Israeli animator sugarcoats and ignores the belief system that led to October 7, 2023

The Jerusalem Post recently spoke about animated shorts produced by an Israeli entrepreneur who's worked in animation, and produced a series of short cartoons called "God's Gang", which cannot seem to get its "point" across without including a character representing Islam, and even then, the rest of the cast in the cartoon shorts reeks of stereotypical development:

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s – a group of four superheroes from different religions, all working together to save the world.

That’s the premise of God’s Gang, a series of interfaith cartoons on YouTube that was created by Israeli hi-tech entrepreneur Nimrod-Avraham May, who developed this channel out of a desire to promote tolerance and love.

May said that he was inspired to create this interfaith story when he thought, “I know many people who are not Jews or Israelis who are kind and compassionate and truthful and positive and friendly and loving, and why not build these bridges instead of bombing them?... The show is not a show about religion or faith.... It’s a show [whose] underlying message is promoting coexistence and unity, the teaching of love,” he said. But he chose to convey these messages via children’s action-adventure and comedy cartoons.

The hit success of God's Gang

Since the series began running last September, it has become wildly successful, acquiring 1.5 million subscribers in just a few months. May has added to the YouTube channel, in addition to the cartoons themselves, videos about different aspects of the series, with everything from lessons on how to draw the characters to content about how the series was developed. There is even a video where May reads what he calls the “mean comments” out loud and discusses them.

But the heart of it is the cartoons themselves, which feature the four superheroes – and heroines: Sumuslim, a Muslim who fights sumo-style and whose power is “hypno-storytelling,” with which he mesmerizes listeners with tales from Arab lore; TaekWonHindu, a “big sister” to the group, who loves heavy metal and fights with Taekwondo, and uses “third-eye telepathy” with animals and can multiply her arms like various Hindu gods; Ninjew, a basketball-loving Jew who has a kind of laser vision and employs “special Kabbalah invisibility powder”; and Chris Cross, a Southern Baptist street preacher who uses karate (with an unbeatable flying kick), whose power is that when he turns his cheek, he can deflect anything thrown at it.

Well this is certainly telling, and most pathetic how Mr. May apparently cannot muster the courage to differentiate between religions and make clear there's such a thing as both good and bad religions, and good and bad ways to practice one. And what's this about the Jewish character emphasizing "invisibility"? Even if that alludes to going into combat cloaked, it sounds on the surface like he's written hiding himself based on his ethnic background, which isn't a very healthy idea either. But of course, what's really offensive is Mr. May's apparent sugarcoating of Islam. This is a religion that calls for smiting necks of kuffar (infidels/non-Muslims) in Sura 47:4 of the Koran, approves of sexual violence in Sura 2:223, and many of these verses and other such content of the "religion of peace" played a part last year in the October 7, 2023 bloodbath in southern Israel, yet Mr. May has the chutzpah to shrug all that off by giving Islam a role it doesn't deserve in his cartoon project? Does he even know about the antisemitic verses in the Koran, including 5:60's reference to Jews as "sons of apes and pigs"? What May's doing is perpetuating a vehement refusal by people like him to investigate what could lead to bigoted behavior by anybody, based on selective PC. And that's continuing to seriously harm the world's ability to combat Islamic terrorism.

Depending how you see this, it's funny how an Arab character isn't considered for the role of a Christian, nor does May and his staff think of emphasizing an Armenian for the role, most likely because somebody would want to point out how Christians have been persecuted in Muslim countries, and the Turkish Ottoman empire's slaughter of Armenians during WW1 was motivated by the Religion of Peace. And the sugarcoating of Islam in May's cartoons is also hurtful to Hindus, because in India, there've been only so many horrors perpetrated by Islam in the span of over many years, and that too gets swept under the rug by ignoramuses like May. Does he really think realists are going to appreciate how he creates a moral equivalence between Islam and other religions that're still long persecuted by Islam? Men like May clearly never consider communities like 9-11 Families, Black Christians in Nigeria who've been murdered by jihadists, Israeli victims of Islamic terrorism, victims of the jihadists at the Bataclan in Paris, France, or even apostates from Islam like Rifqa Bary. By whitewashing Islam, men like May marginalize the people who really deserve the spotlight for heroism and appreciation. May continued to reveal the following:

THE IDEA for God’s Gang first came to him in 2006, May said. “I had joined Disney Channel right after they acquired Fox Entertainment from Haim Saban; two months after I joined, we were all invited to the Disney Channel Executive Summit, and I was in the marketing department. We all pitched ideas about what can make Disney great, and I offered them an interfaith Power Rangers.”

But the entertainment giant didn’t go for the idea. “Luckily, they left it for me. I feel it’s my life’s mission.”

A mission to obscure any serious issues that could be raised about the Religion of Peace? Well sadly, that appears to be just it. Most interesting he mentions Saban, whom I don't exactly consider a "national treasure" for Israel, any more than most other leftists of their kind. Saban's been one of the biggest Democrat donors, and while he may have recently been critical of the outgoing POTUS Joe Biden, it doesn't excuse how he's long been the kind of leftist who simply won't stay out of political affairs, among other questionable career specialties. To be sure, Disney was already far gone politically even during the mid-2000s, yet for the time, that didn't convince them to take up the kind of project he sadly crafted, which some Islamists will be quite pleased with, based on how it excuses their religion's dark record.

May said that he had grown up in a liberal, secular home, where his father was a Holocaust survivor and his mother was an orphan, with no family. Being without a family “was a proof for her that there is no God,” he said.

But after life threw some unexpected experiences at him, “I realized that I might have been wrong in thinking that this universe doesn’t have a governing entity, aka creator, source, God, the universe,” he said.

He began exploring his identity and studying Judaism, on his own and with rabbis, and gradually realized, he said, that all the teachings could be summed up in “two simple words: ‘one’ and ‘love.’”

The more he delved into Jewish mysticism, he realized “I had to do a big tikkun.... We were chosen to spread light.... I decided to commit myself to bringing people together. It’s a difficult mission.”

Coming from the world of marketing and entertainment, he said, “I was ready to tell the story of how we can get together.” Keeping in mind The Beatles’ lyrics to the songs “Give Peace a Chance” and “Come Together,” he chose to launch God’s Gang, which he had put aside for over a decade. “I decided to bring them to life during COVID, not knowing what the future would bring.”

Aware of the sensitivity of creating a cartoon with characters from different religions, he appointed a board of advisers, an “interfaith council” from all religious points of view, with whom he consults on every detail of the series, “just to make sure that we’re not harming anyone or touching on any sensitive topics that we shouldn’t get into.”

Among those he has brought on board is Rob Kutner, the head writer, who has won five Primetime Emmys, whose credits include The Daily Show and The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. He also hired creators from Disney, Netflix, and DreamWorks.

The article is evasive of clearer answers, but it's not hard to guess he hired a committee that's much like the "sensitivity readers" hired by some leftist book publishers to work on the scripting. Even his alleged finding of faith is suspect, as he's clearly left-wing in his viewpoints, and the article largely obscures issues like October 7, 2023. Does he know lyrics like "give peace a chance" have also been exploited by leftists who ignore these serious issues involved? And then he even employed people who worked for one of leftist Steven Spielberg's companies. That's got to be telling too.

May is currently funding God’s Gang himself, and he said he is actively looking for partners, which will enable him to produce more episodes. He hopes to create four new episodes this year.

There is also an online store selling God Gang-themed merchandise, the profits from which May is channeling back into the cartoons: “This logo promotes love, and I want this to be the most recognized trademark in the world associated with the values that we’re promoting.”

In the upcoming episodes, new characters will be added, possibly a Buddhist and an atheist, although May said that the core of God’s Gang would remain the same. So will the message.

Does Mr. May know Muslims have persecuted and attacked Buddhists too? Even atheists aren't immune. Writing up roles for Buddhists in a cartoon like this isn't going to excuse the serious issues occurring in real life. I for one will not be funding his cartoons and merchandise, if he doesn't have the courage to make distinctions between good/bad religions, and ask whether it's possible, in allusion to the 10 Commandments, to use God's name in vain for any particular religion formed. I get the awful feeling that, if National Socialism were a full-fledged religion, ditto communism, he'd blur distinctions between those and other religions too.

Earlier in the year, the JTA had more fascinating details to tell about Mr. May and his propaganda cartoon:

But some Jewish viewers have criticized the creators for showing what they felt was a surprising lack of cultural sensitivity.

“There’s a part where the Muslim character throws a falafel bomb,” Sam Cooper, a Maryland-based pop culture critic, said in an interview. “I assume the goal of the show is to teach tolerance and educate people about other religions, but they don’t seem to be very good at that.” (Kutner said the character, Sumuslim, aspires to be a chef, but in hindsight the decision to have him prepare a big exploding falafel ball was “a little unfortunate.”)

Cooper also lamented that the Jewish character, Ninjew, is short and has big glasses and a nasally voice. “I’ve seen this stereotype in so many shows,” she says in her review. “Jewish guys aren’t allowed to be cool. They’re usually depicted as effeminate, nerdy and weak. And then our boy Ninjew is all that and then some.” (May defended Ninjew, describing him as “a handsome Jew” with non-stereotypical blue eyes and blonde hair.)

Shekhiynah Larks, a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant in the Bay Area and a fan of animated shows, questioned the decision to make Chriscross, the Christian character, a Black Baptist street preacher who wears an Afro and bell-bottoms.

“Conceptually, I really like the interfaith gang, but all of the characters seem like weird stereotypes,” said Larks, who is Black and Jewish. “The Black character made me think the creators haven’t seen a Black person since the Blaxploitation films.” (Kutner said Brandon Jones, a Baptist pastor who serves on the interfaith council and is Black, loved the character.)

Yes, this is pretty troubling alright. The Jewish character is made to look absurdly pious in a way that suggests he'll never be depicted as a ladies man, and one of the commentors at the Post article noted, "Question: why does this self-proclaimed egalitarian cartoonist depict Islam as a gargantuan muscle bound djinn dwarfing the other three religions and looking down on them over his left shoulder, with the Jews getting a pint sized myopic nerd?" Yes, what's with that? Not every Muslim adherent is tall, after all. Is May scared his Muslim audience will be offended? A clue as to the wokeness involved. Interesting a DEI specialist was quoted here, and even he found it appalling. As for the Black character having an Afro hairstyle, it could've been worse - in more recent times, there was a stereotype to depict Black men as bald, as happened to Luke Cage under Brian Bendis when he was at Marvel, IIRC (even Black women were put through humiliating ideas like that, as seen in modern Black Panther comics and even the sequel movie). But, a valid point is made that it's ridiculous to make it look like Blacks should all have Afro hairstyles.

I think the most galling thing about people like May is that they believe their ethnic background will actually keep anybody else from taking serious issue with any and all leftist ideologies they embrace, though as the above makes clear, of course there's also Christians who find it ludicrous, and Judeo-Christian critics certainly did find the part involving falafel used as an explosive weapon by the Islamist disturbing. May, regrettably, is just one in a whole ocean filled with leftist ideologues, mainly because only so many conservatives over the years trashed and threw away serious chances to build their own competition, and now, look where we are. I strongly advise parents who're realists to keep their children away from May's morally equivalent propaganda that clearly whitewashes the Religion of Peace at the expense of other religions with better values.

"The Journey" is an anime film building on Islamic propaganda

Anime News Network reviewed a cartoon film made in co-production with a Saudi Arabian company owned by prince Mohammed bin Salman, who, although he has done what to improve the status for women in the country, still has a lot of questionable practices that can't be overlooked. This film is one of them:

A co-production of Japanese animation studio Toei and Saudi Arabian media company Manga Productions, The Journey is a retelling of an event in Arabian history generally known as “The Year of the Elephant.” This appellation comes from the fact that an invading army, headed by a Christian Abyssinian king named Abraha, brought war elephants to the fight, something that was apparently so alarming and striking that it remained a central component of the tale as it passed through history. While the film, at ninety minutes long, is a relatively condensed version of the event, it's interesting for the way it blends religious elements shared by all of the Abrahamic faiths with the recounting of the story, and while some parts of the narrative do have that propaganda feel to them, at its heart the basic themes of the film are actually quite universal.

So if I can figure out the premise correctly, the Christian army in this case are the baddies while the followers of Islam are the "victims"? What a surprise. But, if you know where to look, you may find that it's not like Japan ever actually has objections to Islam's evils in its animation and other products. And what if it turns out the claim of elephants as weapons is just taqqiya?

The art and animation do a good job of showing us just how outnumbered the defenders of Mecca are. There's a fairly heavy reliance on bird's eye views of the field of battle, which not only gives us a clear sense of how much bigger and better trained Abraha's forces are, but also turns out to relate to actual birds who form part of the story towards the end of the film. As a movie about battle, there is a fair amount of blood on screen, but no actual gore – no dismemberment, exposed intestines, or anything like that. The worst we see is blood gushing from a wounded elephant and a few implied deaths via stabbing, which isn't bad, all things considered, although it may be upsetting to younger viewers. [...]

And I suppose this is meant to be a propaganda tactic too, right? One that ignores Islam's own violent history, and prefers to make it look like Christianity's the sole problem here.

Those embedded narratives are, it must be noted, religious in tone. Two of them are particularly interesting from a comparative religions point of view – the first is the story of Noah's Ark from the Islamic perspective and the second the story of the Exodus from Egypt, which some of you may know as the Passover story. From my knowledge of the stories as a Jewish woman, they're both recognizable and fascinatingly different, with Noah's Ark adding in characters I wasn't familiar with and the Exodus focusing on Rachael (Rahil) and bringing in Rebecca as well. In any event, the use of these stories, as well as a third about the fall of a wicked city where the wealthy freely abused the poor, are all used to compliment Aws' plotline, showing them as giving him and those waiting for him the strength to carry on against terrible odds and the faith to believe that victory is possible. Since there is a divine intervention element to the film's denouement that feels like it has links to the plagues of the Exodus story, this really does work quite well.

Well I'm sorry, but this does nothing to alleviate the concerns this is mainly Islamic propaganda. Based on which, that's why it's got to be even more shameful this movie would contain anything involving Jewish history.

The metaphorical elephant in the room is, of course, some viewers' potential discomfort with a film that could be viewed as propaganda based on the aim of Manga Productions and its parent company MiSK to "promote Saudi ideas and messages internationally." There is a propaganda feel to parts of the film and it does cover a piece of history that may be unfamiliar to people outside Saudi Arabia or Islam, but it's no more striking than any work of fiction that uses a religious or quasi-religious event as its base; certainly you'd see something similar in a faith-based novel. While most of the characters are male, there's nothing overtly anti-feminist about the story unless you balk at pieces with mostly male casts in general.

If it feels like propaganda, surely that isn't a concern? Not to the reviewer, unfortunately, who approaches it through an otherwise unobjective lens, and that's pathetic. Daniel Pipes once spoke about how a similar animated production from Kuwait, The 99, was largely da'wah, and this is bound to be pretty much the same. Some of the commentors on the ANN message board noticed how fishy this all was, and here's one:

I'm pretty sure it's fair game to express disbelief that this article was published considering what it's about. It could not have been published without expecting to raise red flags.

And what I got from reading this review down to every detail is this fuckin' movie is, at its core, undeniable Saudi propaganda. The rest (movie, not article) is just fluff or bullshit. That further baffles me as to how it's endorsed in any way, not just this review.

PLEASE don't sugarcoat Saudi Arabia in places where you have the right to express your opinion in the same vein as how Russia has been appropriately shunned or exiled at large.

Indeed no, they shouldn't, because even now, there's valid reasons to remain concerned about Saudi Arabia's conduct. And then, from the ANN chief webmaster:

First off, our reviews don't equate to endorsement.

"Platforming" is a whole other discussion obviously, but we didn't feel the need to avoid platforming this movie.

Obviously this movie can be seen as "propaganda." It is designed to promote Saudi/Muslim/Arab culture and heritage. And there's nothing wrong with that. Whether it's Japan, China, Russia, Iran, France or wherever, promoting their heritage is just fine.

As long the film isn't being used to attack another culture, religion, or nation.

We'd be happy to review an anime about Peter the Great. We would have serious issues with any anime that promoted the false narrative that Putin is pushing about the Ukraine, and we would have to consider if reviewing it, even a negative review, might give it more publicity than it should get.

So, despite the fact that I personally felt this was a terrible anime (I disagree with Rebecca's ~B scores, but agree with all of the points she made about it), I have no ethical problem with it being reviewed on ANN.

In that case, if a pro-Israeli cartoon were produced, would they be favorable based on that aspect? Why do I get the sad feeling they wouldn't? No proper distinction made between Arabic culture and religious/Islamic culture either; something is certainly wrong with that. Another person said:

First off, there is a difference between promoting Saudi, Muslim and Arab culture and heritage and promoting the ideology and agenda of the Saudi Arabian government.

Second, it is amazing to make the claim "the film isn't being used to attack another culture, religion or nation" when the bad guys are explicitly Christian. This is important because Saudi Arabia - as well as North Africa and the Middle East - was not always Muslim or even universally Arab. It was a very diverse mix of religions, races and cultures. That diversity was wiped out by imperialism. It would be more interesting - and honest - to take a look at the history of Mecca and Saudi Arabia prior to that area falling to the forces of imperialist-imposed religious and cultural homogenization. Instead, this movie goes for the usual propaganda of how they are always the peace-loving good guys until the crusaders came and persecuted them, when in many cases said "crusaders" actually were just trying to recover land that was taken by expansionist imperialists in the first place - just like Ukraine is attempting to do now - or they were trying to stop the expansionism from going further - again which is a major reason why we are helping Ukraine now and expanding NATO to include formerly neutral Sweden and Finland instead of just abandoning Ukraine to its fate and allowing Russia to rebuild as much of the former Soviet Union as possible.

Yes, these events did happen: a Christian leader attacked Mecca. But it ignores a ton of context, which is the imperialism that led to Mecca being the way that it was in the first place, and that this imperialism was still ongoing. This expansionism went on into Spain, Italy and France before it turned back. Also, I wonder: if right wing French Catholics were to start a "Manga Production" and make an anime co-production with Japan about the glorious victory of Charles Martel over the caliphate at Tours, would this be platformed here? Or - even though it incontrovertibly happened - would it be denounced as fascist religious propaganda? Would it be linked to Islamophobia and contemporary issues in France? Would we have a reviewer claiming "While most of the characters are male, there's nothing overtly anti-feminist about the story unless you balk at pieces with mostly male casts in general" in response to a right wing Catholic movie?

I have difficultly believing that ANN would be so charitable towards a right wing European government sponsored propaganda project - say from Hungary or Poland - that promotes its extreme political and social views under the guise of "promoting culture and heritage". Or if ANN was, it is really difficult to explain why it should be. The absolute first thing any reviewer on ANN would mention about a Hungarian "anime" would be that regime's attitudes towards racial and religious minorities and LGBT people, but here we have a project from Saudi Arabia and not a peep.

Now do not mistake me. I am not arguing that this review should be taken down or anything of the sort. I am just saying that European fascism and non-European fascism gets treated very differently and for reasons that make absolutely no sense. This Saudi Arabian propaganda should get treated the same as it would if it were produced by a western regime that is similarly extremist and oppressive.

Now here's some valid points being made on double-standards likely to be applied. In which case, why must we assume they'd be as charitable to even a pro-Israel cartoon? They'd merely describe it as propaganda in a negative sense to the fullest, in contrast to this movie.

So it's honestly shameful a Japanese company decided to work on this cartoon project. As I said, bin Salman, whose company financed this, still has a ways to go in order to convince he's serious about moving beyond what the Religion of Peace stands for. That's one of the reasons I find it disappointing he's the majority shareholder in video game producer SNK. I hope the company buys back their shares, because for now, he still doesn't qualify as an ideal shareholder in such capacity either.

A.F. Branco 2017

Some political perspective on 2017. Enjoy!

German Magazine Reacts to Charlie Hebdo Slayings - Mohammed Washing in a Bathtub Full of Blood

#CharlieHebdo: Millionen-Reichweite auf Facebook - Netz-Reaktionen auf die KURIER-Titelseite http://t.co/Dfs607MEAc pic.twitter.com/C7Eydl8nAn
— BERLINER KURIER (@BERLINER_KURIER) January 8, 2015

NO, YOU CAN'T MURDER OUR FREEDOMS! 

FUCK ISLAM. FUCK MOHAMMED

THE CHARLIE HEBDO CARTOONS

The Daily Banter:

They Can’t Kill Everyone: Here Are the Charlie Hebdo Cartoons That Led To the Murder of 12 People

Chez Pazienza on January 07, 2015

The French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo has spent a good portion of the past 44 years gleefully aiming its poison pens at the world’s sacred cows. It’s taken on the elite and the powerful, the corrupt and the unjust, and it’s done it all in the name of using its absurdist sense of humor to knock down to size those who deserve to be. It’s a publication that’s as fearless as it is funny, evidenced by its willingness to use laughter as a weapon against radical Islam. Over the past decade, it’s published several cartoons that not only depict images of the Prophet Muhammad — considered blasphemy in Islam, punishable by death — but take it one step further, openly ridiculing both the religious icon and the obsession of some of his followers with honoring to the point of madness the tenets of a book of stories published 1,400 years ago.

Because of that willingness to refuse to cower before a deity and religion they didn’t believe in, the editors and cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo have been the targets of attacks by extremists and have lived under the constant threat of violence. And yet, despite that, they never relented, continuing to satirize Islam — and many other faiths, to be fair — simply because they knew doing so was not only the purest and most necessary expression of freedom, but it was fun. It was fun to take jabs at subjects that people with no sense of humor decreed they weren’t allowed to take jabs at.
This morning in Paris, 12 people died for that freedom. They were killed in an attack by gunmen claiming to be affiliated with al Qaeda, gunmen who stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo shouting, “Allah hu-Akbar,” and executed ten people, including two police officers who tried to stop them. Among the members of the Charlie Hebdo staff murdered were some of its most famous cartoonists, people who drew the very images that so infuriated Muslim extremists. These extremists demanded that Charlie Hebdo not publish images of the Prophet Muhammad — and the newspaper did it anyway. These extremists demanded that even those who don’t believe in their faith submit to it — and Charlie Hebdo said, basically, “Fuck you.”
The best way to both honor the memory of those killed today and to take a stand for all that Charlie Hebdo has stood for is to publish — over and over again — the images that led to today’s violence. It’s a cliché to say that this is what they don’t want you to see, but it’s never been more true. This isn’t simply what they don’t want you to see — it’s what they’ll kill to stop you from seeing. But in the age of social media, they can’t stop this. No matter what they do. They can’t kill everyone.
Je suis Charlie.

This was tweeted out this morning by Charlie Hebdo. It’s the leader of ISIS and the staff offers him “best wishes.”

From October of last year. Muhammad being beheaded by an ISIS fighter. He’s shouting, “I’m the prophet, you asshole,” while his killer says back, “Shut your trap, infidel.”

2011: Muhammad “guest edits” Charlie Hebdo. Translation: “100 lashes if you don’t die laughing.” This likely led the newspapers office to be firebombed a few weeks later.

The follow-up cover to the Muhammad edition. Translation: “Love is stronger than hate.”

As a response to the Muslim reaction to The Innocence of Muslims, a cheap movie that was allegedly the impetus for the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Charlie Hebdo published this: Muhammad posing for a camera. On the left, the caption reads, “A star is born”; on the right, it reads, “The film that will set the Muslim world on fire.” Muhammad is saying in the shot, “My ass? You love my ass?”

This cover references the French film, The Intouchables. Translation: “Shouldn’t laugh.”

In 2006, following the publication of the images of Muhammad in the Danish magazine Jyllands-Posten, which set off a firetorm of outrage, Charlie Hebdo republished the images and slapped this cover on the issue. Here, Muhammad is saying, “It’s hard to be loved by these idiots.”

In 2002, the paper ran this: a cartoon depicting Muhammad picking “Miss Potato Sack.”

Translation: “Charlie Hebdo must be censored.”

From "A Charlie Brown Christmas"

One of my all-time favorites:

Remember Saturday Morning Cartoons?

Here's a different kind of cartoon:

Obama Praises Kuwaiti Comic Books for Promoting the "Tolerance" of Islam

I just LOVE the smell of taqiyya in the morning, don't you?


Comic book publisher praised for reflecting 'tolerance of Islam'
By Charley Keyes, CNN
April 27, 2010 10:23 p.m. EDT

Washington (CNN) -- Kuwaiti publisher Naif al-Mutawa is having a week even his comic book superheroes might envy.

On Monday, President Obama singled him out for special praise for promoting international understanding with his "The 99" comics.

"His comic books have captured the imagination of so many young people with superheroes who embody the teachings and tolerance of Islam," Obama said.

And on Tuesday, Mutawa was treated like a rock star at the president's Summit on Entrepreneurship, with people lining up to get his flashy, superhero-embossed business cards and polite words of encouragement.

The summit, a couple of blocks from the White House, is a follow-up to a speech in Egypt in June 2009 in which Obama sought to reach out to the Muslim world and offer specific help, mentoring and investment -- and try to polish the U.S. image. Scores of business experts and wannabe entrepreneurs traveled to Washington from the Middle East, Indonesia and other Muslim-majority regions.

The September 11, 2001, terror attacks inspired Mutawa to find a way to change what he worried were dangerous exaggerations and misperceptions about mainstream Islam.

The comic's title -- "The 99" (from 9 times 11 equals 99) -- tells how 99 superheroes from across the globe team up to combat villains.

They succeed only if they work together.

There is no religion in the story line, Mutawa said, but he studied the Quran to find archetypes -- what he calls basic human values like trust and generosity -- that he weaves into the dramas.

"We've gone back to the same places that other people have pulled out negative messages and in their place put positive, multicultural, fun messages," Mutawa said.

Mutawa, who has multiple advanced degrees from U.S. universities and worked as a clinical psychologist in New York, spends time in both the United States and Kuwait. He describes himself as "a part-time New Yorker" with lots of back and forth.

"I wanted to build something that made a difference," he said about what inspired the comics. "I also have five boys, and I wanted to make a living."

Mutawa said the comics explore shared values more than individual religious experiences and create what he calls "an alternative universe where kids feel glad where they are."

The comics are printed in eight languages, including Arabic and English, and are for sale across the Middle East as well as China, India and the United States.

"The 99" can be found online and already has spun off a theme park in Kuwait. Mutawa said he is about ready to announce the U.S. release of an animated version, with word expected soon from a well-known American distributor.

"The animation series will be announced next week. We will be in your living room. We'll be in your living room, and you're going to want to watch it," Mutawa said between interviews and congratulations. "Because it is fun, it is exciting, it is top animation quality. The characters are from 99 countries, including the U.S.

"They are all heroes, they work together to make the world a better place, and that's the way it should be."

Mutawa said he "melted into his seat and felt I couldn't move" when Obama said his name. "I was very proud. I was also very humbled."

A recent issue of "The 99" is set in the Philippines, where an international relief agency is under attack by Death Merchant. With plenty of action -- and blazing color and "THWOOM" and "KA-POW" -- the superheroes fight the bad guys and also talk up contemplation, spiritual growth and even the importance of mathematics. In his "Naif's Notes" at the end of the comic, Mutawa drives home his teamwork message.

"Working together is the ultimate key to success for each member of the 99," Mutawa writes. "However, like us, the members of the 99 need to be constantly reminded of this lesson. ... When people work with and help each other, the world is always a better place."

The White House seems to be keeping up with "The 99."

"After my speech in Cairo, he [Mutawa] had a similar idea," Obama said Monday. "So in his comic books, Superman and Batman reached out to their Muslim counterparts. And I hear they are making progress."

Video: Tolerance Test for Muslims

The creator of the following video said,

This is the Muslim tolerance test. If a Muslim can tolerate watching this video without wanting to stone me to death afterwards, then they are not fundamentalists.

Related videos HERE.

Mohammed and Aisha

Spain: Polemic in Morocco due to Mohammed’s images in a Spanish textbook

The polemic has been caused by two images of Islam's Prophet in the textbook "Mohammed, Islam and the Arab World", published and edited by Spanish firm Anaya. One of them shows Mohammed teaching his disciples, while the other represents the prophet standing next to Kaaba, the sacred stone of Islam.

The polemic arose when parents whose sons and daughters studied at Secondary Education Institute Juan de la Cierva (Tetouan) complained to the authorities about the images.

An spokesman from the Moroccan Education's Minister assured daily newspaper Al Masae they were investigating the facts to take the necessary meassures.