A rare moment of seriousness from me…

I don’t know if you’ve been watching the news lately but over in France terrorists killed twelve people and wounded seven others at the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. This is the same place terrorists tried firebombing a few years ago. Their crime? Drawing cartoons of Muhammad and offending extremists. And we all know how hard it is to offend extremists so these cartoons must have been really bad. Right? Right? Not really.

Here’s a link to a news article about it so you too can be thoroughly outraged.

It is outrageous that we live in a world where an offended few can use threats of brutality and murder to silence others. It is outrageous that threats from foreign dictators can force people/companies into silence. Finally it’s unbelievably outrageous that it works.

I see news organization who won’t even show the very cartoons that twelve people at Charlie Hebdo died for. Congratulations, Associated Press, thank you for making it easier for terrible people to oppress us all. Oh here’s a picture of the Editor of Charlie Hebdo. You’ll notice he’s alive in this picture.

Are these cartoons really worth bloody retribution? Worth Murdering a dozen people for?

I am not a person who generally discusses Religion or Politics. But as a professional a-hole with a big mouth I am an ardent supporter of free speech. (I’m also anti-murder… I’m weird that way) I’m frustrated with the media that won’t even show these cartoons. I’m frustrated with Sony. I’m even frustrated with fellow artists who are going to be shut up by this.

It is my firm belief that every single time you let some one or some group shut you up with fear, it damages us all. ALL OF US. There are seven billion people on this worthless rock flying through space. If we all grow a spine and stand up the terror peddlers can not possibly shut us up.

By the way, the badasses at Charlie Hebdo are not quitting. Despite this madness they are carrying on. I don’t say this with any irony what so ever, but “Holy Crap those French guys are brave. They have some serious guts and I consider them Free Speech heroes.”

Now a note about today’s comic as it may very well get me murdered by crazy people. I drew a cartoon of Muhammad. It’s not a disrespectful cartoon. I’m not mocking him, I’m not mocking Islam, it’s just a drawing. A perfectly innocent drawing that I can’t believe anyone would kill for.

However, I’ve been married before so I know that there are crazy irrational people out there who will do terrible things for no reason.

So if you see today’s comic and it motivates you to come find me and murder me, that’s fine. But before you gun me down you should think for a second. “If I kill this guy, the news is going to show this poorly drawn yet totally unoffensive comic as the reason why I did it.”

At that point you’re going to look like a complete idiot.