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Jittery newspaper editors in some cities including Washington, D.C. decided to pull the comic strip ‘Non Sequitur for mentioning ‘Muhammad’.
Some newspapers chose instead to run a Sunday replacement strip featuring the recurring character Obvious-Man. So what was the editorial thinking behind the choice?
“I have absolutely no information on why any of the editors chose not to run it,” “Non Sequitur” creator Wiley Miller tells Comic Riffs. “All I can do is surmise that the irony of their being afraid to run a cartoon that satirizes media’s knee-jerk reaction to anything involving Islam bounced right of their foreheads. So what they’ve actually accomplished is, sadly, [to] validate the point.”
“Non Sequitur” is syndicated by Universal UClick. The syndicate’s Sue Roush tells Comic Riffs that about 20 newspapers inquired about the option of a replacement comic but that as of Friday, Universal UClick did not know which papers would actually use the surrogate comic.
“Both of the papers I get that carry comics, the Portland Press Herald and the Boston Globe, ran the substitute,” says the cartoonist, who goes by “Wiley.” “Really disappointing.”
The caption to the single-panel comic — which depicts a cheery, slightly surreal park scene — says: “Picture book titled voted least likely to ever find a publisher…’Where’s Muhammad?’ “ The cartoon was one of the “most favorited” Sunday on the syndicate’s website, where readers on the comments thread were mentioning where they had — or had not — found the “Muhammad” strip in their local papers.
The Washington Post chose to run the “Where’s Muhammad?” comic in its online edition but not in its Sunday print funnies, running an “Obvious-Man” replacement. Spokeswoman Kris Coratti said The Post had no comment on that decision. Update: Style Editor Ned Martel tells Post ombudsman Andy Alexander that he chose to pull the cartoon after conferring with Executive Editor Marcus W. Brauchli and others because “it seemed a deliberate provocation without a clear message.” He adds that “the point of the joke was not immediately clear” and that readers might think that Muhammad was somewhere in the drawing.
“Non Sequitur,” launched in 1991 by the Washington Post Writers Group, has won National Cartoonists Society division awards for Best Comic Strip and Best Comic Panel. Prior to creating “Non Sequitur,” Wiley Miller was an editorial cartoonist at the Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record and the San Francisco Examiner.
That one mention was apparently enough to strike fear in the hearts of some newspaper editors but the decision by the Washington Post to not run the Sunday comic infuriated the paper’s ombudsman Andy Alexander who had this to say on the matter;
“Non Sequitur” is a popular comic that runs daily in about 800 newspapers, including this one. But the “Non Sequitur” cartoon that appeared in last Sunday’s Post was not the one creator Wiley Miller drew for that day.
Editors at The Post and many other papers pulled the cartoon and replaced it with one that had appeared previously. They were concerned it might offend and provoke some Post readers, especially Muslims.
Miller is known for social satire. But at first glance, the single-panel cartoon he drew for last Sunday seems benign. It is a bucolic scene imitating the best-selling children’s book “Where’s Waldo?” A grassy park is jammed with activity. Animals frolic. Children buy ice cream. Adults stroll and sunbathe. A caption reads: “Where’s Muhammad?”
Miller’s cartoon is clearly a satirical reference to the global furor that ensued in 2006 after a Danish newspaper invited cartoonists to draw the prophet Muhammad as they see him. After the cartoons were published, Muslims in many countries demonstrated against what they viewed as the lampooning of Islam’s holiest figure.
Miller’s Sunday drawing also keyed on “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day!,” a free-speech protest this year by cartoonists responding to what was widely interpreted as a death threat from an Islamic cleric against two animators who depicted Muhammad wearing a bear suit in an episode of the “South Park” television show. If enough cartoonists drew Muhammad, protest organizers reasoned, it would be impractical to threaten all of them.
What is clever about last Sunday’s “Where’s Muhammad?” comic is that the prophet does not appear in it.
Still, Style editor Ned Martel said he decided to yank it, after conferring with others, including Executive Editor Marcus W. Brauchli, because “it seemed a deliberate provocation without a clear message.” He added that “the point of the joke was not immediately clear” and that readers might think that Muhammad was somewhere in the drawing.
Have we gone so far that even the mere mention of anything related to Islam in a Sunday comic has to be scrutinized to make sure it doesn’t offend anyone and drag politics into it as well?
Well the answer is yes if you are the Style editor of the Washington Post but maybe Martel and Brauchli will take Alexander’s advice and not be so timid or in other words not so politically correct.
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About the author
Don Irvine is Chairman of Accuracy in Media. He is active on Facebook and Twitter. You can follow him @donirvine to read his latest thoughts.
13 Comments for Comic Strip Pulled for Mentioning ‘Muhammad’
Cowardice and hypocrisy continue to make huge inroads in this country-are we going to end up like Britain?
Alas, if only these timid souls really knew how muslims really lived.
The male, according to the koran, can marry up to four wives. The females can be as young as NINE YEARS OLD. The male can consumate the marriage even if the female is still nine years old. The male can also have more than one “mistress”. Females can be subjected to beatings for just about any “infraction” of family “rules”. The beatings can include being beaten to death. The females don’t have to actually do anything “wrong” by our standards. Just the fact that the females may have been alone with a non-family male; raped by males of other families; or be caught alone on the street at night are just a few reasons for being beaten and killed by their “husband”.
Now, you stupid and cowardly newspaper editors, put THAT in your pipe and smoke it.
[...] Comic Strip Pulled for Mentioning ‘Muhammad’ [...]
In some primitive cultures, the young male proved himself by going forth from his village and single-handedly killing a lion. In the American Indian culture, sometimes for the young male it was by climbing high clifts or a high mountain perch to seek out an eagle’s nest and capturing an eagle. So how very sad that in some cultures today the male has to prove himself brave by beating up and otherwise lording it over females, and incredibly, swaggering about and boasting about how he beats up the women in his family and how much absolute terror his instills in them. To keep women in a condition of abject servitude seems to be the ultimate aim of these cultures–to which the UN turns a blind eye–, along with wallowing in a primitive fixation on sex.
I have always found it difficult to see how beating up or killing a woman makes a man tough!
That certianly is a better strip then liberal junk like THE BOONDOCKS,DOONSBURY and GET FUZZY and anything from TOM TOLES or REX BABIN
Wiley Miller deserves an award for bravery, as does everyone willing to face this (stealth jihadist) threat in which we, America, finds ourselves. Look all around, look at the Koran–the muslims intend to blanket us with Sharia law. Will we begin to stand up behind the Wiley Millers, once and for all, or will we be like the cowering fools so prevalent at the newspapers, and just watch as America slips away?
Muha mmad’s doodoo don’t stink but ours does ?!?!?!?!? BHO weak on everything….said he will always stand by the mus lims….. wake up America. And oh yeah, guess the chile miners emergency will be 1 more missed opportunity for BHO to brag about american exceptionalism with our life saving high tech and N A S A “exceptionalism”.
It is unbelievable what is happening in our great country ! Wish I could wake up and realize that it was all a horrible nightmare !
Kind of like when they puuled that easter sunday issue of B.C. over its one about what easters realy about jesus
To Diane #9 Sorry Diane,it is only going to get WORSE in the USA due to cowardly politicians who will bow down to muslims ,,1) They are AFRAID,,
2) They want ALL the votes they can get from ALL the voters in their Dists.
so,,they try NOT to offend,,especially those they know can be violent at the drop of a hat. Nice to have you back Diane.
To ctr # 5,,,there STILL are many cultures in the world that are still in the 5th century when it comes proving manhood. Liberals & PRO-Left believe
that if we send our children (NOT theirs of course) off to ‘Liberate & Democratize’ (fight wars)against the Taliban & others like them, that they
will be come Western style Democracies. WRONG!!! These countries have been,are now,& always will be THEOCRACIES,,,Ruled by a religion,,and that religion will over rule any politics. Look at Iran,,the little man in the tan suit sets a policy ONLY AFTER his Ayatollah says so. THEOCRACIES.
We in this country WASTE trillions of $$$’s & ABOVE ALL ELSE the LIVES of our Military,male & female alike,when we all know that the children of the
RULING CLASS in THIS country will NEVER risk their own lives,,and for WHAT?
Our country is going down the tubes at the hands of the Progressives,& that includes Hillary,,who start INDOCTINATING our kids in K/garten in to their beliefs,,certainly not our beliefs. FREES THIS,FREE THAT,nanny state
this,& nanny state that,,while the TAX PAYER gets nothing back,’cept heartburn.
Sharia law is comming to the USA in nudges,little here,,little there,,just the way Progressives like it. By the time WE WAKE UP,,it’s TOO LATE.
Too ALL of the others,,GOOD POSTS
NOT RACIST,,,NOT VIOLENT,,,just NOT SILENT REMEMBER,,,VOTE !!!
I am just about had enough of this PC crap, and for those who are that PC can put on their running shoes…so they can run up my Butt!! The Media, Liberals can use words such as “Extremists” or “Jihadists”, however they are STILL Muslims and do their cowardly deeds under the name of Islam.
For too many years working and living in the Middle East, I know these people better than most anyone (perhaps except Obama). I can tell you one thing which is fact, there are more men named Mohammad in any large city than grains of sand in a bucket.. I am pretty sure none of them were Allah or the saviour. There were many with whom I made friends with (trust is another issue), and maybe a handful I could trust, but not one of them practiced Sharia Law. Even learned a good deal of Gothic Arabic, more so I would know what they were talking about, plus it came in handy many times to communicate, although I would not speak or let the police, militia’s, or the military know I could understand them, and for good reason.
Diane knows why..
What this county needs is a real President, we do not have room for a Marxist or King, and put a stop to this indoctrination of Americans. If we do not teach history, we are doomed to repeat everything that has gone bad.
If you do not exercise your right to vote, you lose your voice about the outcomes, so if the people elected do not share your views get elected, do not bother to complain.
God Bless America
Just to be on the safe side, our media sources should never mention Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Noah or God at any time. And it would also be appropriate, unfortunately, for us to edit the ending or our national anthem to “Land of the formerly free… and the home of the fearful cowards”.
Just so typical of liberals to be afraid of offending islamic radicals but still like to offfend conservative christians