Sat Feb 23, 2008 — by Rick Marshall

Jess Fink and Hot Topic: Rip-Off Exposed?

Cartoonist refuses to drop the soap

Popular adult-oriented cartoonist Jess Fink is mad as hell, apparently -- and she's not going to take it anymore.

After a fan alerted her to a suspicously familiar t-shirt design advertised on chain clothing store Hot Topic's website, Fink  is on a mission to prevent the store from selling any more shirts with the design that, she claims, is clearly ripped from art she created. Since she was already selling shirts with the design, Fink is looking to pursue legal action against Hot Topic.

The response from Hot Topic, according to Fink's LJ site, was less than satisfying:

Basically they are not taking much responsibility and blaming it on the fact that they hire freelancers from time to time but that :

"It is my poiicy to encourage freelancers to use the free Getty photo images as reference points & we also use sketches from the Japanese free clip art books, which have inanimate objects with cute faces & legs etc. which are also very similar to the soap."

I'm sorry but I really don't think this design is coincidentally or simply inspired by clip art. Things right down to the pose of the character and the look of the feet and hands are the same, even the color. I do not know if you know this guys, but most soap is white. Why not make your rip off soap blue or white? I am not trying to give any ideas to any further assholes, I am trying to point out how blatantly similar this crap is.

In the wake of this discovery, one of Fink's fans created an animated banner for supporters to post around the InterWebs, which she's made available on her site.

(via TheBeat)

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