The webcomics blog about webcomics

Graven Images

So, blasphemy and idolatry are hitting the webcomicsosphere pretty hard. Lots of issues here. Could be a consulate or two gets burned, when there’s good and bad guys everywhere and the up yours attitude comes out (not that the up yours attitude isn’t warranted under certain circumstances).

Case in point, from eviscerati:

Alex has five cartoons in all, and has made them available via links on a page that you must deliberately click to view (with warnings for those comics that depict Mohammed, to minimize any offense given to Shi’a Moslems). The one posted here is my favorite of the lot.

Except some sources claim that Shi’a Muslims are less categorically strict about the depiction-of-Mohammed thing. Unless they’re not. I’ve got free-speech cred out the wazoo and I’ve casually studied Islam for a dozen years, but I’m still having a problem getting a handle on this. Are the guys out rioting the Muslim equivalent of Fred Phelps (no link; go look up the nutjob on your own time)? I think what’s needed in this discussion is maybe a different perspective. Check back tomorrow; could be interesting.

Man, I hate kittens so bad.

My read on all this:

1) The muslim boycott of Danish goods is a great thing. Free speech is not freedom from responsibility. Would that the muslims could have stuck with boycotting… it’s more effective — especially when there are a billion of you participating.

2) The Iranian Holocaust Cartoon Contest is a great thing. It will show muslims what Israelis and the West do when we’re outraged over something somebody said: notably, we lampoon them in our press, whine a lot, and maybe (MAYBE, if we can get our act together) have a nice boycott.

3) I love Havarti. Given the choice between turning Palestine into a smoking, glassy crater, and enjoying some Havarti, I’ll take the cheese EVERY TIME.

Those pokegravy cartoons were funnier than the Danish ones.

The Iranian Holocaust Cartoon Contest is a great thing.

Oh, yes, let’s drag the Jews into this one, Howard. I’m sure we’re somehow responsible for this as well. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to get some Dane-hating on? Maybe some cartoons about the Second War of Schleswig?

I’m sure you wouldn’t think it was such a great idea if they had a boner for Mormons. Maybe I’ll whip up some single-panels depicting John Smith porking his nieces, reading from a ‘book’ filled with incomprehensible squiggles while a denim-clad Jesus smiles in the distance. Is that also a “great” idea?

I had a boner for a Mormon once.

At any rate, Howard’s saying outrage is good. We’ll show that we truly believe in freedom of the press. I think the fanatics will mistake the West’s tolerance for lack of faith, but meh.

I have to agree with Jon on this one. The Iranians are targetting the wrong group with their comics. If Judaism were the national religion of Denmark, that’d be one thing, but this is attacking a group which–in the eyes of many arabs–represents the whole of the west, rather than attacking the actual perpetrators. Just to cover my tracks a bit, I think there could be something said about lumping together all of the western world in the same way the original cartoons lumped together all muslims. Also, the Iranians choice of holocaust cartoons may not be motivated by whatever harsh feelings they have towards Jewish people and their allies, but rather could have been picked because it would cause the greatest uproar.

Well, of course.

It’s Muslim-extremists we’re talking about. They’re GUNNA drag the Jews into it. I think you’re wrong about *why* they picked the Jews to drag – I think it’s because there is built-in hatred there, and they figured people cartoonists would have an easy time thinking of offensive things about the holocaust. And they picked it because in many European countries it’s illegal to publish hate-speech.

But if they’re dragging in the Jews, I think it’s a great opportunity to make Jew-draggin-ade. If we don’t let ourselves be baited by this, what the hell would bait us?

1) The cartoons appeared in newspapers.
2) Newspapers are media.
3) The Jews control the media.
4) The Jews are responsible for the cartoons.

See? It all works out. The wrath of the Muslim world is being guided by their leaders to the Jews of Denmark. Both of them.

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