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CBG SATELLITES
The ADD Blog by Alan David Doane
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World War 3 Illustrated #36
As you would expect from what I think I could fairly call a
radical/liberal/progressive publication like World War 3 Illustrated,
the general tone is rage, outrage, disgust, and horror at the
perceived transformation of America over the course of the Bush
administration. Obviously few pro-Bush minds will be changed by as
biased and "unbalanced" a publication as this, but given the untold
thousands of crimes against democracy and humanity that he and his
overseers/cronies/fellow PNAC signatories have quite handily gotten
away with right out in the light of day with virtually no need for all
but the occasional cover-up, it's gratifying to see that this issue,
while fueled by outrage, is nourished by truth.
"Dies Irae," written by Wertham and illustrated by Spain, is a
first-person piece of autobiography by a survivor of the attacks on
the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. It sets the tone for
the issue, as a husband loses his beautiful wife and child in the
attacks and begins a journey of discovery about the empty, cynical
heart of deception at the center of America's political actions ever
since that day. It's an effective piece of work that says more about
9/11 in nine pages of comics than you'd see in any nine
network-produced documentaries on the same subject.
Joe Sacco's "Complacency Kills" sympathetically profiles the poor,
doomed soldiers thanklessly tasked with carrying out Bush's policies
overseas. Sacco's piece is brief and no doubt part of a longer
forthcoming work covering the time he spent in Iraq, but "Complacency"
provides a convincing portrait of the chaos and paranoia that
accompany being an unwanted, under-prepared and under-supplied invader
in a hostile land where you will never, ever be safe. A complementary
piece is the fumetti "War is Hell" by Penny Allen with photos by
the anonymous "Sgt. R." R's story is told through real images of the
brutal inhumanity of the war being waged in Iraq, a vivid, full-colour
pricetag for America's continued addiction to cheap oil. Heads blown
to hamburger and corpses along the roadside -- picture postcards of
America's honeymoon with the SUV. Wish you were here.
Peter Kuper's "Richie Bush" is a brilliant, insightful and inciteful
satire that is accompanied by a page of unedited letters from
Kuper-haters. We have met the enemy, and he is functionally
illiterate. A key election strategy that got us where we are today,
let there be no doubt.
There's a lot of good comics inside this issue, a lot of anger, a lot
of insight. I don't know if America will ever find a leader of
intelligence and integrity to pull it back from the oil-drunk lost
weekend it's been on for so many years now, but now that we as a
nation are packed into our American family SUV, swerving out of
control across the world's highways, knocking over mailboxes and
turning brown people into hamburger in our apocalyptic lust for
preservation of an untenable status quo, it's nice, at least, to have
an issue like this as a companion, trapped here in the back seat of a
trip I never wanted to take. Are we there yet? Grade: 5/5
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This 25th anniversary issue is subtitled "Neo-Con," and is heavy with
first-person reportage by victims and survivors of the global struggle
for domination of the Middle East and its vast oil reserves, called by
some "The War on Terror" or just "Bush's America." An impressive array
of political and artcomix creators contribute, from the cover by Sue
Coe to the inside contributions from Steve Brodner, Justin Wertham and
Spain Rodriguez, Joe Sacco, Eric Drooker, Tom Tomorrow, editors Inzana
and Kuper and many others.