(Those of you who hate politics, please note: this post is more about cartooning than it is about politics.)

Last year, a few newspapers around the world ran cartoons depicting Mohammed… in defiance of some Muslim strictures against showing Mohammed * … as a test to see whether free speech and journalism still trumped sensitivity to PC concerns (as well as fear of assassination and fatwas). The cartoonists now live in fear for their lives.

* The “some” is because it has not always been so, or has not been enforced, or has been a rule restricted only to Muslims. Images of Mohammed have appeared all throughout history in the Muslim world, as this archive shows. A year before 9/11, South Park even had an episode that depicted Muhammed without any particular controversy, though later a far more innocuous portrayal was censored.

Iran’s biggest newspaper had an interesting response to this controversy. They claimed, in essence, that European boasts about “free speech” were only because it wasn’t their ox being gored, and so let’s just see if their free speech lasts when it comes to running cartoons denying the Holocaust. (In some nations, particularly Germany, it is against the law to deny the Holocaust.) They launched a Holocaust cartoon contest, and have so far received hundreds of odious entries.

So American political cartoonists Cox and Forkum decided to enter to see if they could sneak in a Trojan Horse cartoon that was actually a denunciation of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad. Rather than explain it any more here, I’d encourage you to check out the link which explains it in profuse details. All politics aside, I’m fascinated by the artistry of the hidden image.

See if you can spot the trick before it is revealed.