Fan art
If DC Comics had a dollar for every drawing of the Superman made over the last 65 years, it’d make a substantial impact on their net worth. Same with Marvel and Wolverine. Even a relative newcomer like Todd McFarlane would do well with a dollar for every Spawn sketch ever made. After all what comics fan didn’t at least take a stab at drawing their favorite characters as a kid? Some keep at it, and the drawings progress from the family room floor to the refrigerator door to the bedroom walls to the school notebooks to the college portfolio. And every last one of them is done without permission from the copyright holder.
Back in 1938, Joe Schuster drew a man in tights and a cape with an “S” on his chest. He sold the copyright to the company that is now known as DC Comics, and that means that only DC has the legal right to copy Joe’s illustration. Even if you don’t duplicate it line for line, you’re making what’s known as a “derivative work”, and copyright law says you need permission to do that. So is DC going to sue little Jacob for his rendering in green crayon? What about Nathan’s notebook of homemade pin-ups? Or the sketches that Jon - who used to draw the character for DC - does at conventions?
The answer is no. Maybe the could, but they’re not going to.
The thing about copyright is that it’s not “illegal” - in the sense that the cops might arrest you for it - to copy someone else’s property. It’s only “against the law” - in the sense that you’re doing something you don’t have a legal right to do - which means that it’s up to the owner to decide if it’s OK or not. And the owners of most comics characters generally don’t mind that fans draw the characters for fun, or that pros draw them at cons for a few bucks on the side. The publishers recognise it as harmless to them, and probably good for fostering the affection of fans. Technically these “bootleggers” are doing it without getting explicit permission, but the persmission has been given implicitly. Fan art is OK… because the owners say it’s OK.
Where you’re likely to run into trouble is if you start taking your drawings and put them into production. Rather than selling sketches for a few bucks a pop, you take one of your better drawings and start making prints of it. At that point, most publishers see your activities differently: you’re publishing. Which is their line of work. When/if they find out about it, you can expect a “cease and desist” letter, and if you don’t comply they’ll likely take you to court.
It doesn’t matter (much) whether you’re making money from it or not. Copyright law doesn’t care. All it says is that the owner has the right to say “yes” or “no”. The only time the profit question comes into play is when the judge (assuming you’ve been found guilty of violating the owner’s copyright) decides how much your fine is going to be. Copyright violation without profit generally gets the plaintiff only statutory damages, which can range from $500 to 20,000. Copyright violation with profits, can get exemplary and punitive damages added on, which can go much higher, depending on the amount of money involved and just how evil you were about it. (Yes, the courts can take the “evilness” of your actions into account.)
In the past decade, another wrinkle has been added to this question: the Web. If I make a drawing of “my fav’rit” Superman, scan it, and put it on my web site, is that the same as making it and showing it around to my friends (which is OK), or is it equivalent to making prints and giving them away? It’s somewhere in between, and generally subject to the “sniff test”. If it “smells” like just a fan showing people how he drew his hero, they’ll let it go. If it has the stench of someone trying to take advantage of the character, or possibly undercutting the publisher’s own use of him, they’ll stomp.
Some people will argue, “I’m not making the copies, the people downloading it are!” Don’t count on the courts to buy that reasoning. You might get a Strict Constructionist who agrees that you’re not in literal violation of copyright, but you might get a Loose Constructionist who interprets whether you’re acting consistent with the spirit of the law and throws the book at you.
Another factor that can come into play here is trademark. But that’s a topic for another day.