Did the cartoonist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer plagiarize himself?

Is this becoming a trend?: Two "different" cartoons drawn six years apart by David Horsey, one from 2001, and one from today.Following the heels of Monday's discovery of New York Post cartoonist Sean Delonas copying himself, we have a new case in what's seemingly becoming an epidemic.

Today's culprit is an artist I admire a great deal, and if it wasn't for the fact that I own several of his books, I might not have noticed that he changed up an old cartoon and simply resubmitted it as new.

David Horsey, the Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, filed this cartoon today in response to George W. Bush's farewell trip to Europe.

The problem is it's just a touched-up version of this cartoon filed back in 2001.

Horsey has responded, saying:

Cartoonists and artists have always revisited old themes and images. When I saw that Bush was ending his years in office having tea with the queen, it reminded me of one of my favorite cartoons from his first months as president. I was happy to revisit the old cartoon and I HOPED people would remember it. That was kind of the point – bookends to a failed presidency.

But a quick look on his blog shows that he only mentioned this after a reader made a comment about the cartoon being the same.

Regardless, in an era of declining jobs for cartoonists, it's my view that the ones lucky enough to have staff jobs should take the responsibility seriously. Especially when the majority of them only draw one cartoon a day, if that.

They at least owe it to the cartoonists out there struggling, trying to make a living.

UPDATE. It seems my post has inspired a contentious discussion among cartoonists over at the Daily Cartoonist.

My favorite post so far comes from Mike Lester, the editorial cartoonist of the Rome News-Tribune:

This is a bad rap. The truth is that plagiarizing is a common technique used by a lot of great artists. Great artists like Milli Vanilli for instance.

Cartoon plagiarizing regardless of the source is essentially lip-synching without the spandex.

It’s fun. It’s easy and, like a great toupe’, no one can tell!

UPDATE #2: David Horsey has written back a more diplomatic message:

Matt and friends, let me put this a little more diplomatically… I was not trying to get away with something by reworking an old image. The intent was to bring readers back to an older image that I knew had been published widely. I considered redrawing the image completely but actually thought that would look more like self-plagiarizing. I figured touching up the same image would get the point of deja vu across better and make it clear I was being intentional. I also was looking forward to using the two images together in public presentations. Maybe that was where I went wrong — to think about how I’d use these cartoons in the context of a speech rather than seeing how some readers might look at what I was doing. Anyway, the point is, I wasn’t trying to take the day off or slip something by anyone. I told my editor what I was doing. I just didn’t anticipate the ever-vigilant critics ready to pounce from the blogosphere.