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"At the end of May, Al-Ghamdi published an article in the discussions section (of the newspaper's web site) in which he explained that from his point of view, new ideas can never develop "unless you compare yourself to one who is better than you, take from them what you can benefit from and discard that which is unbeneficial in order to reach their level." He compared his plagiarism to remaking films and songs in which artists are influenced by those that came before them and he believes that this act was not shameful at all." and this ... "Al-Ghamdi concluded, "This is part of the gradual development from one style of caricature to a better one, just like any other art that needs to go through stages of imitation in order to advance." This process of development always experiences difficulties, but the process must continue. This development can be tedious and only one who experiences it can understand my point especially when having to bear in mind many other considerations such as publishing and copyright laws and I hope that the newspaper identifies my respect for these laws when they go through my statements." The article goes on to quote Al Ghamdi saying that he may resume drawing for the Al-Watan newspaper "in no more than three months. It was agreed that he would take a holiday while his drawings are suspended however, he was not sure if he would return to the newspaper at all." Another interesting nugget from this article, apparently referring to the administrator of the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper web site ... "Asharq Al-Awsat tried to reach the caricaturists involved but they were unavailable."
To review, Al Ghamdi makes a career out of tracing other people's work and calling it his own. Readers send us lots of examples, which we post on the site. Al Ghamdi writes to me, asking that I take the cartoons down, because he might lose his job, when I don't take them down, he writes to me, masquerading as a 16 year old boy, and sends a bogus photo of "himself." I put this on the site, and receive a torrent of email from readers who tell me that he isn't really 16, he is the star cartoonist for a major Saudi paper, whose color cartoons appear on the back page of the paper every day, and who is a respected, award winning, Saudi cartoonist. When I post those comments, Ali sends me a drawing of himself with a very long penis, and this note, "This is the last answer to you . take this, but put it slowly please." I've gotten so many requests to see this drawing that I decided to post it. (Sorry.) And now it sounds like Ali may be going back to work in his old job soon. I was starting to miss him.
 JUNE 17, 2005CARTOON FESTIVAL IN BRAZIL I must apologize for being away from the blog for so long! I've had a string of conventions and cartoons fires that I had to put out. I was taken away from the blog for the first week of my absence by a cartoon festival in Recife, Brazil. The festival was funded by the state government of Pernambuco. Many governments around the world support our art form with impressive museums and festivals the likes of which are never seen in America. France has a whole branch of the Louvre devoted to cartoons; it is quite a contrast to the USA where cartooning is the retarded, funny cousin of real "fine arts."
Recife is an interesting city
that didn't meet my preconceptions of Brazil (there were no topless
babes in thongs). This huge city is near the equator in Northeast
Brazil and is far from the popular tourist pathways. The festival
was great fun and a sincere effort by dedicated cartooning professionals.
American cartoonists rarely enter foreign cartoon competitions,
and that's a shame. I would encourage my American cartoonist
friends to enter these contests even though they might seem a
bit strange and foreign.
I got some interesting e-mail this morning about plagiarist Saudi Arabian cartoonist, Ali Alghamdi. If any of our readers are fluent in Arabic and would like to add something about what they are reading on the subject, please send us a note. The Alwatan newspaper did not respond to my e-mail request for comment. Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 09:42:53
+0300 Hello, I have been following
this story from here in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where my friends
and I are absolutely appalled by the plagiarism. We could not
believe this guy was that stupid and unethical. In any case,
I read your "Newsweek moment", and subsequent "Pentagon
moment", where everything was in doubt. Next,
I went to AlWatan on line to see if there is any mention, and
lo and behold, a full apology from the paper to all the cartoonists
who had been ripped off, and to the readers as well. Plus a notice
that they have removed Ali Ghamdi from the staff, assuring everyone
that the plagiarism happened without the paper's knowledge and
that their policy is to protect all intellectual rights and copyrights. Hi Daryl,
I know that you can't read Arabic
but I thought you know some ppl who would help you... some people commented in the internet about the "smart move" of Alwatan newspaper. because they didn't say that they fired him, they only said that they are stopping him publishing. to show that Al-Ghamdi is not an Employee he is "just" participating artist, just to get rid of any legal cases might show up.
Why do the cartoonists assume
that Richard Nixon is in HEAVEN?
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Hey
I'm easy to reach. Nobody from a Saudi newspaper tried to contact
me, or responded to my e-mails. We also post the email addresses
of the other cartoonists whose work was plagiarized; they didn't
get emails either.
JUNE
22, 2005
That's
the offending cartoon at the right. Read more about the case
on the 
Musa lost in lower courts and
is currently appealing to the Turkish supreme court.The case
is viewed as important in defining the rights of the press to
criticize government officials in Turkey. In an interesting show
of support, other Turkish cartoonists have been insulting the
Prime Minister by drawing him as an animal. The cover of the
Turkish humor magazine "Penguen" (left) shows the angry
PM as various animals. The PM is also suing "Penguen"
for insulting him in the same way. I'd suggest that the cartoonists
draw this guy as a pig --or an ass.
The
competition in Recife, Brazil's fourth largest city, was organized
by editorial cartoonist, 
The cartoon at the
right won the competition as best gag/humor cartoon. It is by
Pavel Constantin, from Romania. I have noticed that the jurors
in international contests love wordless cartoons about generals,
flowers in gun barrels and people who suffer; prisoners and victims
of torture are always very popular. This one is cute.
