Crowded Room, Not a Soul in Sight

I wasn’t always an anti-Jihad cartoonist. Before 9/11, I had a number of stories in mind that I wanted to write and draw, stories that were put on hold or forgotten altogether in the shadow of the atrocity. I was working on my first graphic novel, Table for One, when 9/11 hit, and I liked the idea of portraying how an individualist would fare in the mini society of the restaurant world that I created. I had no desire to scrap the story for a more direct response to 9/11 yet, and so the only mentions of the attacks in the book are in some of the conversations between the New York customers in the double-page spread I post below.

I think this audience would appreciate that the hero of Table for One, waiter/writer William Howland, was hated by two different liberal reviewers to such an extent that they wanted to, somehow, kick his ass. I enjoyed the unexpected but telling response that Will got from some people, which is why I have since described the book in shorthand as “Dirty Harry as a Waiter.”

I’ll be posting panels from my next book, The Infidel, featuring Pigman, in a few weeks.

For more on my work, check out my blog.