We do not enter into whether he is a bad or a good cartoonist, whether he is a good person or not, whether he is a compatriot or not, they would be personal opinions that divert us from the subject. We focus on your lack of ethics and the message and bad example you are sending to others: to achieve success the easy way, without effort or talent.
At this moment, the acolytes of the great plagiarizer are desperate, looking to discredit our denunciations, looking for coincidences, copies, plagiarism in my drawings. Well, I’m sure you’ll find something, this was assumed when I went in to denounce. I have been drawing for 46 years every day, I will have done hundreds, thousands of drawings. We work with the immediacy that newspapers demand of us, there is not always time to contrast. But in general, I have an extensive work, very worked, very thoughtful, meditated. I have always competed with myself, and you may like it or not, but that’s where my work is.
But very different from the immediacy of newspapers is what you send to the competition, when you have enough time to take a walk where Julian Pena-pai and contrast it.
And unfortunately, with many of its plagiarisms, Boligán has been awarded in contests. Here, the contests, organization and juries have logically a good part of responsibility. We believe that to allow these practices is to allow spaces where some, without effort or talent, rise and gain prestige and money with the ideas of others.
And, of course, to reward them is to encourage plagiarists to continue with these practices.
Without going any further in the recent World Press Cartoon Awards, the idea of an award-winning cartoon can be found in an image bank. And other prizes are recurrent ideas already seen or awarded in other events.
In Cuba, Cuban graphic humor has always been characterized by its richness, both aesthetically and in its contents, in its diversity of styles and approaches. It enjoyed unquestionable national and international prestige in the last century and still seems to be maintained. It seems incredible that in such a small country so many signatures, so many styles and so many ways of approach proliferated, with a humor that was bold, courageous, incisive, critical, honest, diverse, sharp, intellectual and popular at the same time. So connected to the people on the street and always so committed. But above all, our humor always enjoyed good ethical health.
I had the privilege of being part of 2 of the most important publications of the 20th century; Melaíto and the mythical DDT (Prize for the best publication of political satire in the world, in 1985). Some of its members, like me, were recognized as one of the 20 best graphic humorists of the twentieth century, and not because of the number of accumulated awards, which I also have, but because of the contribution of my work to Cuban culture. I am honored and it is a privilege to be with many of the greats of that century in a country with a tradition and wealth of great cartoonists in such a small geography. My work has also been awarded and recognized later in many other countries, whoever wants to know more that you will read the summary of CV that I have on my website.
