{"id":56,"date":"2004-08-10T12:34:29","date_gmt":"2004-08-10T18:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2004\/08\/10\/dupe-duplicative-dupe\/"},"modified":"2009-07-07T22:27:22","modified_gmt":"2009-07-08T03:27:22","slug":"dupe-duplicative-dupe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/08\/dupe-duplicative-dupe\/","title":{"rendered":"Dupe duplicative dupe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Doop a dupe a doop<\/span><\/h4>\n
Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock<\/span><\/h6>\n

Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2004.<\/strong> The Berkeley Breathed “Opus” panel for Sunday 8\/8\/04 looked very familiar (His syndicate does not allow open online access). So I walked from the paper on the dining table to my home office (the north side of the sunporch I have fenced off with bookshelves and a filing cabinet and nicknamed “Poet’s Corner”) to find in my framed ’80s collage o’ clips, a favorite “Bloom County,” dated 2\/15\/87. Yes. It’s the same penguin and almost the same set-up and punch line.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sunday’s had the flightless bird at a bar with one woman then another asking his political leaning. When they conclude he’s undecided, they pounce amorously, while Opus tells the reader he merely wanted directions to the potty.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back in 1987, the issue was AIDS, and he gets similarly swarmed after questioning of his sexual history by admitting to being a rather a prude, though all he wanted was directions to the men’s room. This strip seems to get to the point much more tersely, yet more clearly, than the new one. This year’s model certainly is better drawn, though.<\/span><\/p>\n

If even terrific columnists and cartoonists end up with, oh, no more than half-a-dozen themes throughout their careers, as any surface analysis will prove, then repeating oneself is inevitable. Self-plagiarism thus is only self-contradictory, not an ethical lapse.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the artist really ought to improve on the past. Otherwise, what’s the point? I want Breathed to succeed so this was worrisome<\/span><\/p>\n

I e-mailed to Poynter’s Romenesko<\/a> to ask, did anyone else notice? I got one response that this is an accepted practice termed a “callback,” which I’ll remember the next time Romenesko or Editor & Publisher<\/em> report that a sports columnist got fired for “stealing” years’ old copy from himself, which happened earlier this year. -30-<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doop a dupe a doop Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2004. The Berkeley Breathed “Opus” panel for Sunday 8\/8\/04 looked very familiar (His syndicate does not allow open online access). So I walked from the paper on the dining table to my home office (the north side of the sunporch I have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-course-of-words","tag-columnist"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":400,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/01\/by-george-part-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":56,"position":0},"title":"By George, Part II","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 26, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Only some of the essayists in What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics, edited by Andras Szanto for PublicAffairs Books, which I will review soon, think George Orwell (1903-1950) is the man for 2008. After all, their thesis is in the title. Any other George\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4394,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2013\/07\/hartford-conference-notes\/","url_meta":{"origin":56,"position":1},"title":"Heartin’ Historic Hartford","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"For most summers, Brick has included reportage from the annual conferences of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. They were long, even when broken into several posts per weekend. Reporting this year's, in Hartford, Conn., was tricky because I left my seat and note-taking repeatedly\u00a0 when called away to troubleshoot.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "UConn and More"","block_context":{"text":"UConn and More","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/hartford-2013\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":72,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/05\/down-to-the-level\/","url_meta":{"origin":56,"position":2},"title":"Down to the level","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 5, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, May 5, 2004. A note about the U.S. MPs' sexual and general humiliation of Iraqi civilian\/military detainees. Here's The New Yorker's link to photos and articles. Jews are not supposed to make Holocaust comparisons lightly and don't want non-Jews to make any at all.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":77,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/03\/thanks-for-the-memoirs\/","url_meta":{"origin":56,"position":3},"title":"Thanks for the memoirs","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"March 11, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock \u00a0 Thursday, March 11, 2004. What does it say about a person when, first, they continue to carry on about years' old problems as if they were fresh and, second, they evidently feel a need to tell people about them? It's evidence perhaps of this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":82,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/06\/naders-nadir\/","url_meta":{"origin":56,"position":4},"title":"Nader’s nadir","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 1, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday, June 1, 2004. Ralph Nader won't hurt John Kerry, and if he does, the tall Brahmin will deserve the loss. Just like Al Gore. I don't believe Nader cost Gore the election. Nevermind the numbers and the Electoral College; the number indicate damage. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/12\/knowing-well\/","url_meta":{"origin":56,"position":5},"title":"Knowing well","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 17, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Knowing you too well is not enough Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Friday, Dec. 17, 2004: Here's a concept that just barely occurred to me, 11:30 p.m., a month after the local funeral for Mom, on Wednesday 17 November, following her Monday 15 November passing. No one quite understands you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1518,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions\/1518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}