The Emperor Has No Clothes! Or Originality.
Ain't it always the case that when something seems too good to be true, it is? So it was for The Dartmouth's April 16 cartoon from Bora Kem '08, which defied the low standard we usually set for college toons (click for enlargement):
That is until it was brought to our attention that the entire things was ripped off from a piece by the Investor's Business Daily Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, Michael Ramirez:
All ya gotta do is take the clothes off the character and put the on the rack and nobody will ever know!
Except us. Which might explain why, despite being published in The Dartmouth last Wednesday, the comic hasn't been uploaded to The Dartmouth's comics page. In fact, one student claims to have e-mailed the EIC about these uh... similarities and received no response.
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April 21st, 2008 at 12:23 pm
It seems to me that the commentary on fashion trends at root in the comic (as it relates to the capitalism and trendiness of Urban Outfitters) is sufficiently different from the Ramirez one to avoid plagiarism issues. Yes, the idea has already been had, and inspiration from one comic likely influenced the other, but how many truly original ideas are there anymore? At least she’s better than the “I feel like…” comic artist.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:39 pm
“But how many truly original ideas are there anymore?”
Are you kidding me? As an excuse for condoning plagiarism? That’s pathetic. And either you simply don’t understand the definition of plagiarism or haven’t been listening since the beginning of high school with it became a prevalent issue. Simply turning celebrity fashion into youth fashion (urban outfitters), changing a Mao bag into a shirt, and taking the clothes off the model does not constitute “influence.” It’s copying and pasting, and is textbook plagiarism.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:48 pm
1. C’mon, it wasn’t IvyGate that noticed it, it was a commenter in a thread a couple posts back.
2. Why use “EIC” when even I don’t know what it stands for?
April 21st, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Meh, it is not like that is an astoundingly original concept; there have been enough protests of celebrity wear that different iterations of this same concept is not necessarily a sign that anyone is reading the Dartmouth news.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I’m going with Cornell 02 here… it wasn’t an original idea in the first comic, nor was it in the second. How many people criticize others for wearing che or mao shirts? It’s the exact same concept.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:32 pm
EIC = Editor-In-Chief, maybe?
April 21st, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Alright, the concept wasn’t half new when it was published in the Investor’s Daily, but the combination of Mao + Che Guevera T-Shirts? Who the fuck wears Mao? That does scream direct copy. And the death count is a pretty obvious rip, too.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:03 pm
I actually know the artist and I can tell you he honestly wouldn’t purposely plagiarize someone else’s work. He probably saw the first cartoon somewhere and the idea just stayed in his head (similar to artist’s and music nowadays). And if he plagiarized his cartoon, then the other guy plagiarized his too. Be honest with yourself, people criticize those Che t-shirts all the time. And the death count is not an obvious rip. What did you expect him to do, re-write history and make up the number of people who died? Yeah, because that would have gone over so much better…
April 21st, 2008 at 6:06 pm
If it wasn’t plagiarism…
then why has it been covered up/not listed on the D’s website? Why hide this?
April 21st, 2008 at 6:13 pm
I think most of these “not a big deal” posts are by the artist him/her self (”Bora”?). Clearly no one in their right mind would even attempt to justify this BLATANT plagiarism.
April 21st, 2008 at 7:26 pm
The comic still sucked regardless of whether or not it was plagiarized.
April 21st, 2008 at 7:29 pm
The comic still sucked regardless of whether or not it was plagiarized.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:08 pm
You’ve got to love how much worse he made the cartoon, substituting politically correct items like ‘World War Two jackets’ (which no one wears) and Henry Kissinger glasses (which they don’t sell at Urban Outfitters) and using a completely shitty and confusing layout in place of the Pulitzer Prize winner’s elegant, unified graphic solution.
No it’s not plagiarism, it’s an example of a ham-fisted squeaking-just-below-plagiarism piece of shit.
And don’t tell me he didn’t see THE PULITZER PRIZE WINNING CARTOON
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Was Bora’s cartoon possibly in response to Lee Cooper’s campaign posters?
With that said, the idea isn’t original and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had thought of it on his own while bitching about Ché shirts. The Mao shirt in both of them, however, might be a tip to the plagiarism. His cartoons are generally pretty weak attempts at social commentary, and when not focused on some over-discussed political it is usually a clichéd Dartmouth reference. The comics page will be so much better when Drew gets back.
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Bora’s also a great kid, for what it’s worth
April 24th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
for what it’s worth, bora be fired
November 16th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
this is way late, but i just found this article and i can say that i work for the d and they regularly fail to update the comics page online. not really an isolated incident.