In an open letter published in the Sydney Morning Herald, Crumb explains why he ultimately decided not to attend.

While I was agonising over whether to go to Australia or not, I tried to imagine how I would react if confronted with a group of angry anti-Crumb protesters, or an angry individual.
I have no defence. I can’t explain why I drew all those crazy pictures. I had to do it. Maybe I should have my pencils and pens taken away from me. I don’t know. I really have no answer to their argument that I’m a sick, deranged person.
What should I say? No, I’m not? No idea. But I decided I was willing to face the possibility of an unpleasant confrontation, possible insults, even physical assault. I’m rather fatalistic that way. But I couldn’t do that to Aline. I had to put her feelings in front of those of the organisers of the festival and Australian fans of my work.

I wanted to have a big special comics issue, but I had a limited budget. So in a well-meaning effort to make this work, I asked some cartoonists to provide work without compensation. In the last couple of days, it’s been pointed out to me quite clearly that this was not the best way to help out the cartooning industry. The thing is, we’re not a company that expects people to work for free for the exposure. And I’m making this right: I’m paying all of the artists in the special issue.
And hopefully buying them beers and working with them again soon.

Tony Ortega
Editor
The Village Voice

Putting aside whether The Village Voice was wrong to solicit uncompensated work (for an issue that explores why cartoonists aren’t paid well), I personally think if the cartoonists in question were foolish enough to provide work for “exposure” they’ve been handsomely paid and VV owes them nothing more. But it is a nice gesture.

Classic works by Jerry Robinson of Batman, Robin and a rogues gallery of villains, including Robinson’s creation, the Joker, can be seen on www.JerryRobinsonArt.com. In the coming days more art by Robinson and other legendary artists will be added. The new web site covers Jerry’s career of over 70 years – from Batman to Broadway and beyond – as cartoonist, illustrator, author, photographer, historian and curator.

Special, museum-quality giclée prints, carefully reproduced from the original art, are available in the STORE. This section includes Jerry’s iconic Batman covers and the original concept sketch for his creation of the Joker, the first supervillain of the comics. The section also includes works of Jerry’s other classic comic book features from the 1940s and 50s.

This month brings a new edition of the definitive work The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art 1895-2010 (Dark Horse). Among Jerry’s other new books are the biography Jerry Robinson: Ambassador of Comics by Christopher Couch (Abrams) and Jet Scott (Dark Horse), a two-volume set of the sci-fi adventure strip. Also in BOOKS is Jerry’s art from over thirty books of history, science and biography that he wrote and/or illustrated.

FEATURES covers Jerry’s 32-year career as a political/social satirist with his award-winning features still life and Life With Robinson. Other syndicated features include Jet Scott and Flubs & Fluffs, the award-winning Sunday humor feature.

Jerry’s exciting years covering Broadway theatre for Playbill are highlighted, including backstage sketches of Evita, Barnum, and 42nd Street; and portraits of performers such as Mickey Rooney, Mia Farrow and Kevin Kline. Anther dimension of Robinson’s career are his passions for painting and photography (FINE ARTS and PHOTOGRAPHY sections).

Cartoons and graphics by the world’s leading cartoonists are found in the SYNDICATE section, and at www.nytsyn.com/cartoons. NEWS includes reviews of Jerry’s recent books, upcoming public appearances and interviews.

Last Sunday’s editorial cartoon by Mike Thompson stirred the ire of Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly. Mike’s cartoon was in response to NPR firing long-time analyst Juan Williams for comments he made on the Fox Network about fearing Muslims. The cartoon depicted several Fox News personalities in various garb – O’Reilly in a “Obama=Hitler” shirt, Sarah Pallin in a clown suit, Sean Hannity with a chest bomb, and Glenn Beck in a militant uniform.

Rob Tornoe reports that O’Reilly said, “Believe me when I tell you the far left is seething over all of this NPR stuff. The blow back has begun. Take a look at this political cartoon in the Detroit Free Press by Mike Thompson featuring me wearing ‘Obama equals Hitler’ stuff.” He then went on to give out Mike’s email address and urged his views to “let him know what you think.”

Mike reports on his blog that he’s received over 2,500 emails – “many of them unsuitable to publish,” he writes.

Mike continues:

While defending Williams’ right to free speech, O’Reilly and a number of his viewers tried and failed to bully me for exercising my right to free speech. What it all boils down to for people who behave like this isn’t defending the concept of free speech, rather defending free speech that agrees with their partisan point of view. Many of them decry Williams losing his job because, in their view, he was too conservative. But then want to defund NPR and cause everyone else at the broadcasting company to lose their jobs because, in their view, NPR employees are too liberal. Many of them would stand silently next to people carrying “Obama = Hitler” signs at Tea Party rallies that O’Reilly encourages and promotes, but scream foul when I put the slogan on his shirt in a cartoon. These same people decry what they see as a journalist being punished because of political correctness, then turn around and exercise their own form of political correctness by sending torrents of disparaging, and threatening e-mails in a failed attempt to intimidate a journalist who doesn’t agree with their worldview.

He also lists a few of the emails he’s received, including a death threat.

The Daily Campus editor has stated that the paper will have a “stronger policy” of what is printed. Instead of one editor reviewing the comics there now be three and that the paper staff will attend a workshop on violence against women.

The U.S. Attorney’s office said Steven Kutzner, 33, had downloaded more than 70 animated cartoon pornographic images on his computer. Many of them depicted child characters from The Simpsons.

Kutzner was a former middle school teacher at Lake Hazel Middle School in Meridian. He resigned immediately after the search warrant was served at his home.

Sentencing will be held in January. He faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison and up to $250,000 in fines.

Still, Style editor Ned Martel said he decided to yank it, after conferring with others, including Executive Editor Marcus W. Brauchli, because “it seemed a deliberate provocation without a clear message.” He added that “the point of the joke was not immediately clear” and that readers might think that Muhammad was somewhere in the drawing.

Some readers accused The Post of censorship. “Cowards,” e-mailed John D. Stackpole of Fort Washington, one of several who used that word.

Miller is fuming. The award-winning cartoonist, who lives in Maine, told me the cartoon was meant to satirize “the insanity of an entire group of people rioting and putting out a hit list over cartoons,” as well as “media cowering in fear of printing any cartoon that contains the word ‘Muhammad.’ “

“The wonderful irony [is that] great newspapers like The Washington Post, that took on Nixon . . . run in fear of this very tame cartoon, thus validating the accuracy of the satire,” he said by e-mail.

A failed GOP candidate is suing nine journalists for $1 million each and has named The Journal News editorial cartoonist Matt Davies as one of the nine. The suit alleges that the nine journalists “defamed his character, ruined his reputation and caused him emotional distress.”

Russell, who has run for Congress five times, including his latest candidacy, last month lost the GOP’s backing in his race against Democratic Rep. Nita Lowey.

…

According to the lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court, Russell challenged a variety of news accounts that called his views and writings racist. He accused the media, which he labeled the “liberal media,” of attacking and undermining the campaigns of “patriotic candidates.”

“It’s been reckless and it’s been false, and that’s why we’re filing this lawsuit,” he said.

The newspaper editor and vice president has called the suit “without merit.”

Last week I reported that several papers were opting to run a substitute Non Sequitur because it merely mentioned the word Muhammad. You can see the “offending” comic here.

I can report that the Salt Lake Tribune ran the substitute. I believe that the joint operating agreement between the Trib and the Deseret News covers the comics, so the likelihood that both the Salt Lake City daily papers pulled Wiley’s strip is pretty high. Over on GoComics, in the comment under Wiley’s strip fans reported that other papers included:

• Arizona Republic
• Arizona Star
• Austin American-Statesman
• Boston Globe
• Chicago Tribune
• Dallas Morning News
• Datona Beach News-Journal
• Philadelphia Inquirer
• Salt Lake Tribune
• San Francisco Chronicle
• San Jose Mercury
• Seattle Times
• Syracuse Standard
• Washington Post

So far that’s 14 of the “less than 20,” but when you look at the papers, – these are not small markets. Millions of people did not see Wiley’s cartoon.

In the comics at GoComics.com, Wiley urged his fans who’s paper’s had ran the alternative to contact the editor.

For those of you whose paper ran the alternate edition, I strongly suggest you contact the editor and voice your opinion on the matter. They are the ones who need to hear it, as they are the ones who made the decision.