Donohue Has A Point

As much I might be loathe to agree with anything that Catholic League President Bill Donohue has to say, I think he makes a good point.

The right-wing curmudgeon thinks that the papers that have dropped the Opus strip have a double-standard. It seems in the past they've published cartoons that made fun of Catholics.

He's right. Newspapers should feel free to make fun of all religious beliefs with equal abandon. It's not fair that the Catholics get to have all of the fun.

Still, it seems to be overlooked that the vast majority of newspapers that carry Opus have decided to show the controversial strips. This is nowhere near the Danish cartoon controversy, where you would have a hard time finding a paper that would reprint the comics in question.

Opus Revealed

So, this is what the fuss is all about.

If anything, it looks like a playful ribbing of the cultural differences between Islam and Western culture. Of course it deals with generalizations, but not something that readers can't appreciate as a shortcut to humor. Yet, the main thing is that the cartoon by Berkeley Breathed isn't mean. It's nowhere near some of the barbs that the late Johnny Hart ( of B.C. fame) would make about Islam or any other belief that didn't coincide with his own. If anything Breathed makes as much fun of Americans as he does Muslims.

Even if you can't appreciate the humor of Opus, I can't see a reasonable justification for newspapers to drop this strip.

Update:

There's an article in Editor & Publisher dealing with the controversy. The reasons given for papers not carrying Opus are a combination of Islamic references and sexual innuendo. At least 25 clients have declined to publish the offending comics. Prior reports have mentioned the Washington Post as one of those papers, a really poor example coming from one of the nations flagship media institutions.

Opus on Islam

On his website, cartoonist Berkeley Breathed reports that two of his upcoming Opus strips are being pulled by various papers, including the Washington Post. The reason appears to be because the strips deal with Islam in someway. If that is the case, it might be that the papers want to avoid the controversy that arose in Denmark after a paper published several cartoons depicting Muhammed. I would suspect that the editors don't want to deal with a bunch of reader complaints over a "comic".

I do look forward to checking out Breathed's strips when they come out to see what all the fuss is over. In my opinion he is one of America's most talented cartoonists and it was great to see him return to work after a long absence.

(Via Comics Reporter)