I have no comment to make about Sandy's love life either. That is, rightly, a private matter.
I agree with Red to a point. Certainly, people will find offence in almost anything, and humour is no exception. Indeed, humour is almost always at the expense of some thing or someone, so it pretty much invites offence. And far from it being the antipathy of 'serious', humour can be used in very serious contexts with great effect. I recently contributed to
a book that was put together in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre to raise money for the victims' families, for which many professional cartoonists submitted their take on the appalling events of January 7th and their aftermath. Most of the cartoons were funny, some were poignant, many were both.
All of them were serious - about as serious as it gets. Drawn with the grim determination of fighting back with the only weapon we, as cartoonists, have in our arsenal.
There are some cartoonists who believe nothing should be off limits when it comes to their work. I agree that no subject should be barred, but by the same token, I do think there ought to be limits and checks to that. There are very few clear lines, and everyone's idea of where they should be drawn (forgive the aptness of the analogy) is different, so you really can only make your own judgement call on that. For instance, I am on record as being strongly critical of the Danish cartoonists and publishers who kicked off the whole Prophet Muhammad cartoons over a decade ago, and although I acknowledge their right to do what they did, and the continuation and escalation of their act over the years since through Charlie Hebdo, I do not agree that
having a
right to do something automatically makes it right to do it. They chose the wrong target, used a cruise missile to crack a peanut, and people died. The offence they caused was to an entire faith in order to highlight a relatively tiny minority of dangerous extremists. I suspect those extremists were probably not even as concerned about the offence itself as the vast majority of peaceful Muslims who maintained a dignified silence about it all, but they were handed the perfect excuse to take revenge on their professed faith's behalf, and inflict their brand of carnage, against their own people's wishes and beliefs.
Yes, they were wrong to do that - no-one should die for drawing cartoons. But that does not make it right to draw the cartoons in the first instance. Cartoons can be very powerful, and can make points far quicker and more effectively than words, at times. But with power comes responsibility (to paraphrase Luke, Harry S. Truman or Spiderman's Uncle Ben...take your pick), and you do well to focus your aim with far greater precision than those who chose Muhammad.
There are other subjects I'd also be wary of tackling. My own faith (heretical Christian) isn't one of them, although I will always try to evaluate the scale of potential offence before drawing a gag. I know many Christians who are well able to laugh at humour directed at their faith. Some less so. Hopefully I know how far to take it so as not to alienate the many, but I do enjoy pushing the odd boundary, and I find the Bible a great source for humour (that's "for", not "of"). Do I always get the balance right? Not sure, but this, in its own way, sums it up...