Harpers Mag Prints Danish Cartoons

Art Spiegelman tackles Danish cartoons

(Reuters) – 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, joining only a handful [What handful?  I only know of a couple of student newspapers….and running those toons got the editor of one of those publications fired – Atlas.]  of U.S. outlets
which have printed the cartoons which provoked furious protests that killed 50
people.

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Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten newspaper published the 12 cartoons last year.
Other newspapers around the world, mainly in Europe, later reprinted the
cartoons

In 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.

What took so long? 

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.

I don’t care that the desire to sell magazines trumped NY PC dhimmitude, I am just glad an American magazine outside of "The New Individualist" finally ran the toons. Look  for it in the June Harpers magazine.