Cartoons

A Danish court rejected a defamation lawsuit against a newspaper that first printed controversial cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Seven Danish Muslim groups filed the suit in March after Denmark's top prosecutor declined to press criminal charges, saying the drawings did not violate laws against racism or blasphemy. The City Court in Aarhus rejected claims that the 12 drawings printed in the Jyllands-Posten daily were meant to insult the prophet and make a mockery of Islam.

A young boy watches as cigarette smoke turns his father to ashes. The youngster picks up the cigarette, contemplates it for a moment, then tosses it over his shoulder, having learned a lesson about the consequences of smoking. That scenario is one of 11 depicted in a series of cartoons created this week by 100 students from six intermediate and high schools as part of a Santa Ana Unified School District anti-tobacco program.

Roger Rabbit is back in the theaters--and so are short cartoons. Walt Disney Pictures and Amblin Entertainment are following up the success of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" with a series of shorts starring the zany bunny.

The art establishment has a long and distinguished history of dismissing cartoon imagery. "Of all the lively arts the comic strip is the most despised, and with the exception of the movies it is the most popular," critic Gilbert Seldes wrote in 1924. That perception didn't change much until the last decade and a half. Now comic and cartoon characters are seemingly everywhere in the art world. That ubiquity inspired the show "Comic Release!

Less than two months after it bought the Hanna-Barbera animation studio, Turner Broadcasting System said Tuesday that it will offer a 24-hour cartoon channel on cable TV, beginning Oct. 1. The new channel offers further evidence of both the splintering of the television audience and the big three broadcast networks' weakening grip on young viewers. The tentatively named Cartoon Channel will air cartoons from the Hanna-Barbera library.

A Swedish cartoonist who depicted the prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog said police have taken him to a secret location and told him he cannot return home because of a death threat from militants in Iraq. Transcripts of Islamic websites reported that $100,000 had been offered for Lars Vilks' death.

Thousands of Muslims in London and other European cities rallied peacefully to condemn published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad and the violent reactions to them. About 5,000 gathered in London's Trafalgar Square as speakers not only denounced the cartoons as an unacceptable insult, but also condemned the torching of embassies in Syria and Lebanon, deaths in Afghanistan and other violence committed in response. Peaceful crowds also gathered in Paris, Berlin and other cities.

Four men were sentenced to prison for their roles in a fiery protest in London against the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. Mizanur Rahman, 24, Umran Javed, 27, and Abdul Muhid, 25, were convicted of incitement to murder and sentenced to six years in prison. At a February 2006 protest at the Danish Embassy, they called for the deaths of those responsible for the publication of the cartoons, Judge Brian Barker said.

Turner Broadcasting is scouring more than 1,500 classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons, including "Tom and Jerry," "The Flintstones" and "Scooby-Doo," to edit out scenes that glamorize smoking. The review was triggered by a complaint to British media regulator Ofcom by one viewer who took offense to two episodes of "Tom and Jerry" shown on the Boomerang channel, part of Turner Broadcasting, which itself belongs to Time Warner Inc.

Re "What would Muhammad do?" Opinion, Feb. 9 Because Jamil Momand is an educated man, it is difficult to understand how his commentary could be so far off the mark. One does not have to be an authority on Islam to know why so many Muslims are reacting with violence to the cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad. Islamic teachings have offered young followers a confused, if not duplicitous, code concerning the use of violence to resolve conflict. Extremist imams and terrorists around the world have seized on these ambiguities to recruit killers.