Go, Read: John Cole On Plagiarism In Cartooning

I think Association of American Editorial Cartoonists President John Cole has some of the best material in this round-up of people spouting off on plagiarism, which in 2011 became a noticeable issue in several fields including cartooning. Cole doesn't dither around in the psychology, which I appreciate just because that's never very interesting to me, but instead talks about the distinction between moving through the laborious and sustained, intentional effort of tracing something and producing ideas that are similar to other people's ideas. It's the latter that usually gets blown out of proportion, I think, in part because people aren't willing to make those kind of distinctions. I'm not saying that coming up with an idea someone else had is a good thing, and it certainly can be an avenue for plagiarism: Cole thinks this is the case with Jeff Stahler, mostly due to the resignation. It's just that if someone is producing humorous content 365 days a year, they're bound to tell a joke that is similar to another person's joke. Lock an infinite number of monkeys and typewriters in a room and one may eventually type out Hamlet; lock 30 comedy writers in separate rooms with Internet access and ask for a Mitt Romney joke on the events of January 5, 2012, and it's not hard to imagine three to five writing something similar.
 
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