Comic Strip of the Day

CSotD: History and Hindsight

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Mike Peterson Published: November 17, 2015 1 minute 2 comments

I may have to get off social media for awhile, because the storm of bigotry and chickenhawk nonsense is starting to become overwhelming.

I'm not convinced they represent a majority. It could be like having lilac bushes blooming in your yard, only someone ran over a skunk on the road in front of your house.

On the other hand, it's equally possible that Kristallnacht is right around the corner, which is a pretty good reason not to stop paying attention.

But there's no point in arguing with bigots, who have no sense of decency, while the chickenhawks are also absolutely sure that they are right, and are particularly convinced that it's up to someone else to carry out their bold threats.

Anyway, there have been some remarks about Freedom Fries and how much we dumped on the French back when they told us so, and so I thought I'd go back and see what cartoonists were saying in the week leading up to the invasion.

And let me say, I am well aware that hindsight is 20/20, but then again, as Tom Toro has pointed out, history isn't without its uses.

I didn't try to find "You told us so" or "Don't you feel stupid now?" examples so much as choose a representative sample of what we were talking about between March 14 and 20, 2003. 

The selection criterion was simply availability: Not all the cartoonists currently at GoComics have archives that go back to 2003, and Comics Kingdom's archives don't go back that far at all.

And if you would pony up the $12 a year for a membership, you'd not only avoid pop-ups, but you could go see what else these folks were saying.

And you'd be supporting them, too, by the way.

Anyway, grouped conceptually rather than strictly chronologically, here are some views from that week:

(Signe Wilkinson)

(Paul Szep)

 

(Jeff Danziger)

(Ted Rall)

(Stuart Carlson)

(Joel Pett)

(Tim Eagan)

(Chan Lowe)

(Dana Summers)

(Gary Varvel)

(Matt Davies)

(Jen Sorensen)

(Pat Oliphant) 

(Drew Sheneman)

(Jack Ohman)

(Glenn McCoy)

(Chip Bok)

(Tom Toles)

(Nick Anderson)

(Mike Luckovich)

(Walt Handelsman)

Now here's your moment of zen:

 
(You can tell this is an old song by the line "widows from the last war."
There is no longer any "last war." There is only "war.")

Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.