"I had some drawings made to look like plagiarism of other artists".
One of the heaviest and most difficult burdens to lift for an artist is to be considered a repeat plagiarist.
The case of Cristian Gustavo Dzwonik, alias "Nik", is perhaps the most representative because his name has long been associated mainly with two issues, both related to the same thing: blatantly copying other authors and the creation of "Gaturro", which has always been considered a "bootleg" of Garfield, that is, an unauthorised or "pirated" edition as well as a bad copy of Jim Davis' famous cat.
And reading "Nik" in any context is a guarantee of finding allusions to plagiarism. In this note they have the matter more developed.
The bad image and the antipathy of a good part of the public and colleagues of the guild that the cartoonist drags has ended up provoking an endless cascade of jokes and memes and also that the statue of "Gaturro" has become the most vandalised character in the Paseo de la Historieta.
About this, Andrés Diplotti, cartoonist and otherwise, commented a couple of days ago with derision:
"The city should organise guided tours of Gaturro vandalism. Obligatory activities for all visitors to the city of Buenos Aires: dancing tango, eating croissants, touring the Recoleta cemetery, vandalising the statue of Gaturro.
All Argentines of all political persuasions agree that the statue of Gaturro exists to be vandalised. The only one who disagrees is Nik".
Nik has never spoken in depth about the accusations of plagiarism the two or three times he has been asked (also with little development and lack of detail). He has always gone off on a tangent with arguments as lame as that he's being dogged because of his political views.
Diego Sehinkman interviewed the author on TN about another issue and it was the cartoonist who introduced the subject.
Everything makes me think that it wasn't a coincidence, because seeing the condescending and complicit tone of the presenter and his complacent questions based verbatim on the opinions that the interviewee was spouting, it's more than likely that it was something agreed between the two of them.
"The only people I always felt intimidated by were Néstor and Cristina".
All the captures with headlines are meme fodder
The point is that it seems to me the worst defence I have ever seen, as this time the nonsense is more than evident and even compares the criticisms to "methods of the second world war". I guess, in his head, Nik thought that subliminally shoehorned in Nazism was a winning idea.
In short, in just two minutes of ridicule he once again presents himself as a victim of persecution and blames everything on the left, including manipulating images to create an "urban legend" and claims that the pages that talk about his "reasonable resemblances" are "state-sponsored". This is what he calls a "black folder".
According to Nik, this is the first case in the world in which a cartoonist has been set up on a grand scale from the highest levels in order to...hmmm...I don't know. I guess that's how conspiracies are, they don't need to make any sense or have any rational explanation.
"Everyone has 3 or 4 similar jokes".
I can only give you a little bit of reason in something you say, because it's true, although you use it as a deceptive device. All cartoonists have works that resemble something else or that may coincide with other works by pure coincidence (or obvious jokes) far beyond a reasonable resemblance even if there is no intention to plagiarise.
But in Nik's case, as much as I would like to deny or minimise them, it is not a matter of three or four cases. There are dozens, some more obvious than others. Moreover, the difference is determined by the response that is given when it happens.
Be that as it may, there you have those two minutes of ranting.
Full programme, the interview starts at 1:22:19 and the cut to the plagiarism cases at 1:35:09
