The Four Color Media Monitor

A comics publisher in Poland did something pretty dumb that sullies their image, and angered the local officials:

The Polish publisher of a French comic book about Holocaust hero Irena Sendler was sanctioned by the Warsaw City Council for distributing comic books that mock Polish nationalists at a city book fair. [...]

Also distributed at the Timof Comics booth was a free comic “Poland, the champion of Poland,” by Tomasz Lesniak and Rafal Skarzycki, who cooperated with the anti-government Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper. They created drawings ridiculing nationalism, racism and anti-Semitism.

Since the Festival was co-financed by the city council, nationalist organizations complained to city officials that such comics should not appear at the event because it is insulting to the groups.

On Thursday, the city office published a statement that city officials were not aware of the contents of the comic “Poland, the champion of Poland” prior to its distribution. “After reviewing the comic we explicitly declare that we do not accept its content,” the statement said. The council also said it would suspend the city’s subsidy for the Festival for the next three years, withholding about $ 44,500.

It mocking racism is one thing, but nationalism? Idiotic, and flies in the face of the French comic they publish. Bleeding Cool has a few pictures from the items in question, and from the comments, I found one who translated the word balloons:

Quick translation for anyone that is interested:

On the first image those douchebags on the bench are saying “tolerance, tolerance but that religion is inhuman” and in the second panel “praise be to God”.

2nd image – large guys are wondering whether they should write “d*k or c**t”.

3rd i mage – lady asks the family “I've heard you're trying to have another baby” and their response is “we need to somehow pay up that debt/credit” (reference to the recent child support rule that gives a family 500+ zlotych for every second, third, fourth etc. child).

The first one apparently has what to do with Christianity, and suggests the cartoonists are going for cheap, easy targets. If they can't call out Islamofascism as the truly inhuman religion, then their act is cowardly and shameful. The city council certainly doesn't have to provide funding for this limp satire.

Labels: conventions, Europe and Asia, misogyny and racism, politics