I don’t think it’s a firing offense. Circumstances are different. Sometimes the cartoonist might have forgotten he ever did it before.

I would hope a political cartoonist knows the difference between what he/she does, and what is done in a gag-a-day comic strip for the funny pages.

Pay attention here, boy.

However, I think we are confusing cartooning in general with something other than what it is at it’s core…which is entertainment. Looking at it from that perspective if, like Stahler, a cartoonist steals from another they are in copyright violation. Legally this is worse than plagiarism.

Subsequently, if that same cartoonist want to use material that they previously created then they are free to do so. After all, how many times did Charlie Brown try and kick that football?

In the academic case, the problem is that the paper is likely to be substandard in one aspect or the other — either it’s a good history analysis and poor literary analysis or vice-versa. The “cure” is to write the paper with the knowledge of and direction from both professors. Usually not as easy as doing two separate papers.

But there’s no ethical cure for doing a cartoon every four years with the newly-elected president or governor sitting in the drivers seat of a car that is still in the driveway while the media and Congress are depicted as kids screaming from the back seat “Are we there yet?” That’s just lazy, and, yes, it’s copying yourself and cheating both your client and your readers.

“Plagiarism is defined as the “wrongful appropriation,” “close imitation,” or “purloining and publication” of ANOTHER author’s “language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions,” and the representation of them as one’s own original work.”