A year ago conservative cartoonist Ben Garrison created an editorial cartoon
illustrating a conspiracy theory involving Bill Gates and Covid-19 and vaccines.
© GrrrGraphics
That was in March of 2020, now a year later an altered form of the cartoon has appeared.
According to Business Insider Elon Musk tweeted out the altered comic.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk used an anti-vaccine political cartoon to take a swipe at Bill Gates and the Microsoft Zune.
Musk tweeted an edited cartoon, originally created by conservative artist Ben Garrison, depicting an illustrated version of the Microsoft cofounder.
Musk deleted the tweet about two hours later, after it had been shared more than 5,000 times.
In an edited version shared by Musk, the vaccine rollout had been moved forward on the list, and a new final step had been added: “Zune Relaunch.”
The cartoon was changed in another way – it was cropped to delete Ben Garrison’s name.
No explanation from Musk as to why he posted the revised editorial or why he deleted it.
And what can Ben do when the person responsible is the second richest man in the world?
Read the Business Insider story here with Ben’s comment:
Garrison said on Saturday that he hadn’t granted permission for his cartoon to be posted.
“Regarding the Musk post—I don’t allow my work to be changed nor do I grant permission for vandalized cartoons to be posted,” he told Insider via email. “Still, I’m the most trolled editorial cartoonist in the world so it happens.”
Garrison is right to complain about his work being altered without his permission, but he has nothing to say about writing something that bonkers in the first place?
Does he STILL think COVID was a conspiracy?
Ignatz—isn’t bonkers Garrison’s whole brand? Of course he’s got nothing to say except stroking his malignant victimization complex as “the most trolled cartoonist in the world”. I agree that no one deserves to be plagiarized like that, but resorting to pathetic hyperbole about the whole thing seems very in character for him.