Rob Granito

If you haven't heard an"artist" named Rob Granito is in the midst of an internet shitstorm for allegedly copying other artists work and selling it as his own. An article on Bleeding Cool titled "Who is Rob Granito?" ignited a furor over the weekend.

High drama that included a Facebook "fan" page "Robert Granito is a fraud" go from zero to 2400 fans in two days. Mark Waid and Ethan Van Sciver taking it upon themselves to confront Robert at MegaCon. Rumours of Wizard and FanExpo banning him from future conventions.

One thing the drama has lacked is the answer to the most important question. Whose fault is this? The obvious answer, you scream, is Rob Granito. He's the guy who copied the artwork, he's the guy who lied about his credentials and he's the guy who orchestrated the scheme.

Except, he's not completely to blame. You know who shoulders a good chunk of the responsibility here?

#1 - Where were the artists over the last 5 years who saw this and did nothing?

Granito has apparently been on the convention circuit since 2006. He has no Comicbookdb.com credits, no Coverbrowser.com covers, no Wikipedia page, no pages for sale, no covers for sale, doesn't sketch in front of people (like every single other artist). If I as a consumer can do five seconds of research on a guest and find no info on him whatsoever to corroborate this guy being a "Marvel and DC cover artist" then how exactly did this not come up over the past five years?

How did no artist say to his DC or Marvel editor "this guy claims to have worked for you, is it true?" How did nobody notice any of the dozens of obvious rip-offs and say "hmm, that looks exactly like a piece by X?", why did NOBODY say "How come this Rob Granito guy is a featured guest, who the fuck is he?"

#2 - Where is the anger at the conventions for putting up bio's that couldn't be authenticated? Are you telling me that Wizard (et al) just accept whatever bio they are submitted and do zero fact checking?

It took two seconds to figure out this guy's resume was bogus. Famous international artists have wikipedia pages, they have credits on comic oriented databases, they have more than three items on ebay with their name attached.

Ethan Van Sciver has 209 items currently listed on ebay with his name in the title. Rob Granito has a sketch card and a commission that both look like they were drawn by a six year old and a signed index card. How was this not a massive red flag to anyone?

Marvel and DC often have booths...and nobody said to the Marvel rep "uh, who is Granito?".

#3 - Where is the personal responsibility? You are really going to try to convince me that people buying art have no responsibility to know anything about the art market when making a purchase?

Look, if you buy a piece for $300 because you like it, more power to you. If you bought it because Rob Granito is a famous artist who you'd never heard of before the show, then maybe you're just not doing your homework.

In other words:

In order for Rob Granito to exist you need to have a convention that doesn't ask any questions, you need an artist alley full of expert artists who fail to ask any questions and you have a room full of convention goers who walk in the door and decide to spend money at the guy's table even though they know nothing about his work or history.

People should be angry first at convention management who booked him, the artists who ignored his thievery until somebody braver decided to write about it and then themselves for not bothering to educate themselves and then feeling duped when that lack of education bites them in the rear.

Oh and Granito, he's a jerk. You should be angry at him as well.