Is There an Echo Here?   

With editorial cartoonists contemplating many of the same headlines day to day, similarities in their work are to be expected. But when do coincidences become a concern?

ON WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, New Orleans' Times-Picayune ran an editorial cartoon by its cartoonist, Walt Handelsman. It depicted Saddam Hussein doing the hokey pokey to symbolize the way he was toying with U.N. weapons inspectors.
Handelsman's work is syndicated, and so the cartoon appeared in USA Today two days later. On November 17, it ran in the Chicago Tribune.
But Chicago readers weren't the only ones to encounter the dancing Iraqi leader that day. Similar cartoons appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, by Gary Markstein, and the Los Angeles Times, by Michael Ramirez.
Markstein and Ramirez say they didn't see Handelsman's work before drawing their own cartoons.
But Markstein says he did see Handelsman's cartoon in the November 17 Tribune, the day his drawing ran. ``I was very surprised. I was extremely surprised," he says. He then learned of the USA Today appearance, he says, and called Handelsman to tell him about their similar efforts. Markstein decided he would not distribute the cartoon through the Copley News Service syndicate.
Although Markstein didn't remember it at the time, he had previously used the Saddam/hokey pokey combination in a 1993 cartoon.
Ramirez says he was not aware of the other hokey pokey cartoons until he was contacted by AJR. But the overlap doesn't strike him as all that shocking. ``It's one of those cultural themes that have been used over and over again,'' Ramirez says. ``Part of what [editorial cartoonists] do is grasp the familiar and use that as themes.''
These examples provide more fodder for debate of what contributes to homogeneity in editorial cartoons. Handelsman says similarities ``happen quite frequently.'' He cites a wave of ``Iraqnaphobia'' images that appeared after the movie ``Arachnaphobia'' hit the theaters during a time of crisis with Iraq.
Of the hokey pokey episode, Handelsman says, ``I did not discuss the cartoon with Gary Markstein'' before either of their drawings ran. Markstein says similarities are ``commonplace in the business.''
The Handelsman and Markstein cartoons did come to the attention of Joel Pett, editorial cartoonist for the Lexington Herald-Leader and president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. ``It's not unusual for people to have similar ideas,'' Pett says. The problem is that ``everybody heads in the same direction on the same days,'' he says. He doesn't see much ``that's very groundbreaking.''
Pett isn't placing all the blame on the cartoonists, though. ``Editors tend to like stuff that doesn't take much thinking or analysis,'' he says. Cartoons mirror the mainstream headlines. Before Princess Diana's death, Pett says, ``you couldn't print a cartoon about land mines to save your life.''
So can anyone distinguish between coincidence and plagiarism in cartooning? Jimmy Margulies, editorial cartoonist for the Record in Hackensack, New Jersey, says ``some ideas strike you as really original,'' while others are ``familiar metaphors.'' He also says one needs to look at where a cartoon appeared and when subsequent, comparable cartoons ran.
``If a cartoonist does one cartoon a year that is similar [to previously published work], that doesn't bother me,'' says Signe Wilkinson, editorial cartoonist at the Philadelphia Daily News. But if it happens repeatedly, she says, there's cause for concern.
Repeat images from Markstein's work did come to the attention of Pett and the AAEC. In October, Pett says, a cartoonist sent him four Markstein cartoons that were suspiciously similar to those of other artists. Pett shared the works with the artists involved and heard that more examples existed. In a few weeks, he had received a dozen or more samples of what others felt were questionable Markstein drawings. Pett called a meeting of the board of directors. Though some favored contacting the cartoonist's editors, Pett and others thought the association's ``first obligation was to our members,'' he says.
Pett sent the cartoons along with a letter to Markstein, the inference being that ``people are starting to talk about this,'' Pett says.
Markstein says he received the materials November 17 and was ``quite angry.'' He says some ``crackpot'' in the profession is trying to create a pattern of plagiarism that isn't there.
He took the examples to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editor Martin Kaiser, and they discussed the situation.
In a letter to Pett, Markstein says, ``I flatly denied I would consciously plagiarize or lift anybody's work.'' He also said ``that this was a concern to me to see that this was happening. I don't like to see duplicates in the business, especially when they're my cartoons.'' Markstein says he's going to concentrate on avoiding clichŽs and looking at other editorial cartoons.
Kaiser says he is investigating the episodes. ``I've been spending quite a bit of time looking at his cartoons,'' he says. ``I'm concerned about similarities...but I found three examples of cartoonists using Saddam Hussein with a yo-yo.''
While Kaiser says he's surprised at the likenesses in cartoons around the country, most editorial cartoonists are not. The Record's Margulies, who says he drew a Saddam cartoon with a yo-yo in August and has seen three or four since, acknowledges that sometimes ``it just happens [cartoonists] hit on the same thing.'' But Markstein's hokey pokey work, Margulies says, is ``very suspect,'' since there has been a pattern of questionable cartoons by the artist.
To lessen the chance of overlap, Kaiser recommends that more cartoons focus on local issues. While some in the industry say papers shy away from examining local subjects, Kaiser says, ``I think that's what newspapers should be doing.''
``There's nothing the matter with a shot at Saddam Hussein,'' Pett says. ``It's just that there's so much of the easy work being done.'' Saddam clearly doesn't care what's printed in a U.S. daily, Pett hypothesizes, but ``what happens when you piss off the biggest banker in Columbus, Ohio?''
Cartoonists have varying views on pressure to back off local figures. The Philadelphia Inquirer's Tony Auth says he's never faced ``any pressure to make my cartoons pleasant,'' and the Cincinnati Enquirer's Jim Borgman says his editors probably want more local themes, as those ``speak the most to readers.'' Steve Breen at New Jersey's Asbury Park Press says there's ``a little bit'' of pressure not to pick on the local subjects as much as the national. Yet, as Wilkinson points out, clichŽs can crop up in local cartoons just as they can in national items. (An additional problem is syndication: Local cartoons aren't going to gain national distribution.)
One step Breen gives as a way to stop repeat performances is to look at the work of other artists to create a memory bank of cartoons.
``I'm not saying that plagiarism doesn't exist,'' Breen says, ``because it does. But in a lot of cases it's purely coincidental.'' He adds, ``I've had a cartoon this year that I would suspect [a] certain individual ripped me off.''
Both Borgman and the L.A. Times' Ramirez invoke the safeguard Markstein is now advocating--they don't look at the work of others. Borgman says similarities result from ``the fact that you've got two, three hundred people looking at the same headlines every day.'' Certain metaphors are obvious. ``That's not an exoneration of the profession.'' Instead, he says, it ``indicates a shopworn attitude.''
Like Auth, Borgman is not sure familiar imagery is so much the problem as is similar drawing styles in American cartooning. ``I keep looking for the renaissance in the profession,'' Borgman says. While some cartoonists are trying different techniques, he adds, ``none is the messiah.''