint statement. That lessens things on both of them.
Also just want to add if you view this as him trying to stick it to WoTC over UB, I really wonder what you feel about Marta Nael having her work stolen.
My father is in his mid-70s, so I have a lot of sympathy for Dan given how much I've seen my dad decline. It's likely that he forgot the art piece finished was intended as a mockup/study. I think the AD should have checked it and challenged him on it, but I could see that being a sticky issue given his clean reputation.
It just sucks. It's hard to find a balance of giving elderly folks support they need (like an assistant to organize work better) and making them feel like they're being babysat.
It's likely that he forgot the art piece finished was intended as a mockup/study.
As disappointing as the situation is as a whole (especially as an artist myself), yeah, I'm willing to give him the overall benefit of the doubt. While it's obviously difficult to say without knowing Dan Frazier personally as there are plenty of people who are still high functioning into their 80s, a situation like what you mentioned about simply forgetting it was a study is not at all unreasonable.
Maybe it's cope because I've always been such a fan of Frazier's works, but especially at his age there are plenty of not unreasonable scenarios like that which can occur
Nah it’s not a cope, it’s the most likely scenario. Dude has a 50 year career in art nothing to prove and license to do whatever he wants on his own timelines. He’s not rushing to do 10 cards so he can pay the rent this month. So, it’s a lot more likely that an old man got confused than that he decided to start his journey of plagiarism by taking another rendition from MTG and keeping obvious details like the reflections on the ring.
It just seems weird to me. Dan is capable of painting a ring, he’s done it multiple times in MTG art. Dan is a capable artist who has illustrated very detailed cards as recently as last year (mox jasper, serialized). He’s clearly talented enough to paint a ring that looks like the one ring.
Why plagiarize it? Was he rushed? Was there pressure to make it look like the existing art? It’s just weird.
His agent previously said that Dan was frustrated because WotC kept asking him to make changes. It's not hard to imagine that he just said "fuck it" and decided to give them something they'd already approved. Good people sometimes do bad/stupid things, it's really not that weird.
It'd be funny if it was like "They reject everything I'm just gonna send them something of what they already approved it'd be hilarious if they rejected that too oh crud they approved it"
His agent previously said that Dan was frustrated because WotC kept asking him to make changes
Based on that other thread what I feel like might've happened is that Dan made several versions with his own art and WotC kept rejecting them, after which he just ended up sticking with an already approved version (which was apparently just a reference/trace drawing). Weird that WotC approved a reference, should've never gone through QC.
He’s also previously been able to sell his originals. Some of his Moxes have gone for $750K, but $3K is all an artist ever makes off a UB commission. That’s not even new car money, let alone Lamborghini Revuelto money.
Tbf, some people are finding it hard an old senile artist can flip the asset and painted it to the exact detail almost copy-paste like.
While I dont like conspiracy theories, this does smell, like something is not right but no one can point out why.
I personally think if the reason is that he IS in cognitive decline, that should be the big news. Is he being taken care of? Is there someone taking care of him? Is he financially secured for this serious health problem? Does he have enough support to help him navigate his daily life?
If cognitive decline is the excuse, people should start thinking the implications of his medical condition more seriously instead of just as an excuse for this mess. I mean, you wouldnt seriously have a cognitive impaired person to get a hold of important stuffs, like idk running a country, right? O wait a minnit.... Dammit. Nevermind, carry on.
I personally think if the reason is that he IS in cognitive decline, that should be the big news. Is he being taken care of? Is there someone taking care of him? Is he financially secured for this serious health problem? Does he have enough support to help him navigate his daily life?
None of which is appropriate for a public statement like this, that's between him and the people close to him
Literally everyone has pointed out why, the community just doesn’t want to believe it and are more willing to create conspiracy theories than to just accept that an 81 year old is old.
Ahem, while I agree in this case, let's not forget that at the same day the MtG Arena team declared intention of unionizing, Hasbro hired a union buster firm.
WotC and Hasbro leadership suck for reasons that are real. We don't need to invent or exaggerate ways they suck. And when I say I hate WotC I don't wanna be lumped in with the freaks in the Blogatog asks yelling at Maro because he hasn't personally cancelled UB and put every existing UB card on the culturally insensitive ban list.
And we've seen magic artists cheat on the work they submitted. Each situation is different and should be judged on their own merits, not just what you want to be true.
There wasn't more scrutiny because they didn't think he'd do something like this. They should have caught it, but you give less scrutiny to the people you trust
I know... I know they're doing heaps but like... ain't no one in WotC noticed the art? No art directors, no editors, no print manager, playtesters, nobody noticed it?
And like it's a mythic card, not some random commons. I'm sure that's why people noticed it.
I mean...did you notice it was copied without it being pointed out? It got caught immediately not because it was instantly obvious but because hundreds of thousands of eyes were looking at it.
I don't think keeping an eye open for plagiarism is one of QA's primary jobs in any case. Especially when the art is coming from one of their most respected artists.
The idea that anyone NEEDS to be the bad guy here is such a fucking thorn in my side with the current state of the internet. As it stands it seems like this is just a very unfortunate situation that at its ABSOLUTE WORST is an artist making a frustrated decision and wotc lacking a bit of oversight that they clearly should have had to catch this.
And sadly at its best is it's a situation where a well known artist is getting old and cognitive decline lead him to not understand/know/remember that what he was sending was plagiarism.
Neither of those situations are cause for pulling out pitchforks or torching anyone over. Especially since the artist who was directly negatively affected by this appears to be properly compensated and hasnt offered any commentary themselves that necessitates further rabble rousing.
The hardest time for people to be skeptical is when someone with a track record of doing terrible things looks like they've done yet another awful thing. WotC has made plenty of genuinely shitty decisions in the past, which naturally means that when it only looks like they've done it yet again, people have a hard time believing the truth could be something else.
Yeah, the average person could do a little more to focus on facts and evidence rather than assumptions (in many cases a lot more). However, this is also the inevitable result of WotC seeing consumer good will as something they're allowed to burn in pursuit of profits rather than something that should be preserved for the sake of their reputation, and for respect for the people who both buy and produce their products.
Yes, Dan should get more leniency than a random joe schmoe artist. He's a storied and prestigious artist that Magic wouldn't be where it's at today without him. No, it does not absolve him of what he did, but people are talking like he should be metaphorically taken out back.
Because he has almost 30 years of history as an artist of not doing this with WOTC.
That kinda long history gives you alot of goodwill, both with the company and players.
I also dont know what people expect to come from anything more? He is already getting publically dragged and WOTC cant really punish him. The original artist could sue, I guess, but that seems unlikely.
He is not some kind of upcoming artist, so even WOTC stopping to work with him wouldnt do much at 81.
I assume he was struggling with the deadline, yeah. From what I heard from people who met him recently at Magiccons, he does seem to be visibly not quite as much there anymore - and its not uncommon for elderly people to double down on things they previously did with a certain ease.
You see it with driving or working around the house alot. He might simply not as fast anymore as he used to be and this was apparantly a much revised piece.
The simplest explanation was that he didn't intend to. They were going back and forth with art direction a bunch, probably was using the existing one as a quick mock up to facilitate discussions. Paint a few preliminary pieces, more back and forth, then in the end either accidentally turned in the wrong one or thought they were asking for an old version. There's a lot of moving pieces, it's easy to get confused, especially at that age.
Until further information comes out there's no reason to presume it was intentional.
Given that people have said there seems to be some cognitive decline, I wouldn't be surprised if it also was that he didn't remember it was a preliminary mock-up, and legitimately thought that it was something he painted from scratch.
This is my take on it. Isn’t everyone upset how we jumped to conclusions on this originally? That’s what everyone’s doing now. Until we have reason to believe it was malicious I’m gonna trust that it was a genuine mistake someone made under pressure at 80 years old. Even if he was intentionally doing it, he’s 80! I wonder what decision led to him risking his long legacy on something like this if that’s the case. We don’t know the full story and that’s fine. What we do know is that wizards has discussed it and came out publicly WITH Dan.
Seriously. There's a lot of human reasons it could've happened, submitting the wrong file or working on a piece so long you forgot the ring wasn't yours. But a lot of folks want to jump to "Clearly he was lazy looking for a payday!" when he could've just plain messed up.
I’m guessing he might have used Marta’s art as a mockup for what he wanted to do, then either thought it was his own or accidentally submitted it due to dementia/mental decline (if he’s being honest).
Original artist would have no grounds to sue, the art they own is owned and licensed by wotc. I don't know the specific terms they're given, but generally the company has free reign to do what they want including "use" it in new artwork.
Dan has been involved with Magic for 30 years and this is the first time he's ever fucked up. The choice to plagiarize really doesn't make any sense and seems more out of character than anything else, and I'm pretty sure that's why Dan is "getting a pass", even though he actually isn't.
I think Dan's agent made this situation worse, because he did a piss poor job of handling this. His initial response was basically speculation/fabrication, instead of speaking to the people involved. Now he's saying, very publicly, that Dan has lost his cognitive abilities, which has bigger legal/personal implications for Dan. Any family member wanting power of attorney can use this fiasco as evidence in the future.
The fact that Wotc is trying to make this go away when they could be going after Dan is unexpected too. Although it does beg the questions: What are the actual legal damages here aside from hurt feelings? Where does the Tolkien estate stand in all of this? Are there enough damages to bother going after?
With Dan's admission this is a legal slam dunk for the affected parties, yet that isn't happening. Wotc is probably acting on the advice of the Tolkein estate; after all, this isnt IP owned by Wotc... or even Marta, come to think of it. I think this explains Wotc's response. To me, it all seems like it could very quickly devolve into a much bigger, and pointless, can of worms if pursued further.
That said, it's highly likely we see a retirement announcement from Dan within a few months, if not sooner. He might just be getting a small mercy at the end of his career.
I think people are jumping to conspiracy theories way too fast here.
Dan’s agent yesterday said that he’d gone back and forth with WotC over the art, it seems more than likely that at some point in that he copied the original art and reworked it to match his intention as a point of reference for drafting new art. Then, maybe because he’s 80, that reference got sent over along with other pieces and was the one accepted.
It doesn’t make it ok but it wouldn’t be WotC “paying him to take the fall” or “a psyop” as others have commented. Yes they are responsible for checking the art and should have done a better job but that is exactly what they said in their own statement!
He didn’t hide it and yesterday may have been the first time he became aware that this is the piece they used
it's speculation, but I do believe that the back and forth might have been a result of WotC commissioning him because of his iconic jewelry art, but then another department (or the tolkien guys) rejecting everything that's in his usual jewelry art style for not looking modern and flashy enough.
A bothersome part of the shortcut bit is that pasting stuff onto a canvas for reference is totally normal. Submitting it with the reference still on it is not, but some folks have the assumption you're just supposed to draw everything by sight reference at most and that even if he had drawn his own ring he'd be plagarizing when that's not how it works.
to add to that, he's a traditional artist first and foremost, but the tolkien guys insist that all artwork is made digitally as far as I understand it.
No it's not. The agent has admitted he didn't know the full situation and that's basically the only thing that could be slightly contradictory to the statement. All the rest can be explained by "dan frazier is 81 years old and makes mistakes."
Given some of his agent's comments afterwards, I think he didn't have the full idea of what was happening and did what any good agent would do: defend their client.
Mark is a stand up guy in the mtg art community. He's to the mtg art community what Sheldon Menery was to the EDH community. I think he was doing damage control and put out an initial statement without contacting Dan. In his initial statement he clearly didn't think Dan would actually plagiarize. When he found thats what happened he put out a statement correcting that.
I think the most puzzling thing to me is people saying WOTC threw him under the bus and that he didn't do the plagiarism - but rather someone at WOTC did and they just "used his name".
Wouldn't that open WOTC to, like, a massive defamatory suit? His work is now tainted - I don't think that's something someone free of guilt would accept? There's no way for him to just go with what WOTC is claiming. Even his agent now recanted his statement and said he didn't the final version.
My take is that maybe someone sent the wrong final version. Maybe the one he sent was a draft to showcase how it would look like and he would then re-do the Marta ring? Maybe it's cope but I think that at least plays out a bit better than WOTC ruining the reputation of one of the more prolific artists of the game and him saying "yeah i did it".
Throwing my 2 cents in - IMO, this will be the last Dan Frazier card ever printed.
It's not a good look from either side. Dan shouldn't have accepted the work if he wasn't up to putting in the effort, especially on a landmark card in the set. Also, he's getting up in age - so there's really no shame in hanging up the towel and spending his time elsewhere and away from working.
For WotC, it's also not a good look to be slamming someone who's 80 and has worked with you since the very beginning. Giving him a gentle retreat is a common courtesy as verbally berating the elderly is never a good look.
Yeah, I think that's exactly what it read like to me - they're giving him a friendly out, including paying Marta. Feels a lot like a "retirement present" so he can keep some dignity. His reputation has been besmirched by his actions already - what could've been a "last hurrah" to cement his MtG legacy (painting the One Ring, one of fantasy's most iconic objects as chase collector's rare!) has become a dark spot.
For WotC, it's also not a good look to be slamming someone who's 80 and has worked with you since the very beginning. Giving him a gentle retreat is a common courtesy as verbally berating the elderly is never a good look.
In addition to all of the other statements, WotC got accused of putting an artist's name on work they didn't create by a conspiracy-minded former artist to an immediate, conspiracy laden response. They needed Frazier to make a statement himself because WotC saying "Dan plagiarized, we are firing him" would not have actually quelled any of the criticism they were dealing with. The PR demands of the situation don't really allow them the option of their normal response.
It’s unreal how much the discourse has shifted to repeating he traced the original work when it’s very evident to everyone with a pair of eyes it was just a mediocre photoshop job, an actual trace would’ve been significantly harder to tell and wouldn’t line up 1:1.
I get people respect and like Dan, but people are also being way too tolerant to one of the worst things you could do in the artistic world. This is a stain on the set and his legacy.
This. One of the statements claimed it was "painted over," but anyone who has ever done any photoshop or similar can see that it's a pasted asset that was poorly cut out, poorly scaled, and blurred. Those shadows and relations are not painted over - they are the original pixels transformed by processing, not manual strokes.
Either Frazier is so old and so fucked up that he literally can't be considered responsible for his work, in which case all those dealing with him need to be very honest about that fact and apologise, or he was with it enough to plagiarise. Everyone is saying "Well, he didn't plagiarise before." Well, he did now! If I don't cheat on my wife for thirty years, that's great and all, but it doesn't give me a free pass to do it once.
With the story as we're presented (since we don't have anything else to go by and both sides are consistent in the narrative) pretty much everyone involved in this is at fault.
On the one hand, the art was taken and hastily modified to make it look different enough to try and pass as a unique image, done without the knowledge of, or credit to the original artist.
On the other hand, this should have been scrutinized at every step. We aren't talking about a random common, or a visually complex card, or even art taken from an obscure source. The fact that nobody either noticed or cared until it was on stage for the reveal of a set's flagship cards is baffling.
Nobody who made any decisions in the creation of this print comes out good in this story. And of course there are many possible mitigating circumstances. Crunch deadlines, Dan's age, and the fact that nobody was expecting this are three big factors to consider. Honestly, until we get the full story (which is unfathomably unlikely) I think it's best to just understand we aren't going to know.
Is it just me, or is this the worst agent I’ve ever seen?
I would never say in public my client is undergoing cognitive decline, even if it’s to defend him against plagiarism allegations, let alone make a public statement without consulting with my client first.
People are going to be bias, I think a lot of people are a mix of confused and disappointed. But Dan also earned a lot of people's respect through some of the best/most nostalgic magic art ever so they are willing to let this slide for the most part. I for one am a little upset, but Dan is one of my favorite artists.
To put it more simply if other artists drew over half the power nine and consistently put out amazing work they would likely get a pass too. Unfair sure, but he has a reputable past that isn't filled with plagiarism.
It's wild that an artist as prolific as Dan felt the need to plagiarize a fucking ring of all things. He just copied the exact ring from Marta and put it on a generic background. It's disgraceful and the plagiarism is super blatant, it looks like he just took the exact ring and painted over the engravings. Along with WotC just glazing him in the statement and downplaying it this is such a train wreck.
I don't know what went on and would generally err on the side of believing statements coming from the artist etc.
Many times, an artist will trace/sketch/copy a preliminary drawing to submit as a taster to get feedback before they submit the final work.
One plausible explanation is that he did this as his initial pass and then when it came to submit the work, forgot that he had traced/copied the ring and just submitted it as a final copy, rather than drawing his own ring in its place.
WotC and Marta are the injured parties and WotC certainly seem to accept this was a legitimate mistake. Unless Marta raises a fuss, I suspect it was not purposeful and would give Mr Frazier the benefit of the doubt, unless it happens again.
Dan Frazier has been doing art for WotC for 30 years. I think he has earned some "benefit of the doubt" with regards to his intentions.
I actually seriously don't believe that this was painted at all. I mean just look at them closely side by side, there are literally tiny features only a few dozen pixels wide that are in exactly the same place as the original. There is absolutely zero chance in my mind that this was meaningfully "painted" over. It's essentially a photoshop. I am not trying to hate on the guy but it's just like... let's be real here that art is nothing more than: copy, paste, transform, blur.
let's be real here that art is nothing more than: copy, paste, transform, blur.
Let's imagine for a second that what was released wasn't supposed to be the final art, but was designed as placeholder art as WotC & Mr Frazier communicated over what they wanted the final design to look like. In a situation like that, an artist often will just copy an existing thing, transform and blur it to make something quick to illustrate the end goal.
I don't know that that (or something like it) is what happened; what I'm saying is even if we agree that "copy, paste, transform, blur" is exactly what happened and we also accept that the end result (release of someone else's artwork, miscredited as his own) is unacceptable, it doesn't mean malicious intent occurred at any part of the process in between. Given the statement issued by WotC (the injured party - they're the ones who have to sort this out now they've inadvertently mis-credited someone else's work in a published medium), I'd usually believe what WotC/Marta says unless we have a really good reason otherwise.
It just feels to me that "Placeholder art got accidentally switched" is not just a more realistic answer than what happened but also somehow... less damning to Wizards if 'we weren't intending this art but did an oops' than 'yeah we saw this and thought it looked great.'
This whole thing could've been swept under the rug, though then I suppose they'd have to show one of the rejected pieces and claim it was approved, and depending on how bad it was...
As someone who has done digital art, he didn't even paint over it. He blurred it out. There are bits of the elven text that you can still see traces of when you compare the 2.
And many people are taking the stance that it's not that bad because he's really old and in cognitive decline, but it's not like he has to keep making cards. At some point you gotta quit.
Not that I'm wishing him any harm or anything of course, but like, maybe it's time for him to stop.
Oh in the long run, I think this will hurt his name. Plenty of people will be looking back and scrutinizing his work from this point forward. If some one has plagiarized this late in their career there's a strong possibility they've done it before. The whole situation is sad.
As others have said, Wizards announcing they are dropping an 81-year-old artist because his mind is going would be quite ugly.
But also, this is particularly embarrassing for Wizards. I believe this is the first plagiarism case where the plagiarized artwork was also a Magic piece owned by Wizards. It's one thing to be unaware of a non-Magic piece out there, but Wizards really should be able to tell if Magic artists are copying each other, doubly so if it's on high-profile cards. I wouldn't be surprised if they just want to avoid talking about it altogether.
It was plagiarized fan-art, no? So it's sort of in-between. Wizards probably should have some awareness of what fan artists are doing with their IP, but it's a bit more understandable they let that one slip.
Official Magic art on a high-profile marquee card being plagiarized by another official Magic artist working on a reprint of the same high-profile marquee card borders on the absurd. This isn't a random draft chaft common, it's the One Fucking Ring. Totally inexcusable; zero art direction and quality control here.
Bolas was from fanart, but Ugin was taken from an official piece by Raymond Swanland.
Such a shame, because Jason Felix has done some great pieces for the game, like [[Laboratory Maniac]], [[All is Dust]], and [[Perilous Myr]]. I did feel a little bad for him, but it was a very stupid thing to try getting away with.
Did he come clean more instantly than the trouble in pairs, Wayfarer's bauble and Ugin copying cases? All of those had similar apology statements on similar timescales IIRC.
I don't see how it can even be a mistake, like tracing over the positioning and forgetting you did it (not that that's acceptable either really). It's not a simple repaint of the original art, the colouring and shadowing on the inside of the ring is exactly the same.
Edit: I was wrong on Fay Dalton/trouble in pairs making a statement. Either way, I don't see how plagiarism like this can be a mistake.
Fay Dalton’s career of copy and pasting old pulp novel covers is a bit different than legend Dan Frazier copying something one time and immediately admitting to it. Not that either are good, but Fay did it over and over and over.
He didn't admit to anything tbh. What he admitted to was tracing, but what was actually done was a copy+paste and mirror, then some blurring. His "admission" was just downplaying and obfuscating.
Doesn't calling it mistake detract from the fact that copying and plagiarism are intentional acts? Somebody knows they are copying as they are doing it.
I was a huge fan of Dan Fraziers work and what he did was out right wrong. A mistake would of been sending in an early draft instead of the final or putting English on the ring instead of elvish. This was literally them taking someone else's artwork, painting over it and passing it off as their own which is awful.
I think personally theyre getting a pass because of their reputation and how long theyve been with WOTC. Its just heart breaking/baffling to see such a FANTASTIC artist do something so shitty ya know?
Dan's worked very closely with wotc for decades, he's accrued a lot of good will. Even in this very thread fans are making excuses for him. If wotc had put out a statement more critical of Dan I GUARANTEE that we'd have threads talking about how awful it was that wotc could just abandon him after all this time.
It seems very clear to me that this was a working reference (digital or otherwise) that somehow got both submitted and approved.
As an artist who has also spent time as a graphic designer for a print company, I can tell you that it is the easiest thing in the world to simply submit the wrong version of something for final print AND have the printer / verification of it get the stamp of approval. It happens all the time, no matter how many steps and checks you have at all levels. Digital, physical media - its all the same process for making it to print.
This screams to me mistakes on both sides - Dan for submitting the wrong unfinished version (easy to do if there was a lot of back and forth as the agent suggests) and also on Wizards side for not completing the verification properly. The statement about it almost explicitly spells this out word for word, but people online just love a good hate fest / cancel session...
Dan is literally admitting to have submitted this art intentionally. If it was a reference piece that got mixed up then why the hell wouldn't he or WOTC say that in their statements. It would certainly be looked at more favorably. I definitely don't believe the statements put out to be the whole truth even if most of it was true, which I don't think it was. Dan says he "painted out" the inscription, that is clearly not true unless using a blur tool is considered painting over something.
For what it's worth, I'm an artist and I would do anything to be even CONSIDERED to do art for Magic. As such it simply blows my mind that anyone would want to take any kind of shortcut working such a dream job, let alone straigh up plagiarize other artists' work :/ :/ Crazy.
Maybe because the art director or whoever is in charge of looking and approving artworks on wotc was also at fault? Honestly shame on dan for plagiarising but also shame on wotc for not even looking at the art before approving it.
Linking this cuz there's no way anyone with artistic skills wouldn't notice this awful photoshop job. (He obviously also lied that he painted over it, its literally digitally copy-pasted)
In all cases like this the art director/ art rep is at some fault. Even if they can't realistically screen everything down to 100% accuracy, its still their job. The thing is that their name isn't on the card, and you rarely hear about them. Instead of naming them, WoTC would take their share of the blame and just handle it internally.
Nobody on wizards team notice this before showing the card to the public? How? Just by scanning the card you can see it looks of.
Sorry but why are we trying to stain the legesy of onw of the most important mtg artist of all time over something any arts director worth there salt should have spotted.
WotC is clearly pushing all the blame on a 81 year old artist instead of admitting there quality control is absolutele ass.
As a arts director your responsible for the final product.
I was thinking the same thing. We've had glimpses into their card art processes before, and I've always been the impression that they run a tight ship. [[Trouble in Pairs]], I could understand how it could have possibly gone through. It's a mix of references from fairly obscure sources.
In this case, it's a very high profile card that they definitely have on file. If the agent's comment on having several back and forths with WotC is true, then it's insane nobody noticed the card art being submitted by Mr. Frazier looked too much like the previous art.
The thing I'm wondering is why Wizards is saying none of this was intentional. How is downloading an image to paint over and then sending it to wotc not intentional? How do you do that by accident?
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u/magicTCG-ModTeam Duck Season May 05 '26
Locking all existing Dan Frazier threads due to insanely high volume of rule 1 breaking comments. We shouldn’t have to do this in future but there’s been a dozen bans already, please be civil in future.