The question that whether cartoonists should go too far or not has always been debatable, however, as irony is a difficult beast to control, so is this art. We’ve witnessed quite a number of pieces giving way to clashes between the intentions of the artist and how readers perceive the message. The latest is the satirical cartoon on the cover of the New Yorker magazine depicting Barack Obama in Islamic dress and wife Michelle shown with a Kalashnikov on her back besides a burning US flag in the Oval Office.

The New Yorker defends the cover as a satire on Obama, who though a Christian, is considered as a closet radical Muslim.New Yorker editor David Remnick said, “it combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to prejudice, the hateful, and the absurd. And that’s the spirit of this cover.”