But when the film was uploaded to the internet in December 2013, it became very apparent that the film lifted extremely specific creative elements from the 2007 comic Justin M. Damiano by artist Daniel Clowes, perhaps most famous for Ghost World. The A.V. Club noted at the time that “just about the only original line in Howard is in the credits, which deems the work ‘A Film By Shia LaBeouf.’”
Clowes issued a statement claiming that he was “shocked, to say the least,” that LaBeouf “took the script and even many of the visuals from a very personal story I did six or seven years ago and passed it off as his own work,” adding: “I actually can't imagine what was going through his mind.” It wasn’t long before LaBeouf pseudo-apologized – but somehow, his “apology” just made everything way worse.
On Twitter, LaBeouf claimed to have been “lost in the creative process” and “neglected to follow proper accreditation,” revealing that he was “embarrassed” that he “failed” to give Clowes credit – but then people noticed that some of LaBeouf’s oddly-defensive remarks were themselves seemingly “plagiarized from Yahoo Answers.” Which is a little like trying to beat a public urination charge by whizzing all over the police station.