You Won't See it Here

So, what's this all about, you ask?

Sheaf Board of Directors accepts Editor's resignation

Written by Board of Directors

Tuesday, 07 March 2006

We, the Sheaf Publishing Society Board of Directors, have voted to accept Will Robbins' letter of resignation. While the Board is of the view that the "Capitalist Piglet" comic is not consistent with the Sheaf's objectives (as outlined in its constitution) nor its previous editorial policy, we wish to make clear that our acceptance of his resignation was based primarily on his failure to carry out his duties diligently.

Well, The Sheaf is The University of Sakatchewan's Student Newspaper. In their March 2nd edition they published a cartoon entitled "Captitalist Piglet" which depicted a bearded young fellow in a robe, presumably Jesus, fellatiating a pig in a business suit. The strip's authors claimed to be making a point concerning the Cartoon Jihad. This point is unclear from the strip itself, but I assume it is something to the effect that speech offensive to Christians is also free speech and, by parity of reasoning, anyone (presumably on the political Right) who defended, for example, Ezra Levant's publication of the Dutch cartoons defaming Muhammad, ought to leap to the barricades for "Capitalist Piglet"as well. Perhaps not surprisingly, this did not occur. In fact, a bit of a fury got kicked up via talk radio and the Net, and editor Will Robbin's apparently found himself with the short end of the stick.

Ah well.

I suppose that I should be linking to the offending cartoon, and maybe even defending the premise behind it, but it is, quite frankly, such a piece of witless crap that I can't be bothered. Jesus is the scruffy sixties hippy version, and Capitalist Piglet himself is decked out in a monocle and bowtie.

This cartoon would have been cliché 40 years ago. You won't see it here.

Now I suppose one could argue that the fact that the cartoon is shitty is part of the point: even witless offensive crap must be protected. But it doesn't measure up as humor, or satire, or even pure pictorial invective. It reminds me of 19th century German fencing clubs where, before fighting with your opponent, it was necessary to insult them. However, most of the people who hung out at these clubs were too stupid to think of a good put down, so you were allowed to address your fencing partner with the rote phrase (in German obviously) "I insult you!".

Of course Ezra Levant deserves a lot of the blame in Canada for setting off this whole spiral of Stupidity. The original Muhammad cartoons that he insisted on printing were similarly witless. Now we have an anti-Christian cartoon done in response, and Ezra has suggested that he will print the results of Iranian sponsored contest soliciting cartoons making fun of the Holocaust.

So at the end of the day some of the least creative minds on the planet will have had a turn insulting three major religions. Way to go Ezra!

Anyone really needing to see it can find the cartoon via a quick google search for "Capitalist Piglet!" The full story at the Sheaf can be found below:

The Sheaf - University of Saskatchewan Student Newspaper - Home


As for the artists behind "Capitalist Piglet", I hope you are majoring in Anthropology or Business or something along those lines. You seem to have very little artistic talent.