David Simpson Accused Of Plagiarizing Jeff MacNelly Cartoon

Alan Gardner has a succinct and frankly devastating write-up on cartoonist David Simpson apparently copying a Jeff MacNelly cartoon to the point of tracing and re-drawing it for publication in the Urban Tulsa weekly publication. He includes a blended image that leaves very little doubt of the new cartoon's provenance. I'm not 100 percent certain how the copying was initially uncovered, although I was cc'ed a letter with attachments to the publication from a cartoonist calling attention to the act. Simpson was let go from the Tulsa World in 2005 for copying an earlier cartoon he said he thought was one of his own, an explanation that did not satisfy his then-employers. That was an extremely high-profile case, and it's unclear why Simpson would return to the same kind of action a half-dozen years later. This should be tracked as a story throughout the week, I'd imagine with statements from both the cartoonist and the newspaper, and perhaps some sort of penalizing action by the newspaper.
 
posted 5:10 am PST | Permalink
 

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