Over on BoingBoing, David Pescovitz compares T Shirts created by Imaginary Foundation (left) and FCUK (right), and makes a somewhat snide comment about imitation being the sincerest form of unoriginality.
No doubt Terry Gilliam might have something to say to all parties on that front:
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Yes, esp. since them BoingBoing folks are so big on CreativeCommons etc. - what's wrong with copying an idea but modifying it slightly, anyway?
Yep, and isn't the Imaginary Foundation version mostly clip-art anyway? I think the man is Dover public domain clip-art, and the blue butterfly looks awfully familiar too, but I'm not sure about butterfly.
What's really odd is that David seems to be implying that any "head opening with stuff pouring out" can in any way be original to *any* of these artists anyway. That's gotta be an old old concept. Whether it's butterflies or circus performers, it's really not that special. Strange he wouldn't noticed that.
I instantly thought of Monty Python as soon as I saw the BoingBoing post, yet there was no mention of that and how both artists owe their inspiration to Terry Gilliam (unless of course, he borrowed the idea from somewhere else).
"A good idea is a good idea forever", David Brent
I thought the idea originated with Athena springing fully formed from the head of Zeus.
er, no, sundayreader, that was because Zeus had eaten her mother Metis post-coitally.
yah dude. shit coming out of some dudes head. THEY INVENTED IT!
This fuss wouldn't have happened if the OP was a bit more aware. The FCUK design is a Gilliam rip-off/tribute, and I'd wear it proudly as such - the other is just lame, and it can't be seen as having informed the other in any way.
Didn't Milton Glaser walk this ground with his poster for Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" like 40+ years ago.
I agree with Kevin, above.
Have we moved through the cliché phase to archetype yet?