Penny’s defenders populate the world with vicious caricatures. If there are only sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves, Neely had no chance to be a human. Neither does anyone else.

A caricature titled "Wheeling and Dealing" pictures a grinning Robert E. Brennan, the notorious penny stock kingpin of the 1980s and '90s who was accused of defrauding investors of hundreds of ...