The news continues to get worse for Shia LaBeouf.
The actor apologized early Tuesday morning for the fact that his new short film, HowardCantour.com, was lifted, nearly word for word, from a comic by the famed artist-screenwriter Daniel Clowes; as first reported by BuzzFeed, Clowes had no idea that LaBeouf took his work, and is now pursuing his legal options in response. Now, an analysis of segments of comic books written and drawn by LaBeouf reveal that he seemingly took passages from other famed writers, including the late Charles Bukowski.
LaBeouf is the creator of several niche comic books, which share themes, stories, and even direct language with writers that he never credited. In his book Let's Fucking Party, LaBeouf borrows heavily from Bukowski. Where LaBeouf writes, "Poets bore me, they are shits. Snails. Snippets of dust in a cheap wind," he is taking the quote directly from Bukowski's poem "More Argument," which can be read here.
As first noticed by comic writer Josh Farkas, who relayed his findings to BuzzFeed, LaBeouf also cobbled together lines from Bukowski's poem "assault" for his self-published Let's Fucking Party from April 2012. LaBeouf, who has spoken of his admiration for the late Bukowski, wrote:
"Poets don't anger anyone. Poets don't gamble. Here, they don't assassinate poets. Here, they don't notice them."
Bukowski wrote:
"in america the poets never anger anybody.
the poets don't gamble.
their poetry has the smell of clinics
their poetry has the smell of clinics
where people die rather than live.
here they don't assassinate poets
they don't even notice the poets."
Further, as Farkas found, LaBeouf's comic Stale N Mate contains lifted and massaged passages from a novel by French writer Benoît Duteurtre titled The Little Girl and the Cigarette.
For example, LaBeouf wrote:
"Seemingly indifferent to the fate that awaited him – Donal Thomas continued to look obstinate in the antechamber of the execution room. A silent exchange pitted the condemned man."
While Duteurtre wrote:
"Seemingly indifferent to the fate that awaited him, Désiré Johnson continued to look obstinate. In the antechamber of the execution room a silent exchange pitted the condemned man..."
BuzzFeed has found several other passages that were taken from Duteurtre. Among them:
LaBeouf wrote:
Unaware of the debate going on in the wings. These individuals patiently awaited the beginning of the spectacle.
Duteurtre wrote:
Unaware of the debate that was going on in the wings, these individuals patiently awaited the beginning of the spectacle."
LaBeouf wrote:
Government law said the condemned man Donal Thomas was acting entirely w/in his rights when he invoked Artical [sic] 47 of the Code of Application of Punishments, which authorized him to have one last smoke before execution.
Duteurtre wrote:
According to Government law, the condemned man, Désiré Johnson, was acting entirely within his rights when he invoked Article 47 of the Code of Application of Punishments, which authorized him to have one last smoke before execution.
BuzzFeed has reached out again to LaBeouf's publicists for comment, and will update this story if and when they respond.
UPDATE: LaBeouf took to Twitter to attempt another apology on Wednesday morning, and the apologies he sent out also seem lifted from very famous statements, as first pointed out by blog The Film Stage.
He wrote, "I have let my family down, and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart," which was taken word-for-word from Tiger Woods' 2009 apology for infidelity.
Then, LaBeouf tweeted, "I was wrong, terribly wrong. I owe it to future generations to explain why," which former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara wrote in his memoir about the execution of the Vietnam War.