Justice Michael Adams of the New South Wales Supreme Court (Australia) has ruled that cartoon characters are people too.  The judge’s ruling came in the case of Alan John McEwan, who was convicted on child pornography charges stemming from his possession of a series of sexually explicit cartoons featuring characters from The Simpsons TV series depicted in extremely compromising positions.

According to the Melbourne Herald Sun, Justice Adams ruled that a fictional cartoon character was a “person” within the meaning of relevant state and commonwealth laws stating: “... The mere fact that the figure depicted departed from a realistic representation in some respects of a human being did not mean that such a figure was not a 'person’.”

For an Australian perspective on this ruling see “James Kite of Serenity Studios in Sydney Australia on Censorship Examples.”