U.S. satirist takes on Danish cartoons Art Spiegelman criticizes all sides in the controversy over depictions of Islam's Prophet

NEW YORK - Controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have been reprinted in a U.S. magazine with commentary by leading American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, who offers what he calls a "fatwa bomb meter" to rate their offensiveness.

Harper's Magazine published the article by Spiegelman in its June edition, available on newsstands Tuesday. It joins only a handful of U.S. outlets that have printed the cartoons, which provoked furious protests that killed 50 people.

Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper published the 12 cartoons last year. Other papers, mainly in Europe, later reprinted the cartoons.

A number of Muslim clerics have condemned the cartoons and a small minority have called for a violent response. A fatwa is a religious edict in Islam, sometimes equated with a death threat.

Spiegelman, an elder statesman of political satire famous for his New Yorker cartoons, said the cartoons needed to be seen to be understood.

"As a secular Jewish cartoonist living in New York City, I start out with four strikes against me, but I really don't want any irate Muslims declaring holy war on me," Spiegelman wrote in his commentary.

"It's not intended to add fuel to any fire," Spiegelman told Reuters, describing himself as "a devout coward."

"I wanted to show ... what couldn't be described," he said, adding that he was surprised that most of his friends had not seen the cartoons.

In his article, Spiegelman criticized all sides in the controversy.

"The Jyllands-Posten — a newspaper with a history of anti-immigrant bias — seemed somewhat disingenuous when it wrapped itself in the mantle of free speech to invite cartoonists to throw pies at the face of Muhammad," Spiegelman wrote.

But he also criticized U.S. news outlets for not showing the cartoons.