Artists beware, Inktober still draws controversy

October is not just part of spooky season; it’s also a creative month where hundreds of thousands of artists from around the world partake in the month-long Inktober challenge. Since 2009, the challenge has seen artists of every level take part, but more recently, the event has drawn controversy.

Jake Parker, a concept artist, illustrator, and animator who has worked on film projects such as Rio and Epic created the Inktober Challenge in 2009 as a way to push himself as an artist. The idea was that he would draw one image in ink every day of October, totaling 31 images by the end of the month. Since its inception, the challenge has grown in size, with people from all over the world taking part and sharing their images on social media with the hashtag “#Inktober.”

Participants can also follow prompts shared on the official Inktober site. These can be as simple as “snacks” and “boots” and as vague as “remote” and “unchartered,” all of which are prompts for the 2024 challenge.

What is the Inktober controversy?

In 2019, Parker announced that he would be trademarking the name “Inktober,” which, for many, ruffled feathers. Some believed that he couldn’t claim the word, whilst others saw it as Parker trying to retain intellectual property over a challenge he created. Parker wrote a lengthy statement about his decision regarding the trademarking, explaining, “One of my biggest worries is that something I’ve created as a challenge that promotes creativity and community could be used to promote hate or violence.” He reasoned that he was “trying to maintain the integrity of the challenge.”

Whilst there was discussion and argument over the decision, the real controversy would arrive the following year. On June 16, 2020, Parker announced he was releasing a book titled Inktober All Year Long. The book was set to be an indispensable guide for illustrators, but the wind was knocked out of Parker’s sails when a fellow artist, Alphonso Dunn, released a video on YouTube that purported that Parker had plagiarized his work, the 2015 book Pen and Ink Drawing: A Simple Guide.

Plagiarism is an ugly word

For artists, plagiarism is an ugly word, and anyone associated with it can very quickly become persona non grata within the community. It led to a mass boycott of the Inktober Challenge in 2020. Many felt that the similarities between Parker and Dunn’s books were undeniable, whereas others felt that, of course, the information and explanations would be similar if both artists were covering the same topic. To this day, there is still a back and forth as to who was in the wrong in this instance, but there was a legal case brought against Parker by Dunn, which was eventually dismissed.

Inktober is up and running this year, but with the 2020 controversy still fresh in their minds, some artists feel less inclined to join.