As a result, the Journal is in the rare position of reporting on events that can scarcely have escaped the attention of anyone on the planet. Readers are accustomed to finding the comics field covered in greater depth by the Journal than by other sources of comics news, especially mainstream media, but for once, we had to ask ourselves what the Journal, lacking a Middle Eastern or European bureau, could add to a story that seemed to have been pursued around the world from every conceivable angle.

Via television, newspapers, magazines, radio and the Internet, the publication of the cartoons and the wrath of offended Muslims were reported, the economies, cultural attitudes and immigration policies of Denmark, France and Europe in general were explored, the religious doctrine and history of Islam were explained and debated, Danes were profiled, Muslims were analyzed, and opinions were expressed, ranging from the need for calm and patience to the need for righteous execution and dismemberment. It was a story that could not help but perpetuate itself. Since the event was essentially a figment of the media to begin with, born in the pages of a newspaper, its very coverage -- each new fair-use publication of the cartoons -- engendered new stories, like aftershocks that spread and then rebounded upon themselves. The cartoons were so charged with power that most papers reported on them without reproducing them. But even that omission became news of a sort, evidence of a betrayal of free speech by those reticent papers and their host countries.

Ultimately, the story was like an out-of-control fire that only reached its limits when it was brought up against an even larger fire as extremist Muslim factions turned their rage on other Muslims in Iraq in a series of violent sectarian attacks. The cartoons were finally displaced from headlines by events that threatened to explode into a civil war in Iraq.

By that time, it seems safe to say that literally thousands of stories had appeared in the various media about those 12 Danish editorial cartoons and their repercussions. By and large, though, these stories tended to focus on updates of the latest riot or the latest public statement by a world figure, and when there was no news to cover, then a particular piece of tangential turf was staked out: How has Muhammad been depicted through the ages? What are Danish attitudes toward Arab immigrants? What does the local Imam think about it all?

Coverage in the Middle East seemed to see the Danish cartoons as Western provocation, an insult on top of a history of injuries to the nation of Islam, and debate centered on whether to defend Muslim pride by violent or nonviolent means. In the West, there was disagreement over whether publication of the cartoons was an appropriate use or an inappropriate abuse of the principle of free speech, but, in its simplest formulation the conflict, as represented in the West, boiled down to one of free speech (however misguided) versus violence and religious censorship.

In considering what the Journal could add to such a massive media response, we realized that the one thing the Journal had that the other reports lacked was time and the perspective that comes with time. Whether simply updating events or focusing on some related angle, coverage of the Danish cartoons has been on the fly: a few paragraphs here, a few more there. As much as we each have been bombarded by the Danish cartoons story, we have inevitably been exposed to it in fragments. What the Journal has tried to do is assemble an overview and synthesis of the events of the story, as well as the many ways of looking at what it all means. Now that events directly related to the cartoons seem to have wound down, we can chart the arc of events that led up to and followed publication of the cartoons. We have also searched far and wide to collect in one place a range of voices interpreting and commenting from various perspectives on the cartoons and their aftermath. Finally, we have considered what these events have to tell us about the power of cartooning to capture and convey convictions and ideas, whether benign or dangerous. Twelve pictures -- 12,000 words.

Cartoonists on the Danish 12

GARRY TRUDEAU (quoted in the Feb. 7 San Francisco Chronicle):
I may not agree with [an editor's] reasons for dropping any particular [Doonesbury] strip, in fact, I usually don't, but I will defend their right and responsibility to delete material that they feel is inappropriate for their readership. It's not censorship; it's editing. Just because a society has almost unlimited freedom of expression doesn't mean we should ever stop thinking about its consequences in the real world.

ANN TELNAES (on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation, Feb. 9):
I have a little bit of trouble with people that are talking about, you know, where is the line in editorial cartoons? An editorial cartoon, by its very nature, is very provocative. [T]here are countries that an editorial cartoonist will be arrested for something that he draws just because people don't like being offended. So, I have a little bit of a problem with saying that there has to be a line where an editorial cartoon will stop, because I think that's a very slippery slope.... I do quite a few cartoons on Sharia law, because it has to do with women and equality. That's Islamic law, and is that going to be off limits? I guess I just don't really understand who's going to make these lines.

ART SPIEGELMAN (quoted in the March 6 issue of The Nation):
There has to be a right to insult. You can't always have polite discourse. Where I've had to do my soul-searching is articulating how I feel about the anti-Semitic cartoons that keep coming out of government-supported newspapers in Syria and beyond. And, basically, I am insulted. But so what? These visual insults are the symptom of the problem rather than the cause.

TOM HART (to the Journal):
It's a bunch of hotheaded oppressed people howling and screaming. It has little to do with the cartoons.... I think few of them are really cartoons -- This has bothered me. They are all caricatures, and as such, say very little. A political cartoon, I think, says something. One or two caricatures were dumb and offensive, but there's a long history of dumb, offensive cartoons. To say these couple went too far is silly.

JOE KUBERT (in a press release):
[Political cartoons] are one of the most powerful forms of communication. Censorship would be a mistake. It would give any religious group veto power over the cartoons -- or writings, or speeches -- of its opponents.... Western leaders need to say clearly that while Muslims may find the cartoons offensive, the violent response to the cartoons is absolutely unacceptable. Establishing the ground rules for how to conduct a civilized debate, not searching for ways to appease the angry mobs, should be our goal. Surely we must strive to live in a world governed by reason and civility rather than one in which cartoonists or their editors must fear for their lives.

JOE SACCO (quoted in the March 6 issue of The Nation):
"I think maybe the idiot cartoonist should feel a need to be a little more self-censoring, when it comes down to it, but a thinking cartoonist weighs what he or she is doing. Frankly, I don't give a damn about these Danish cartoons. In the end, yes, there is a principle about the freedom of expression that concerns me, but I'm always sorry to have to rush to the defense of idiots."

TIM KREIDER (to the Journal):
My reaction is at least fourfold: 1) Professional jealousy. I've been trying to cause a furor every week for years and so far nothing. Now these Danish cartoonists draw some unfunny pictures of Muhammad and the world is calling for their heads. American Christian Fundamentalists must be a bunch of sissies. All they ever do is call for boycotts. 2) Secret delight that cartoons are actually making headline news instead of ineffectually commenting on it for the first time in over a century. 3) Incredulous horror that people are actually getting killed over silly pictures. 4) The exasperated wish that religious fundamentalists would get over it and catch up with the freaking Enlightenment already.

I think their intention was to insult and provoke outrage, in a pretty stupid and obvious and puerile way.... In principle, I don't object to mocking religious fundamentalists of any faith, who are the stupidest and meanest people on the planet, but going out of your way to insult a people who have already felt themselves insulted, oppressed and impoverished for the last thousand years just seems gratuitous and unsporting. Nonetheless, I am hard-liner on the issue of freedom of speech and support the right of any cartoonist to print spiteful, wrongheaded and mediocre work.

I just wish religious people would get used to being offended. I'm offended by almost everything I see and hear every day. This is what it means to live in a pluralistic society: being constantly offended by other people's stupid and wrong opinions.... But it's also only fair to keep in mind that the media only shows us the most fanatical extremes of any group -- this is a matter of lazy journalism, sensationalism, ratings. We always see angry chanting flag-burning fanatics as though they represented the whole of Islam, just as the only Christians we ever hear about are fag-bashing Creationist dingbats. My mother provides health care and builds schools in Guatemala with the Methodist church. She doesn't make headlines.

LYNN JOHNSTON (quoted in the Feb. 20 Atlanta Journal-Constitution):
They're simply hate literature.... If something is that thoroughly blasphemous, it's unfair and promoting violence and mistrust. There's no point in doing it.

TED RALL (in his Feb. 7 blog at tedrall.com):
[That] the cartoons were offensive to the point that they crossed the line [is] an impossibility as far as I'm concerned, but then I make my living because of freedom of the press.

BRUCE TINSLEY (on WISH TV Feb. 17):
I wish [the American news media] had been that sensitive and caring back when newspapers and other media outlets did stories that offended Christians.

DARYL CAGLE (to the Journal):
The perception of the Danish Muhammad cartoons as "political cartoons" is chilling to real political cartoonists who are suddenly perceived as ticking time-bombs that can explode at any time. Unless we defend our funny little drawings with the same zeal that we see from the victims of our irreverence, we'll continue to see our freedoms constricted by the loud voices of those we offend.

[To read the rest of this story, please see The Comics Journal #275.]