Sick or just Stupid?

I've been debating whether or not I should comment on the whole D'Orazio vs. Mozzocco battle over comic kiddie porn. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a huge fan of Valerie and her blog Occasional Superherione. I'm less impressed with Mozzocco's Newsarama column. It just seems like the comic world's version of a gossip column. Which isn't to say that's a bad thing, just not something I personally enjoy. I find the overall Newsarama site is very well done, and can't be beat for content.

The heated debate on both sites on this topic got pretty ugly for a while there, complete with name-calling (mostly in the comments). Once again, free speech gets tangled up with the perception of obscenity.

Now, I'm not making light of the horrible damage wrought by child pornography. No one here is even remotely endorsing that heinous garbage, and anyone involved in it oughta be castrated. But this?.....isn't that. The images in question here are evidently drawings of Bart and Lisa Simpson engaging in sexual acts. I haven't actually seen the drawings (although in researching for this post, "Simpson's porn" produced a staggering and unsettling number hits). So I may be way off base here, but it sounds to me like the kind of "artwork" one might find on a bathroom stall. Which, while certainly crude and tasteless, isn't inherently harmful, in my opinion.

So I guess my take on the whole mess is that the pictures in question are undoubtedly offensive, but aren't worth getting het up over. Save the righteous anger for the real thing.