SIMILARITIES OR PLAGIARISM ? Interview with Julian Pena-Pai Julian PENA-PAI is a wellknown Romanian cartoonist, with 40 yearcartooning experience and 90 international prizes awarded in worldwide cartoon contests. We should mention the ECC- Kruishoutem first prize, in 1989. He also participated in over 20 international juries. He is a genuine professional, passionate about cartooning evolution in general and the history of ideas in cartooning in particular. Pena-Pai is considered an artist with a trained eye, capable of finding similarities in cartoon art. Saskia : Which are in your opinion the elements that make a good cartoon? Julian: A good cartoon lives first and foremost through its concept/idea and only secondly through its graphic “coat”. The original IDEA is the author’s intelectual product and his pride. The whole intelligence of a cartoonist is quantified in his idea, the copyright is applied to the idea, not to the quality of the drawing. The idea is like a ROOT – a good root – which, after you have “planted”, and you have drawn nicely, a good cartoon will come out of it. The idea is accepted as original only when it belongs to the first author. If out of ignorance, human error memory or coincidence you take over/borrow the “root” of another author, you will definitely not create an original cartoon (based on your own inspiration and creativity). Instead, you will produce SIMILARITY, similarity which can be the same as PLAGIARISM. This is the first lesson any cartoonist should learn.
NEGATIVE similarities