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?"


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