The cartoon (taken from http://www.grimmy.com) was written by a guy called Mike Peters, who is supposed to be popular in the US and publishes his cartoon in over 600 newspapers. I didn't know him until today. The Colombian Federation of Coffee Growers (FNC) is highly offended because of this cartoon and will sue Mr Peters in an US court, as they claim the cartoon affects the "Juan Valdez" brand. The FNC has this weird dream of doing a "Juan Valdez" franchise all over the world and become larger than Starbucks. So far they have fancy coffee shops in Colombia, some southamerican countries and a couple of shops in US and Spain.
I don't know what to think about this. It's like when someone makes fun of you for some reason and you simply should live with it. I mean, it's part of life. We do have a (bad) fame, and should live with it with dignity. The thing that really bothers me is the hypocrite nationalism of media when reporting about this kind of stuff. Similar stupid reactions took place when Carla Bruni made a reference to the "white Colombian" in one of her recent songs, or when in "Mr and Mrs Smith" Bogotá was depicted as a city lost in the desert (or so they've said, never saw that movie). Here people complained (especially politicians), the media reflected that, and the expected outcome took place: nothing changed.
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