Seeing one of your childhood heroes fall from grace is pretty disheartening, and I can't think of a more painful example than Butch Hartman. If you grew up in the early 2000s and watched Nickelodeon then you're most likely familiar with his most famous creation, Fairly OddParents, and maybe even his next series Danny Phantom. His later stuff like T.U.F.F Puppy and Bunsen is a Beast weren't as well recieved, leading to him leaving the network to focus on online content. Since then he's had a fair share of controversy, plagiarism accusations notwithstanding.

Butch is a long-time anime fan, in fact my first exposure to the differences between anime and western animation was probably the Speed Racer parody segment in the FoP Channel Chasers movie. He also likes to draw characters in his own style and post them on social media. As a weeb who grew up watching his cartoons I think that's pretty cool, at least when he puts the effort in.

It makes sense that people would commission him to draw other anime characters in the style of FoP. He recently tweeted an illustration he drew of Mikasa from Attack on Titan, but it didn't take long for people to work out he traced over an existing picture of Mikasa drawn by Japanese artist 028ton in 2018.

Do I even have to point out which is which?

It obviously isn't his best drawing (seriously, is Mikasa meant to be having a stroke? What's with her right leg?) but that's nothing when he, a celebrity and veteran of the animation industry with an estimated net worth of US$50 million, clearly ripped off a relatively unknown artist and made money from it. 028ton is aware of the situation and has thanked Twitter users for rallying to their support with follows and retweets. Other artists have been offering commissions at fairer prices than Butch while promising not to rip off existing artwork with the hashtag #idontsteal. 

As I alluded to earlier, Hartman, a devout born-again Christian, has a history of engaging in scummy and/or deceitful behavior. In 2018 he began a Kickstarter campaign for a new, family-friendly streaming service called OAXIS Entertainment. It was only after it got funded that he revealed OAXIS was specifically a Christian network with programming meant to convert kids instead of good old non-religious cartoons like the ones he used to make, which understandably pissed off a lot of backers. He's also been accused of homophobia and transphobia after threatening to ban anyone posting LGBT art or fics on his Danny Phantom fan forum. Plus he's had some extremely backwards takes on mental health, like telling Timmy Turner's voice actor Tara Strong that her friend and fellow voice actor Mary Kay Bergman's suicide was all Tara's fault, and supporting his wife's career of claiming to cure autism through the power of Christ. Oh yeah, and this isn't the first time he's traced anime art for a commission.

So, what do you guys think of this situation? Were you a fan of Hartman's cartoons in the past? What do you think of him now? Sound off below!