Cartoon Controversy Quotes

My opinion is that somebody certainly has the right to do cartoons that make fun of somebody else's religion. But to reprint them just to provoke a fight and just to provoke it like thumbing your nose at someone else and going, "What are you gonna do about it?"

Not only was one cartoonist gunned down, but riots erupted around the world, resulting in the deaths of scores. No one could say toward what positive social end, yet free-speech absolutists were unchastened.

We've seen the uproars around the world concerning cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammad. Anyone who does not think comic strips are relevant never had a fatwa put on him/her for drawing a picture.

Newspapers across the country and the world have published cartoons that have gone beyond reasonable differences of opinion and expanded into the realm of antisemitism.

I was shocked when I heard that Farghadani had been sentenced to 12 years and nine months in prison on spurious charges, as Amnesty International notes, of 'spreading propaganda against the system,' 'insulting members of the parliament through paintings' and 'insulting the Supreme Leader' with her cartoon.

I've never canceled a subscription to a newspaper because of bad cartoons or editorials. If that were the case, I wouldn't have any newspapers or magazines to read.

I liked Bugs Bunny. He was pretty good. He's annoying as a duck and he's anti-proletarian. Daffy Duck I couldn't see what was going on with him. He seemed like he was angry about something. My favorite one though is Pinocchio. I liked that kid. He was made of wood. I liked that for a start. I also liked how he'd tell a lie and his nose would grow. I liked the morality of that.

The lesson to be learned from the cartoon incident is “don’t mess with us.” Religion is a major part of our culture.

What kind of a god is it that's upset by a cartoon in Danish?

For the most part, editors no longer view 'Doonesbury' as a rolling provocation, which is fine by me. It makes no sense to intentionally antagonize the very people on whose support you most depend.

I would say that while most Muslims take offense at the portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad in cartoons, they would never resort to violence. It is a minority of extremist Muslims who take such actions, and they do it for political and tactical reasons far beyond just being offended.

Religion and political cartoons, as you may have heard, make a difficult couple, ever since that day of 2005, when a bunch of cartoonists in Denmark drew cartoons that had repercussions all over the world - demonstrations, fatwa, they provoked violence. People died in the violence.

Great pressure was put on the editor, David Schneiderman, to not run the strip [of Jules Feiffer]. It was offensive. It was racist. And nobody apparently read the strip and saw what it was about. And I wrote a column about that.

I take Charb's point, but at some point has Charlie Hebdo been trying to have it both ways because some of what they do is not funny.

Recently , crowds of thousands gathered throughout the Muslim world - burning European embassies, issuing threats, taking hostages, even killing people - in protest over twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that were first published in a Danish newspaper. When was the last atheist riot?

Belly buttons were a big battle of mine. Down at the syndicate, they would clip them out with a razor blade. I began putting so many of them in, in the margins and everywhere, that they had a little box down there called 'Beetle Bailey''s Belly-Button Box. The editors finally gave up after I did one strip showing a delivery of navel oranges.

Growing up, I remember my parents feeling a little wary of 'The Simpsons.' This was the late eighties, and there was a wave of articles about TV shows that were bad for America. Then we all started watching it and loved it.

No politician would ever comment on a cartoon unless it was to show what a great sense of humour they have, that they can laugh at themselves.

Muslim consumers, … have a right to boycott whomever they want. Similarly, Western consumers have the right to support whomever they want, and privately owned newspapers have the right to publish cartoons without government interference. If there must be a clash of civilizations and cultures, let it be over these cartoons. The Danish cartoons are as important as fighting for Danzig once was. If the West is unwilling to fight this battle, slavery will inevitably come and slavery will be what it deserves.

I wrote a call to the contemporary Muslim conscience, saying to the ordinary people that we might not like the video or the cartoons, but that violence certainly isn't the right answer. I don't think laws are going to solve the problem.

I am totally shocked and find it unacceptable that because there have been caricatures in the West, extremists can burn flags or take fundamentalist or extremist positions which would prove the cartoonists right.

My favorite drawings at the Muhammad cartoon festival in Texas were the two chalk outlines out front.

The cartoons which I enjoy have caused some kind of out rage, but they have got people talking about these issues out in the open and in essence that's what its all about.

'Looney Tunes' was not a children's cartoon. I don't care what anybody says. It was very politically charged, very racial. And then they tried to soften it up for kids later. But it was for the adults.

I despise those shallow religious comics. Dennis the Menace, for instance, is the most shallow. When they show him praying - I just can't stand that sort of thing, talking to God about some cutesy thing that he'd done during the day. I don't think Hank Ketcham has any deep knowledge of things like that.