This week, two comics are making national news due to some readers being offended by the comics’ content.

The Washington Post blog Comic Riffs by Michael Cavna takes a look at reactions from an op-ed article in the Press & Sun-Bulletin to a week’s worth of the comic strip Mother Goose & Grimm by Mike Peters. The comic satirized the hypothetical Chernobyl Amusement Park with a series of radiation jokes. The historic meltdown of the Ukraine’s Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986 resulted in the destruction of a community and its local environment, and thousands either dying or being diagnosed with life-altering illnesses in the fallout.

Meanwhile, MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell is shocked and dismayed at the perceived racism of a recent installment of the political comic strip Obama Nation by James Hudnall and Batton Lash. First Lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity initiative Let’s Move is the target. O’Donnell takes issue with how Lash portrayed the First Family.

My first thought is that these are reminders that comic strips, comic books, graphic novels – the sequential art form that these all use – can still stir a passionate response in people. Not that it’s even debatable, but the medium is still as vital as ever. So that’s great news.

Specifically though, do these comics go too far?

Your miles will vary. We all have varying levels of sensitivity to different topics. And if someone is genuinely upset or offended by something, that shouldn’t be dismissed. Having said that, artistic expression is still a freedom and a right we enjoy, as long as another’s freedoms, rights or safety aren’t limited as a result.

I’ll look at these one at a time after the clickie-jump: (more…)