No, not that kind of submission, silly—I mean that Tim Kreider, author of the weekly comic strip The Pain, is quite possibly the only American to enter that contest the Iranian newspaper was running where they were inviting cartoonists to make fun of the Holocaust on the assumption that it would be just like socking the decadent West right in the kisser as payback for all those Mohammed caricatures. Kreider's contribution (which, I warn you, has a decidedly NSFW component) is accompanied on his website by an "artist's statement" that explains his motivation: "We are not kidding about Freedom of Speech. We truly believe that nothing is off-limits to question or ridicule... As an American humorist and heir to the greatest comedic tradition on Earth, I believe there is nothing so sacred that it cannot be further consecrated—nor anything so monstrous it cannot be redeemed—by laughter. Laughter is sanity; it is strength; it is fearlessness in the face of hatred and death." He doesn't expect they'll publish his work, but, he says, "I am currently feeling extremely good about getting into the thick of this absurd fray. It's like one of those scenes in a Western where everybody in the saloon is fighting and you joyfully throw yourself into the melee and smash a chair or a whiskey bottle over some guy's head."

You might remember another response to the radical Islamist uprisings I mentioned last week, as artist/writer Colleen Doran collected autographs on a Danish flag from dozens of major comic book talents. Well, that flag will be auctioned off for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund pretty soon, but in the meantime, even more writers and artists are invited to add their names in a flag-signing party next Wednesday night at Jim Hanley's Universe, a comics shop across the street from the Empire State Building.