Cartoonist claims ‘Banksy has pinched some of my best ideas’
AN artist and cartoonist has accused Banksy of “pinching” her ideas for some of his most famous artworks.
Cinders McLeod says pieces by the world-renowned street artist – including his cover for a Blur album – bear a striking similarities to 16 of her works.
Ms McLeod, who is a former freelance cartoonist at our sister paper The Herald, produced a series of works for the paper.
They accompanied articles entitled ‘Traveller’s Checks’ and ‘Word Of The Week’, published between 1997 until 2001.
Cinders moved back to Canada before Banksy became a household name.
But after watching a television feature about him and going to an exhibition she was struck by the similarities between her own work.
Cinders says 16 of her works pre-date Banksy’s including his Think Tank, Bomb Middle England, Bomb Hugger, and Armoured Dove of Peace.
She says her work included things such as people hugging bombs, grannies bowling bombs and people in deep sea diving masks hugging years before his.
Ms McLeod said: “Banksy didn’t get famous until after I left Britain but, being a political cartoonist, I was aware of him.
“I should have seen the Blur album cover but I didn’t, I long gave up being current in the arts and music scene after my two children were born in 1993 and 1996, when my focus switched to providing for them. I bought tickets to the Toronto Banksy exhibition to go with my daughter.
“At the exhibition I saw five images that bore strong similarities to my illustrations, including the Blur CD cover.
“After some online research, I found another 11 ideas, in varying degrees of similarity, but enough to make me wonder if my work had been tear sheets in Banksy’s image bank, and believe that I had heavily influenced a lot of his early work.
“And the night before I saw an exhibition snippet on TV and thought – oh – that looks like my ‘Anarchic Granny’.”
Her cartoon, published on April 14, 1999, showed an old lady playing boules with a bomb.
She says it is much like Banksy’s stencil, named ‘Bomb Middle England’, which showed three elderly women with bombs instead of bowling balls.
Cinders noticed further similarities between her work and Banksy’s.
A cartoon she did titled ‘Cupid’s Bomb’, showing the cherub hugging a bomb painted with love hearts and published on June 10, 2000, set further alarm bells ringing.
The artist believes it bears a remarkable resemblance to Banksy’s ‘Bomb Hugger’ stencil, showing a girl with a ponytail hugging a bomb which first appeared on a mural in Brighton in 2003.
She believes Banksy’s cover for Britpop classic Think Tank, showing two lovers embracing while wearing divers helmets was taken directly from her illustration, titled ‘Deep Sea Lovers’, which accompanied an article in the Herald on March 15, 1997. In the newspaper cartoon, inspired by a story about a scuba-diving holiday and another about a wedding in Greece, a couple are shown wearing the old-fashioned helmets, in each other’s arms.
One of Banksy’s first exhibitions was at now-defunct nightclub The Arches, in 2001 – the year Ms McLeod returned to Toronto.
Ms McLeod said: “I would guess Banksy lived in Glasgow for a while between 1997 and 2001 or visited regularly.
“This is not about money, it’s about integrity.
“I’m calling on Banksy to do the right thing.”
The Evening Times contacted Banksy via Instagram but had no response by the time of going to press.
‘‘ I would guess Banksy lived in Glasgow for a while