UPDATE: Forever 21 found RLand’s Loss Cat adopted without asking

adopted without asking

By Wyatt Williams Wednesday July 6, 2011 07:25 PM EDT

Few Atlanta-based artists have as much visibility as RLand. From coffee shops to movie theaters to galleries, his distinctive graphic style has been a recognizable and celebrated part of Atlanta’s local arts scene for years now. Which makes you think: if the clothing chain Forever 21 found a “Loss Cat” that happened to belong to RLand (whose birth name is Ronnie Land), it probably wouldn’t have been too hard to let him know.

http://clatl.com/atlanta/ImageArchives?by=1223504
RLand, “Loss Cat”

Well, that’s not exactly what has happened. About a decade ago, the artist says he was hanging around Kinko’s in the wee hours of the morning, looking for a way to amuse himself, and created a faux-flier for a lost cat from a stash of old photos. That piece, “Loss Cat,” went viral the pre-internet way: getting passed around and posted up in different cities. It ended up in Found Magazine’s book, mistakenly believed as a real flier. A band from Baltimore wrote a song about it. Then, about about a month ago, RLand got an email from someone who had seen a shirt being sold by Forever 21 with a barely-tweaked version of the work.

RLand’s lawyer got in touch with Forever 21 and the shirt has since been pulled from their online store. Because the legal situation surrounding the use of his design is still unresolved, the artist is declining to comment directly. Just a little cursory research, though, shows that the clothing chain is no stranger to these sort of legal problems.

We’ll be keeping eye out for a resolution in this case, but that may be awhile. Until then, you can check out a video of the adorable kid-fronted Eyeball Skeleton playing “Loss Cat” live and a timeline of events related to “Loss Cat” that the artist sent over earlier today.

UPDATE: Forever 21 responded to our inquiries last evening, “The Lost Cat design t-shirts were purchased from a Third Party vendor and upon being notified of the potential design issues we immediately pulled them from all stock. As with all legal matters we are taking this very seriously.”