By REBECCA RUTHERFORD
Los Alamos
For the Los Alamos Daily Post

Who doesn’t love art, and particularly, hilarious art? One of my favorite artists is Tommy Siegel, of “extremely accurate birds” fame. Tommy Siegel is a cartoonist for the New Yorker.

I love art, especially weird art, and I find his work hilarious. You can purchase his calendars here at his official website.

Unfortunately he, and other artists, are now being ripped off by fake ads on Facebook.

Below is an ad for an Extremely Accurate Birds calendar knockoff that has nothing to do with Tommy Siegel, and will not benefit him at all:

Example knockoff ad

Note the URL here is “giftsur.com” as opposed to the artist’s site URL of tommysiegel.net.

When I look up the information from the website I find this:

Surprise, the site is registered in China. This is an extremely blatant example of foreign companies trying to rip off independent artists like Tommy Siegel. They steal art, and make cheap ripoffs to sell to fans to make profit without paying a dime to the artist.

Watch out for ads on social media using artwork from popular artists, as many of them may be knockoffs like the one in this example. Always check the URL and verify you are going to the artist’s actual website, and not a site copying them.

If the site has an odd name like “giftsur” and has nothing to do with the artist, it likely is fake. In addition to the issue of not supporting the artist, you never know what quality of product you will get, or even if you will receive the product, when ordering from unknown companies.

Support independent artists, not scam artists, and be careful who you buy from on Facebook and other social media sites!

Editor’s note: Rebecca Rutherford works in information technology at Los Alamos National Laboratory.