Topic: CV4 art - Tom Dubois

[Abnormal Freak]

The biggest problem I have with your approach all this time, bronty, is that you basically rubbed it in everyone's noses that you knew the name of the artist and weren't going to tell until "the time was right"—when you clearly would no longer profit in some way from having exclusive access to this information. Which, you admitted, was revealed earlier than you had intended because the documentary crew required the info be made public for their fundraiser.

When pressed about it at the Technodrome board, I seem to recall you saying something along the lines of, "I'm the one who did all the searching and research to track down this guy. You could have all done the same but you didn't." It's your pride and rubbing it in people's noses that sets people off.

I appreciate your (eventually) putting the spotlight on the artist and drumming up interest, but the way you went about it could have been handled better. What did it benefit you to not reveal the guy's name for so many years?

It's possible, however, that a computer for Dubois' art was a fair trade, especially if he requested one, so I'll take back any criticism of that. The truth in a lot of cases is that these for-hire artists don't put a special monetary value on their work.

[Abnormal Freak]

You guys have literally not said ONE WORD about the art itself.

We have, in fact, discussed Dubois' art in another thread. It hadn't been posted in for a long time, and just to get the name out there right away with no digging for the pertinent info, I made a new thread.

[bronty]

The biggest problem I have with your approach all this time, bronty, is that you basically rubbed it in everyone's noses that you knew the name of the artist and weren't going to tell until "the time was right"—when you clearly would no longer profit in some way from having exclusive access to this information. Which, you admitted, was revealed earlier than you had intended because the documentary crew required the info be made public for their fundraiser.

When pressed about it at the Technodrome board, I seem to recall you saying something along the lines of, "I'm the one who did all the searching and research to track down this guy. You could have all done the same but you didn't." It's your pride and rubbing it in people's noses that sets people off.

I appreciate your (eventually) putting the spotlight on the artist and drumming up interest, but the way you went about it could have been handled better. What did it benefit you to not reveal the guy's name for so many years?

It's possible, however, that a computer for Dubois' art was a fair trade, especially if he requested one, so I'll take back any criticism of that. The truth in a lot of cases is that these for-hire artists don't put a special monetary value on their work.

thank you for the more-respectful line of questioning.   

Fine, fair points about the technodrome posts, as I've already admitted.

As for why I didn't reveal, as I said, I wanted to be the one to reveal that information.   I don't know if you've ever knocked your head against a wall for two years searching for the answer to what should be a simple problem, but when you have that much time invested in finding out the answer, you at least want to be in control of how that answer is shared with people.   

Specifically, my vision was always to publish a book on all of these artists, not just Tom.   That soemwhere along the way turned into a documentary and whatnot as well, but the information, as you all found out, was terribly difficult to track down.   I didn't want to just give away what I'd worked that hard to find out.   I wanted to at least do so in the way I felt most appropriate.

[bronty]

We have, in fact, discussed Dubois' art in another thread. It hadn't been posted in for a long time, and just to get the name out there right away with no digging for the pertinent info, I made a new thread.

I mean in the context of replying to me.

One of my replies was directly about his art.   Zero response, crickets, just attacks.   You see my disappointment in that?    I would have hoped that the post about the stylistic similarities would be the one that would have ignited the interest, instead, petty bickering.

[bronty]

Tom did about many, many boxes.

at some point I'll post a list, whether that's here or elsewhere, but the long and the short of it is basically everything konami/ultra from blades of steel through about 1994.

Sure, the style is hard to miss.

Just on the boxes you named -

Look at sunset riders.   Look at the horses - they are done the same as on defender of the crown and on lone ranger.      Now look at the train.   Its the same model train as is on TMNT in time and lone ranger.   

TMNT in time.   Look at the pirate ship.   Same as on Pirates.   Now look at the elongated snarling dino face.   Any time Tom did a snake (or in this case, dino looks similar) face it was elongated with teeth.   Yeah you can see that on CV4 but also on Bad n Rad and Mystical Ninja.

Lots of clues if one looks with a critical eye.    Hopefully some of you will enjoy hunting for them.

This is the one I mean.   Not a single response.

[theplottwist]

Instead of focussing on the new information I shared with you such as the stylistic similarities in the way Tom rendered certain objects (you say you are artists?)

1. You shared shit with us. These have been discussed to death before you have even showed your face in this forum, even before we knew who the artist was. You didn't give us any golden info we hadn't spotted before, don't fool yourself.
2. Yes we're artists. Number 1 reason why we think you're a shitlord.
3. Stop trying to escape.

me about matters you weren't present for or involved in.   

Were you present or involved when Tom Dubois' mother gave him his name? Because you sure as fuck appeared to be entitled to it when people started asking who he was.

You seem to be more interested in attacking me than in any discussion of Tom's art, and that's pretty sad.   You guys have literally not said ONE WORD about the art itself.

This is us:

NOICE!
I always suspected Sunset Riders, TMNT (I think it was Turtles in Time) and Super CV4 had the same artist or team of artists.  Good to know my suspicion was correct.

But again, I'm happy you posted this here and for finally knowing who the artist is. This man is part of my childhood. The wiki has been updated accordingly

I'm glad we finally got the name of the guy who contributed so much to the series' look

Glad to know his name! I always loved that cover. I noticed the style similiarities in the TMNT in time cover too! This is awesome to know.

This is awesome!  I've been trying to find out who this artist was.  I was actually just talking to my wife about this last week, showing her all the different art he did.

This is you:

Yes a thank you would be great.

On top of acting like an entitled idiot, you also don't know how to use "literally." I, at least, won't respond to your cute "pointing outs" of the art's curiosities. I don't feel like acting friendly to you at all.

[Abnormal Freak]

I can understand and appreciate that. You did the hard work of tracking the artist down and likely other unnamed artists as well. It's all a bit of a misunderstanding, I think; we got rubbed the wrong way.

Now the artist's name is known, and hey, I'm pleased about that—I've wanted to know who he is for a long time because I've always liked his artwork. That one ad shown in the interview, which has a Turtle, Monty Max, and presumably a guy from Sunset Riders—I copied that drawing on a school folder way back in the day. I was surprised to see that he did that since I'd completely forgotten about the art.

Anyway, I don't think you're a scumbag, so apologies for bringing unwanted negative attention toward you.

[bronty]

I can understand and appreciate that. You did the hard work of tracking the artist down and likely other unnamed artists as well. It's all a bit of a misunderstanding, I think; we got rubbed the wrong way.

Now the artist's name is known, and hey, I'm pleased about that—I've wanted to know who he is for a long time because I've always liked his artwork. That one ad shown in the interview, which has a Turtle, Monty Max, and presumably a guy from Sunset Riders—I copied that drawing on a school folder way back in the day. I was surprised to see that he did that since I'd completely forgotten about the art.

Anyway, I don't think you're a scumbag, so apologies for bringing unwanted negative attention toward you.

Thumbs up and I appreciate you as well.

By the way, Tom did lots of non-cover pieces like the one you mention as well.    There were various magazine advertisements and so on done in that time frame, all of which had art by his hand.   Back in the day they paid him $5000 for a cover and $3000 for magazine ads and such.    He was making good money in those days.

[bronty]

1. You shared shit with us. These have been discussed to death before you have even showed your face in this forum, even before we knew who the artist was. You didn't give us any golden info we hadn't spotted before, don't fool yourself.
2. Yes we're artists. Number 1 reason why we think you're a shitlord.
3. Stop trying to escape.

Were you present or involved when Tom Dubois' mother gave him his name? Because you sure as fuck appeared to be entitled to it when people started asking who he was.

This is us:

This is you:

On top of acting like an entitled idiot, you also don't know how to use "literally." I, at least, won't respond to your cute "pointing outs" of the art's curiosities. I don't feel like acting friendly to you at all.

Kisses.

[Belmontoya]

Had you released the information when you came here to discuss it (telling people you had it), you'd be widely met with thanks and not contempt.

But...I'm not out to make an enemy of you.

Thanks for doing the work of discovering him. I DO appreciate that.

I suggest now that you do on work dealing with the public because you're terrible at it.

[bronty]

Had you released the information when you came here to discuss it (telling people you had it), you'd be widely met with thanks and not contempt.

But...I'm not out to make an enemy of you.

Thanks for doing the work of discovering him. I DO appreciate that.

I suggest now that you do on work dealing with the public because you're terrible at it.

I should have just not said anything til I was ready to come forward completely.   As I saw happen once with a friend who made a similar mistake, the one thing people can't deal with is being told they can't know something.   For whatever reason it just drives people mental, and I made that mistake for sure.   I guess I was proud of the art and wanted to share that, but should have waited til I was ready to share everything.

Sharing some but not all of what you know people like less than just sharing nothing.

[Abnormal Freak]

A couple points, guys:

1. Ultimately, we may have not ever known Tom Dubois' name had it not been for bronty's research. There was kind of a carrot-dangling thing going on there but we know his name now due to this documentary bronty is in some way contributing to. I doubt the doc filmmakers would have been able to shed light on Dubois independent of bronty.

2. I'm not a moderator and it's a no-no for non-mods to moderate, but I think it'd be good to cool down a bit for the sake of this thread remaining open. The cool thing is that we have a name for the artist, something I've wanted to know for a few years now because other artists' names had been becoming public geek knowledge but this particular Konami artist wasn't common knowledge on the Internet. Now, hopefully, his name and art will be more well-known.

[bronty]

A couple points, guys:

1. Ultimately, we may have not ever known Tom Dubois' name had it not been for bronty's research. There was kind of a carrot-dangling thing going on there but we know his name now due to this documentary bronty is in some way contributing to. I doubt the do.lc filmmakers would have been able to shed light on Dubois' independent of bronty.

2. I'm not a moderator and it's a no-no for non-mods to moderate, but I think it'd be good to cool down a bit for the sake of this thread remaining open. The cool thing is that we have a name for the artist, something I've wanted to know for a few years now because other artists' names had been becoming public geek knowledge but this particular Konami artist wasn't common knowledge on the Internet. Now, hopefully, his name and art will be more well-known.

Well said

[bronty]

hopefully my last post ont his for a while.

WHen Tom mentioned doing a cover for another publisher - that was Jaleco.   Metal Mech.

You can compare/contrast with cybernator, I guess.   The mech itself doesn't scream his work to me, but the figure alongside the mech is a little more telling.

[Dracula9]

IMPORTANT NOTE: I understand that quite a few replies have cropped up in the time it's taken me to type this out, and I can say that I've had a slight change of views in reading through those (as my last few sentences will hopefully convey)--however, I still have some bearing in retaining the thoughts contained herein despite moving to a less angry frame of mind, and frankly don't feel like self-censorship due to a couple of new developments. I'm not necessarily intending to reignite shit with this post so much as provide a very straightforward conveyance of how I feel on certain aspects of the matter. If it does happen to start things up again and/or becomes too problematic, I'll gladly make necessary edits to remove or alter the tone of any troublesome sections. But basically, a lot of this is slightly outdated (but not necessarily gone from my mind and feelings) due to new thread developments--please bear that in mind going forward.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For someone claiming to be going the high road, you're doing an awful lot of work trying to "so what" people who've had something to say on the matter. You could be doing worse, but that doesn't mean what you're doing now is good.

What you have done with Tom is the approximate equivalent of the tired old "I can't pay you in money, but it'll be GREAT for getting you exposure" routine artists have had to put up with basically forever. Artists can't live off of exposure, and unless you're willing to put forth the effort to verify that you've indeed sent him additional money as you claim, I have no reason to believe the statement beyond the purchase price of the works you own--it feels way too much like a "yeah but you don't know THIS, so haha" turnaround.

You say you were withholding his name in order to have some big grand reveal of everything in some spiffy documentary (which would conveniently have your name all over it), but allow me to ask you something, if you'll even answer and not just deflect it as we've seen you do in the past.

Has Tom been okay with this? Is he aware that this is your plan? Have you discussed the matter with him and informed him that you're totally not hanging him out to dry because you wanna have a big reveal later that you can also put your own name out there on? Has he agreed to this if you have?

Basically, unless there's a confirmable case of evidence that Tom is not only aware of your methods, but also in agreement with them, there is no real way for those of us who've seen your past behaviors to take anything you say herein seriously or as something to be considered truthful. What you've done in here went from a seemingly good levelling and implied regret as to past actions to what more or less amounts of "yeah, I did it my way, big whoop wanna fight about it?"

In my case at least, until I see irrefutable evidence that dictates that Tom is not only aware of your supposed plans, but is also in on them and in full agreement with how they're operating, I will not view what you have done as anything but a monumental disrespect and show of ignorance to an artist who's spent a very long time unknown for his increasingly-popular work. As an artist myself, I can speak for myself when I say that I would never willingly agree to a situation like what you're doing to Tom unless I had an absolute guaranteed boom of popularity and recognition upon its completion (and even then probably not).

It's not about the amount of popularity he may get if/when this documentary ever gets made. It's not about what you think is more of a priority. In a lot of ways, it's not really even about money.

Tom is an artist, with work he's gone unknown for for quite a while; you have known this correlation for some time, and have even been in contact with him; you have continually withheld his identity with nothing but cheap runarounds and suspiciously red-flag reasons as to why you've done so; and finally, you claim that you wanted to wait until your documentary to reveal his name to the public en masse, when you could have just as easily made the reveal on a smaller scale earlier and also made the film.

Hell, assuming you're even genuine in your reasons for making said film, from an advertising standpoint what's gonna garner more attention? Something interesting just dropped out of the blue, or something interesting being slightly revealed at one point with the rest being divulged at greater detail in a later documentary? You could have just as easily revealed Tom as the artist and gotten people talking and interested and gathered in the subject again, and THEN made the announcement for your planned film--you'd have already had an audience built up at that point and you wouldn't have had to do something shameful like purposefully withhold an artist's name and credit for the sake of your own project.

You claim to want to promote Tom's art, but so far all I've seen you do is take steps to do the opposite--tell me, for all your claims about how you love the man, or how much you want to do this or that to promote him, or how much you value his art, or how you handled the situation--how much longer are you going to prattle on about yourself and what you think about all this before you actually fill people in on what Tom's thoughts on it all really are? Are you honestly so conceited that you believe your own thoughts and considerations to be above those of the artist you're claiming to want to support?

At any rate, until I see provable material of Tom's thoughts on what you've done and plan to do (and I keep saying things like "provable" because I fully intend to fact-check anything you might post to ensure it's genuinely from his own mouth and mind), all I've seen here and elsewhere is you seeming to care less about Tom and his work and more about keeping his side of things hidden in your own corner until you deem the time right to let other people know just what the hell his story and art is about.

So until I see information beyond reasonable doubt that Tom's both aware of and on board with what you've been doing all this time, what you've done to the man in withholding his name and credit is an insult to his artistic merit and shameful display of your own conceit, just as it would be to any artist in the same unfortunate circumstances.

You continue to say things like "people aren't discussing the art, sad," when that should be a bell going off in your head.

People here know his art, and many people like his art. Many of us don't need to discuss it right now to enjoy it.

That people are going after you for your treatment of Tom and your overall handling and intent behind the scenes should be telling of what people are more concerned about here--sure it's great to finally know the guy's name, but that's small potatoes compared to the way you've kept him in the dark all this time purely on the basis of your own point of view.

You don't sound like you "love" Tom at all, or even really care about him, since all you've been doing is defending yourself and your side of things rather than doing and saying anything that might actually benefit him. If you had so much trouble tracking him down, and "knocked your head against a wall for two years" trying to do so, then why the seven hells would you actively withhold that information from other fans in the same boat?

You had a situation where you could've said "you know, this really sucked for me to go to all the effort to figure out, and there are other people who are also trying the same thing--I could share my findings with them and help them not to have to deal with all the headaches and hair-pulling I had to go through" and instead you decided on "you know, this really sucked for me to go to all the effort to figure out, and there are other people who are also trying the same thing--eh, fuck 'em, let 'em figure it out on their own, if they're not ready for the crazy amount of digging it took me then they don't deserve to know and I don't really want to let slip this information they clearly want because that somehow magically degrades the work I put into figuring it out."

Sure, I'm hyperbolizing for effect, but you get the point.

I haven't seen a single thing from you that conveys that you actually give a shit about Tom as anything beyond a carrot you can dangle over people for your own selfish amusement. For all of what we've seen you post both here and elsewhere, you strongly appear to have taken deliberate and active measures against the very goal (spreading word of his work and supporting him as an artist to that end) you claim to be working towards.

Surely you can see how this contradictory set of circumstances might look from the outside, no? If this kind of situation and feedback is something you didn't want, then perhaps you should've revealed things sooner so that people would know all the facts and details from the start, rather than try and fill in the blanks based on guesses and inferences and readings into your personality based on your posts of self-defense, or at the very least made a more concise attempt to honestly level the things you didn't want to talk about with everyone.

As it stands, I haven't seen anything yet that gives me any indication that you value Tom as an artist as you claim to, that he supports what you're doing (if he even knows at all), or that you're willing to take more critical feedback without resorting to blanket retorts and over-defensiveness towards your own opinion (i.e. "I did it on my timetable, so what? I've done this, what do you know?", etc.).

If this means that I've now posted things that you are uncomfortable with and it turns out that I've simply made a serious misreading based on a near-total lack of solid information, then I will readily offer my apologies should that prove to be the case.

In any case, I do indeed have some measure of respect for actually tracking him down--but that's about the only thing so far I can give you a solid thumbs-up on, and I'm a bit sorry to say that this is the case.

It's a good step forward that you're acknowledging where you went wrong and why that is so--this is a good development in diffusing this whole thing.