"It was an innocent use," MIT spokesman Ken Campbell said. "We didn't know it was from anyone else's artwork." The university issued a statement explaining its stance on Wednesday after an article appeared in the Boston Globe.
MIT officials have not explained how the illustration made it into their grant proposal, but Campbell said the university pulled the artwork from its Web site in April as soon as it learned of the problem.
"Radix" creator Ray Lai said fans of the comic book were the first to notice the similarities between gun-toting lead character Val Fiores and MIT's female warrior.
"The fans were calling our publisher saying MIT had plagiarized Val," Lai told Reuters from his home in Montreal, where he writes "Radix" with his brother Ben. "When we found out, we were shocked." Placed side-by-side, the two drawings bear a striking resemblance.
Lai went on to say that due to movie studio's interest in "Radix" it is important to establish that he came up with the character first, and MIT copied it. 'We didn't copy MIT; MIT copied us,"' he said. "We could still file a lawsuit. We're weighing our options."
Greg Frost first reported this information on Reuters on Wed Aug 28, 6:17 PM ET. I want to make it perfectly clear that I am reporting on Greg's article, he is not reporting on mine. Thank you, Greg.
Check out the Radix website at http://horizoncomics.com/radix/news/
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In other comic book news...
New from Cinescape at http://www.cinescape.com/0/Comics_2.asp reports that Kevin Smith will be doing a four-part mini-series for Daredevil called "Daredevil: The Target". The story is about Daredevil's unfinished business with Bullseye.
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Thanks again to Cinescape for the following scoop: Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who created Warner Brother's "Smallville" TV show are now working with Sam Rami on the script to the "Spider-Man 2" movie.
"We can't really talk too much about the story -- because the X-Men will be sent out to kill us -- but you will see Peter grow and evolve," Gough said when asked what's in store for Peter Parker in part 2. "That's really the story Sam wants to tell. You'll see him grow as a person, a superhero and in all his relationships."
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