Below is the latest The Pain -- When Will It End?
Updated 10/10/01
Artist's Statement
This cartoon actually has no subversive
political message; I just like drawing maps, and I thought it would be fun
to draw the United States as we all know it really is, a Balkanized county
of culturally distinct areas, maybe not quite as full of ancient grudges and
enmities as the Balkans but still hardly indivisible. The only intentionally
unpatriotic jibe snuck in there is the description of Washington, D.C. as
a "suspected terrorist stronghold"--a description with which, if
you know anything about our government's foreign policy of the last fifty
years, you'll have to admit it's hard to argue.
If any Texans are offended by the description of "Krapistan," I
have done my job well. The weirdly disproportionate pride you people take
in your ignorant yokel state has always seemed simultaneously pathetic and
scary to me, the same sort of pride Pakistanis take in Pakistan. Listen: the
Alamo was a minor slaughter in a war to spread slavery into Mexico, Alaska
is so much bigger than you it's embarassing to compare--hell, there's a volcano
on Mars bigger than Texas--and this "president" you've foisted off
on us in our direst crisis since Pearl Harbor is the dumbest, most incompetent
boob we've had in the White House since Warren Harding. He at least ran a
newspaper.
The only Texas resident I regret
offending is Amy Storrow.
As long as I'm apologizing and defending myself, I hope it's clear from context
(the religions and motto) that the word "Fag" in "Fagistan"
is used in the middle-school-slang sense of "flaky and effete,"
not necessarily in specific reference to homosexuality (although that meaning
is obviously not irrelevant). Most of the homosexuals I know with good senses
of humor don't seem offended by the puerile, silly use of the word "faggy,"
and people without senses of humor, regardless of their sexual orientation,
are no concern of mine. I am aware of the alleged derivation of the word "faggot"
from a bundle of kindling, alluding to the execution of homosexuals by burning,
but I've heard this doesn't check out etymologically. Plus I tried calling
it "Wackystan" but it just wasn't as funny.
As we say in my home province of Krackistan: "You got a problem?"