The Time John Cena Maybe Stole My Book Cover

And Why I'm Okay With It

My first book of comics, THE SHAPE OF IDEAS: AN ILLUSTRATED EXPLORATION OF CREATIVITY, was published in 2017.

It features some of my favorite comics on art and life: The Nature of Ambition, Making the Leap, and The Art of Living.

Here’s the cover:

I was browsing at my local bookstore in 2021 when I saw this book cover:

I blinked a couple times. A lightbulb balloon in the sky with a hand-lettered title? Was this my book with a WWE-turned-Hollywood-star’s name on the cover?

In the same section of the bookstore, I found my book…Not quite so prominently shelved. I held the books side by side:

I checked the spine, just to be sure:

Coincidence? Homage? Outright theft?

My editor Charlie, a man with strong opinions, had an opinion:

John Cena did not reply.

Which is probably for the best.

Here is Mr. Cena:

Here is me, running away from Mr. Cena:

Run faster! He’s right behind you!

Charlie had a theory: He’d given THE SHAPE OF IDEAS to his friend actor John Leguizamo, who may have had the book on set when he did a movie with John Cena. Mr. Cena then may have shown it to the design team for inspiration for his own book.

Possible—but almost sounds to neat to be true.

More likely the lightbulb/balloon/blue sky motif is common enough to be replicated and varied frequently.

Later I remembered another cover I’d seen at my local bookstore years before my first book was published. Perhaps I subconsciously borrowed (stole?) my cover idea from this book, published in 2011—six years before THE SHAPE OF IDEAS:

Great, now this guy is after me as well:

Okay, I’m done running.

I didn’t steal Bo Burnham’s cover (which was nicely illustrated by Chance Bone). And John Cena (along with talented illustrator Valeria Petrone) didn’t steal mine.

Visual inspiration can occur subconsciously.

For example, here’s a comic I drew one winter.

After I posted the comic I was scrolling on my phone and saw the fitbit app icon:

Not the same as my snowflake…but similar, right?

Also a reminder I need to spend less time staring at my phone.

Weird how visual inspiration works. The brain is always picking up breadcrumbs of line, pattern, and color. Then when called to make something new, it tossed these breadcrumbs into a new dish—croutons on the salad of creativity.

But if Charlie’s theory about the John Cena connection is true, how do I feel about this?

Actually, kind of flattered. To be noticed or imitated, even subconsciously, is a compliment.

In my own creative career I’ve been overtly influenced by other artists. My literary comics are frequently mistaken online for the work of the Tom Gauld, who was a big early inspiration of mine. Most of the comics I drew in college were unapologetic Roz Chast imitations. And I’ve heavily borrowed from Jean-Jacques Sempé, Matt Groening, Bill Watterson, Charles Schulz, Aliki, and many others. As

Austin Kleon

wrote, “Steal like an artist.”

Bob Dylan is the most celebrated songwriter of the modern era. His early work blatantly copied the style of Woody Guthrie. Much later in his career, Bob Dylan’s album Love and Theft “borrowed” lyrics from other pieces of literature.

Love and Theft is a brilliant title. I would take it one step further.

I would argue that in theft is love.

To be moved by another person’s art, consciously or not, and to pick up a pencil and make something that echoes that artwork—what better way to show love?