I would like to debate, for the moment, the actual intent behind the images.

I don't think this could constructivly be added to the other topic, it's not the same kind of animal. This topic is not for discussion about depicting the prophet or about free speech or even bashing religion. If you want to discuss those other things, go here.

We are all artists here, some of us have studied art, everybody else has equally valid opinions so lets get at it.

I'm not going to discuss alll the images but I will focus on those that left the deepest impact on me. All the images can seen here.

My opinion of the Bomb/Turban image:

This is totally going to be the image that everybody remembers. It's Che level recognizable and perfect for Tshirts.

Okay, I was initially quite taken aback by the image. It depicts The prophet in a turban which is a bomb. Pretty much as in your face as you can get. At a glance you get "Mohammed likes violence, he must do, he has a bomb on his head." The message being that Islam preaches violence. But after some serious consideration IMO there really is a lot more to be taken into account.

The style of the work suggests to me an antique Islamic print. It's well put together and comes across very succesfully as how simple traditional Islamic wood block techniques turn out. This use of technique to put the subject matter in to another type of context suggests to me that the subject of the image isn't the prophet or Islam but the image itself. Given the context it's not a huge leap to me. The image is the bomb, not Mohammed or Islam. As political illustration goes, I'd give it a 5, but with the proviso that you are not allowed to just glance at it, very easy to take the wrong way, which is a pity given the newspaper nature of the publication. Still, it will be iconic of this decade so we'll be seeing plenty of it for a while to come.

On the other end of the scale we have the censored eyes strip:

Unlike the Bomb/Turban which at first I hated and now I love it's the other way around for me. It's a pretty simple joke, Mulsim women are censored except the eyes, Mohammed is the other way around. It's done in a nice cartoony fashion...

Where it falls down for me is how far the artist went with the generalizations. The prophet figure looks more like Bin Laden than a religious icon, weilding his sword with an evil little smile, ever ready to oppress the rights of those that would stand against him... or are female. The joke, which is fairly simple, is lost behind a western stereotype. It's a 3 at best, the funny is there aslong as you don't stare too hard.



Anyway, that's all for the moment. Maybe I'll add more later. If mods decree this a debate thread feel free to move it that way.

I could move this thread, or something... But I'm not like that :-D

Yeah, that's an interesting idea; an artistic discussion about the content!
I'm totally in agreement with what you've got up there Cham.
I don't have much else to say right now, because I'm a bit tired after work, but it'd be great if some more people piped in with their thoughts on the artwork.

There are some interesting ones there, especially the soccer player. The ones about the actual cartoonists themselves are very interesting... And some of them are just plain banal.
Ah, too tired for incisive commentary sorry... I'll wait till we've got some more contributions.