FROM THE DESK OF RHL
AI web scraping kicks up strange results for artists online, no matter how obscure. I’m no exception– so much so that it feels necessary to make a public service announcement of sorts. Despite being almost allergic to any personal online presence, I’ve received some emails in the past year from collectors regarding artworks and galleries I haven’t thought of in years. They seem to have been compiled in various themed AI-generated articles and caught some attention. Delving deep into the matter, I found odd results regarding the above artwork.
“Do You Read Sutter Cane?” was painted for a John Carpenter group show in– Jesus– 2012? 2013? I don’t recall exactly. It’s still (somehow?!) available for purchase from Hero Complex’s website for $30.00, which hasn’t stopped resellers from pricing copies at $70.00. It’s reasonable to assume that anyone looking me up will find this website, so I’m begging you to please not waste money buying this off Ebay. You can find it here;
While I didn’t submit to too many Hero Complex shows, I did enough times to know that everyone liked Tim and Soua very much. Not only would you be saving over 50%, you’d be supporting some very cool people.
To publically answer the most common attached query in these emails– no, I don’t sell prints online myself. Or even really show my work at all. Even before the current chatbot nonsense people were stealing work like crazy. It’s true that we sell some print inventory in person, at cons and The Secret Art Show. I’ve also donated a few books and zines to the Outer Freakwave cause, and they’re available in the READ OUR STUFF section of the site, but largely keep my visual arts portfolio to myself. For those interested, a cut-out book of various horror movie posters I’ve made over the years (including the above poster) will be released on here as soon I stop screaming internally and kicking my feet at the minor inconvenience of formatting the damned thing. But it’s unlikely that I’ll ever make a direct online print store only to get swarmed by scrapers and scumbags fradulently claiming other people’s work as their own.
Best,
Rhys
Outer Freakwave 