I have a google alert on “Bearman Cartoons” and “beartoons” just in case anyone gives me a shout out that I was unaware of. On Monday, I had an alert and clicked on the link to see this Entry:
Bearman Cartoons Shamelessly Copies Me.
The Herbert TSA cartoon over at Bearman cartoon is dated November 21, 2010. I published mine November 12. A major political cartoon flagrantly copied me!! By Dr B
The same day a similar comment was posted on the pic (I initially missed it because I don’t tend to look for comments on the pic page but rather the blog page).
So for comparison here are Dr. B’s and my cartoons:
Now at first glance you might think “Bearman, you ARE Shameless. However there are several things that must be corrected in his post.
Shameless – In order to be shameless, there has to be something you should be shameful for and choose to do it anyway. Because I never saw his cartoon until this week, that would be impossible. I use google images for reference pictures when I draw celebrities or characters. Nowhere in the top 100 images of “Herbert, Family Guy” did this image pop up. In fact, in the past, I have abandoned ideas when similar cartoons showed up in a reference search.
I did a long post on the topic (last year) of how and why several cartoonists coming up with the same idea. In short talks about how certain events in the news can drum up similar gags. September 11 caused many cartoonists to draw the Statue of Libery crying. Similarly when you think about the TSA potentially hiring creepy guys to perform pat downs, Herbert is on a short list of creepy guys (also to possibly include Ron Jeremy, David Hasselhoff, and the Burger King guy).
Now “shameless” are the people who have been copying my wrestling signs and holding them up at WWE events without plastering my URL all over them to drive some traffic over here.
Major Cartoon(ist) – I love this adjective but once again doesn’t apply to me. One might assume that in order to be a “major cartoon(ist)”, I would have to be making some money off this venture.
Artwork – Obviously if you look at his artwork and then mine, There is a BIG difference. He can draw perspective and I suck at it.
Now to his credit after I responded to his comment here, he did back down and even took the word “shameless” off his post…yet “flagrant” still remains..haha. Keep up the good work Dr B. and now that I know you are out there, I’ll be stealing crap from you from now own.