Below is the latest The Pain -- When Will It End?
Updated 05/14/03

Artist's Statement

I'm afraid this falls into the category of "hard-hitting and controversial" cartoons rather than "funny" ones. But, as one friend said about it, "I would probably be a little bit worried about myself if I had laughed." Some weeks you have to settle for being politically incisive. I am at least glad to have made this one maddeningly obvious point, which I haven't seen in any article or op-ed anywhere: this war on Iraq was never about Weapons of Mass Destruction. Let's just stop even dignifying that cover story by acting like it makes any difference whether they turn up or not. Weapons of Mass Destruction had nothing to do with anything. The Bush administration never cared whether Saddam had them; it was just an excuse to take over Iraq, get access to its oil, and and make it our main military base in the Middle East (and discreetly bow to al Qaeda's main demand by getting the fuck out of Saudi Arabia). Bush's owners were planning to do that years before 9/11. And now that they have it they don't give a shit whether anybody ever turns up any evidence of weapons of mass destruction or not. The American people have already forgotten all about that crap and moved on to more pressing issues. Can you believe Rueben getting voted in the bottom two on American Idol? A man who clearly understands love and loss and pain, a man with soul, losing out to that loathesome little no-talent prettyboy Clay? What's with that bullshit? And hey, did anyone else check out that transsexual on Oprah? Pretty hot for a chick who used to be a dude, you have to admit.

Ah, well--no doubt we'll start bombing some other shithole nation next year in time for the election, since Killing Foreigners is the only issue on which Republicans market-test better than Democrats. There'll be plenty of fodder for humor yet.