With over 90 percent of it a direct copy of Bill Mauldin’s famous World War II cartoon, how can M. Beam’s painting be classified as anything but artistic plagiarism? If someone sketched breasts on a copy of the Mona Lisa, would that then be original art worthy of public display?

According to the Daily Egyptian piece, Beam said his paintings take a lot of work and thought. However, his green background and red-white stripes are hardly enough to call the piece his art, and his oversized pubic addition to Mauldin’s cartoon remind me of the 60-second adolescent sketching one sometimes sees in men’s toilets.

The Student Programming Council needs a more mature director of Visual Arts, and M. Beam needs to either keep his artistic inclinations to himself or grow up and do something truly original.

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