Posted in: Comics, Swipe File | Tagged: Água Castello, Charles Burns, Comics, entertainment, fantagraphics, water

Swipe File: Charles Burns And Água Castello Of Portugal

Published Mon, 30 Jun 2014 13:00:12 -0500

Last updated Mon, 30 Jun 2014 13:12:03 -0500

To celebrate the 115th anniversary of the Portguese mineral water, Agua Castello commissioned new look bottles in a very distinctive manner.

The distinctive manner of Charles Burns.

Not they anyone asked his permission, or paid him, or anything.

A feature on the campaign states that it "draws inspiration from the universe of comics."

Comments on the company's Facebook page read,

Shame. I thought for a moment that the water had asked the João Castello May Pinto, our Portuguese partner of Charles Burns, to do some advertising drawings. But no, someone managed to even draw pictures to Charles Burns, copyrighted images and smear them on billboards. You must be a rogue: only in this country is free of these ideas. Ah, no one notices.

Trying to position itself as a national reference, the Agua Castello embarrasses your brand and your country blatantly plagiarizing one of the most prestigious American comic authors, passing through the many insulting national quality illustrators who do not need to do cutting and sewing with jobs unrelated to produce work. The Agua Castello and the Strat agency should be ashamed of

Whoever manages this page: let people talking alone and continue as if nothing had happened is a strategy of ostrich

The illustrator credited with the piece, Rui Fazenda, has now placed a password on his website…

Fantagraphics does some comparisons, as they also say "Fuck you, Agua Castello of Portugal, and the shitty idea-bankrupt ad agency you hired."

It seems pretty clear cut, but as ever, this is the Swipe File and we do not judge…

In Swipe File we present two or more images that resemble each other to some degree. They may be homages, parodies, ironic appropriations, coincidences or works of the lightbox. We trust you, the reader, to make that judgment yourself? If you are unable to do so, please return your eyes to their maker before any further damage is done. The Swipe File doesn't judge, it's interested more in the process of creation, how work influences other work, how new work comes from old, and sometimes how the same ideas emerge simultaneously, as if their time has just come. The Swipe File was named after the advertising industry habit where writers and artist collect images and lines they admire to inspire them in their work. It was swiped from the Comic Journal who originally ran this column, as well as the now defunct Swipe Of The Week website.

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