How often does this happen? What, you say? Well, I'm getting ready to go to leave the house and go to the gym, when I glance at the television and see something that totally grabs my attention! No, its not one of those frequently ran, often not funny Geico commercials (though at this time I wished it was!). So anyway, with remote in hand, instead of turning the TV off, I'm watching something that causes a bad feeling to come over me. What I'm watching is this movie called "Return To Oz." I had heard of it, but never seen before until now. What actually gave me pause was the appearance of a character, whom I now know to be known as "Jack Pumpkinhead". So what, you say. Well, the relevance to me was that a couple of years ago I had drawn/created a most similar character for Halloween, that I aptly named "Jolly Jack", along with his own brief story. So now, to my dismay, I've discovered that my character was not so original after all. In fact, it appears to be a very similar likeness to this Jack Pumpkinhead! Maybe not a big deal to some, but to me it is. As an artist, unless I'm doing "fan art", I truly pride myself on being unique and original. Well, in this instance, apparently not. Situations like this, remind me of the famous quote: There is "nothing new under the sun." Applying it to this instance, seems quite appropriate, but with apologies to the artist(s) who created Mr. "Jack Pumpkin", my character, Jolly Jack was created/drawn with no knowledge of the former's existence....until today, of course!
What to do now? Make changes to my character Jolly Jack? I wonder how often this occurs in art, literature, music?? Since the time I initially uncovered this most unnerving experience, I've even discovered yet another "similar", but not quite as, character named "Jack" as in Jack Skellington from the Tim Burton movie "The Nightmare Before Christmas", whom I had heard of, but never made that connection til now! Maybe someone used JP as a reference, who knows? So just remember, when you think you do, you really don't.....know JACK!!!! ~S
Thoughts on this are appreciated and welcome!
