DOUG MARLETTE
(Douglas Nigel Marlette)
Marlette was inundated by complaints from Muslims for his 2002 cartoon depiction of Muhammad driving a Ryder rental truck like the one used by convicted Oklahoma City terrorist bomber, Timothy McVeigh. The caption was, “What would Muhammad drive?” He was front-page news in Saudi Arabia and other Islamic nations. He received death threats. The Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim World League both demanded an apology. Marlette refused. When he was killed in an automobile crash in July of 2007, many Muslims believed that this was the retribution of Allah.
Douglas Nigel Marlette was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American editorial cartoonist who, at the time of his death, had also published two novels and was "finding his voice in writing long-length fiction." His popular comic strip Kudzu, distributed by Tribune Media Services from 1981 to 2007, was adapted into a musical comedy.
