All dialog in this strip is quoted from “Dark Like Our Future” by Deepa Parent in The Guardian. From the article:
Thick black smoke was still rising in the sky, soot covered the streets and cars, balconies filled with black gunk, and the toxic air had filled the lungs as Tehran woke up after a night of airstrikes on the city’s oil depots on Sunday.
In messages and voice notes sent to the Guardian, people described the situation in their homes and on the streets, some calling it “apocalyptic”. With the sun blotted out, disoriented people in Iran’s capital had to turn on their lights to see through the gloom.
Four oil depots and a petroleum logistics site in and around Tehran were hit.
People in Tehran will be sick from this, and dying earlier from this, for years to come.
Any response to the war on Iran I could make seems so inadequate next to the enormity of the damage we’re doing – and the enormity of our leadership’s delusions.
But I still felt I should say something. “Theresa’s Daughter” wrote:
It’s easy to feel like our voices don’t matter. That without thousands or millions of followers, without a blue checkmark next to our names, what we say won’t change anything. But that’s exactly what people in power want us to believe. They want us to think we’re too small to make a difference. They want us to forget that history isn’t just something in books — it’s being written right now. And if we stay silent, they get to write it however they choose.
Our leadership seems completely indifferent to the suffering they cause. Talking about the sinking of an unarmed Iranian military ship, in which over a hundred people died, President Trump said that no effort was made to capture the ship because “It’s more fun to sink them.”
I read Daniel Larison’s post “The Poisoning of Tehran,” in which he quoted “Nagin” extensively. (The Guardian described Negin as “an activist and former political prisoner.”) I decided I should do a cartoon amplifying Negin’s voice. Obviously, the amplification I can provide is trivial, compared to a huge outlet like The Guardian or a well-known writer like Larison – but we all do what we can with the tools we have, right?
This obviously isn’t the usual sort of strip I do, so I’m interested in what people think. Was this good? Or a misstep?
TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has four panels, all showing a woman in her thirties in a modest but nice apartment.
PANEL 1
The woman pulls back a curtain, looking at the darkness outside.
CAPTION: “Negin” – not her real name – lives in Tehran.
NEGIN: The situation is so frightening it’s hard to describe. Smoke has covered the city. I have severe shortness of breath and burning in my eyes and throat, and many others feel the same.
PANEL 2
Negin turns away from the window and speaks directly to us.
NEGIN: I ask those who have the ability, especially foreign media, to reflect on this situation. What are people supposed to do under these conditions?
PANEL 3
Negin speaks angrily.
NEGIN: If someone has a problem with the Islamic Republic government, that’s one thing – But not with us, the people! This is no longer just a human rights violation.
PANEL 4
Negin sits on the sofa, slumping and looking down.
NEGIN: It is truly anti-human behavior.
A footnote below the cartoon says “Dialog quoted from “Dark Like Our Future,” The Guardian, march 8 2026.”
> “This obviously isn’t the usual sort of strip I do, so I’m interested in what people think. Was this good? Or a misstep?”
If by “good,” you simply mean an accurate depiction of how most non-political civilians of a country feel when the consequences of their government’s involvement in a war reach the homefront — like Southerners felt when Sherman reached Atlanta, like the Germans and the Japanese felt when U.S. military might struck their city — your cartoon is right on (“Not my fault, so why am I being punished?”).
I don’t see it as a big moral issue — that’s just the way war works.
Dreidel
Yes, who could possibly see war as a “big moral issue” :rollseyes: