I suppose the next step is for an artist to "authenticate" works s/he couldn't possibly have created and which aren't even in question.
Related, lots of artists make forgeries of their own work.
The more I look at it, the more I find the whole modern art ecosystem similar to bitcoin: abstrusely useless work arbitrarily attributed value by consensus, used for portable and state-independent storage of money.
I can't recommend 'Modern Art' highly enough. It's a card game by Reiner Knizia in which the players bid up the value of art works by various fictional artists. It's a classic and a firm family favourite of ours.
There really is no difference in cartoons and traditional art in the sense that both are essentially works of formulaic conception. Cartoons make the formula simple and explicit, whereas in traditional painting the formulas are a bit more complex.
http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/research/online-editions/1...