This piece originally appeared in an exhibition of cartoons at the Provisions Gallery and Bookstore in Washington DC. During the Q&A in my obligatory “artist talks about his work” appearance at the opening, one concerned art lover asked, regarding this cartoon, whether or not this was really the kind of conservation message I wanted to send, to which I replied “Conservation message? What conservation message?”
This was no gasoline conservation message; this was a comment on the attitude of the millions of American men who were trying to show off how macho they were, “playing soldier” by driving Hummers around their hometowns while, in the meantime, thousands of real soldiers were dying in theirs in Iraq in an attempt to subjugate a nation and steal its resources. By this time, gasoline was nudging the three-dollar-a-gallon mark, and I was getting more than a little bit sick and tired of listening to fat, selfish Americans pissing and moaning about the price of gasoline, as if cheap gas was something they were somehow magically entitled to. I actually found myself rooting for gasoline to hit four or five dollars a gallon — something approaching the prices people have paid for years in Europe — just so I could see all those selfish, arrogant SUV drivers get a bit of well-deserved comeuppance.
