President Chain Store Corp, which runs 7-Eleven convenience stores, has removed products featuring an Adolf Hitler-style cartoon figure after receiving complaints from the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei.
The cartoon figure was created by Mark Lee, a blogger who has gained fame because of his online comic strips that ridicule corporate bosses using tongue-in-cheek humor. Lee said the caricature was indeed inspired by Hitler, but added that the creation was by no means meant to endorse or promote Hitler’s views or Nazi ideology.
To avoid contention, Lee said he has agreed that 7-Eleven stores should suspend sales of all products featuring the controversial cartoon figure.
President Chain staff said they were baffled by the controversy. They said the cartoon figure had nothing to do with Hitler.
“However, we have decided to suspend sales of the products as some saw the image as offensive,” a company official said, adding that the company did not intend to be insensitive by selling the controversial items.
The products pulled off the shelves included key rings and magnets. The items sported a cartoon figure with a short black mustache, a brown jacket and a red, black and white symbol that some have said is reminiscent of Nazi swastika banners.
Simona Halperin, Israel’s representative to Taipei, said in a statement earlier this week that she was appalled to see “the Hitler look-alike image being used, again, as a marketing aid and sold in Taiwan’s 7-Eleven stores.”
“I find it tragic that once again people down the chain of marketing and promotion fail to recognize the meaning of the Dark Age in human history that the Nazi dictator represents,” Halperin said.
The Israeli representative added that she was sure the images were the result of “ignorance” and did not reflect “support or -identification with the atrocities committed during the Holocaust by the Nazis.”
Lee has posted a statement on his blog apologizing for any distress his work has caused.
Lee said the cartoon was not meant to endorse any of Hitler’s atrocities.
“I had hoped to use it to satirize some corporate bosses,” Lee wrote. “In the eyes of disgruntled employees, many bosses are greedy and dictatorial, and are like vampires trying to suck money from them.”
Many of Lee’s fans threw their support behind him. They said the caricature only reflected an artist’s creativity and that it had nothing to do with the German dictator.
Lee said it was not easy for him to get his work into a mainstream store.
“I spent more than a year creating a line of products and spent another several months negotiating terms with the store to have them put on sale. Much to my disappointment, they were on sale for only six days,” he said.
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