If I am not mistaken, they are the first major American print publication to run the cartoons. I wonder what Borders will do about this:
Controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad have been reprinted in a U.S. magazine with commentary by leading U.S. cartoonist Art Spiegelman, who offers what he calls a "fatwa bomb meter" to rate their offensiveness.
Harper's Magazine published the article by Spiegelman in its June edition available on newsstands from Tuesday ...
Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper published the 12 cartoons last year. Other newspapers around the world, mainly in Europe, later reprinted the cartoonsIn an article headlined "Drawing Blood: Outrageous cartoons and the art of outrage," Spiegelman, an elder statesman of political satire famous for his New Yorker cartoons, said the cartoons needed to be seen to be understood.
As a secular Jewish cartoonist living in New York City, I start out with four strikes against me, but I really don't want any irate Muslims declaring holy war on me," Spiegelman wrote in the article, describing himself as "a devout coward."
"It's not intended to add fuel to any fire," Spiegelman told Reuters by telephone. "I think that the tone is the tone of a secular wise-guy cartoonist rather than a scholar, but I wanted to show ... what couldn't be described," he said, adding that he was surprised that most of his friends had not seen the cartoons.
Borders couldn't possibly refuse to stock Harper's, could they? Harper's regularly trashes the President. Their lib creds are rock solid. It would go against Borders ethos to go against Harpers.
This might be fun to watch.
8 comments:
I'll call back. I was about to report on what I had found out regarding the anti-Catholic/ anit Christians in general story after speaking with Borders' PR Manager. I need to find the numbers again, don't have them on hand to post. But the Manager is Beth Bingham and the other PR contact is named Anne Roman. Both numbers are on Borders' site, I believe, though I got them through an annoyed manager in store. Heeheehee.
"As a secular Jewish cartoonist living in New York City, I start out with four strikes against me"
What's the maximum number of strikes you could get? Any advance on ten for a republican-voting secular Jewish Islamic-apostate cartoonist living in New York City who enjoys eating Danish bacon, drinking Danish beer and reading novels by Salman Rushdie?
As for offensiveness, I would definitely rate D T Devareaux's 'Prophet Mohammed pbuh' worthy of a five-star fatwa, whereas the bombhead is perhaps only three or four star.
I am dissapointed with these cartoons...these artists need to read up on the historical account of what Mohammed looked like. He definately wasn't fat...so they need to abandon the fat face look. I wonder if someone will actually produce an accurate drawing of him...imagine how insulting it would be;)
Actually, that's the cartoon I wanted for the top of the MoKini.
Pim,
I look forward to your post on Borders. I haven't been in a Borders since that dumbass decision they made. I used to spend thousands of dollars there per year.
ROP,
Devereaux's cartoon certainly does take the cake on offensiveness. That guy is a friggin' genius, not only as an artist, but in his comments section as well. He is one of the most articulate of ALL bloggers.
Pastorius, me too. I have calls to make that just reminded me. They have a list of 50 books related in some way to The DaVinci Code, many of them not anti-Christian. Guess which books most stores are picking and which ones they're leaving off of the displays though? The answer is really no shock.
Barnes and Noble sold the issue of Free Inquiry which had the cartoons, and miraculously none of their stores went up in nuclear explosions, so maybe Borders will decide it's safe to crawl out from under the bed.
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