Tragedy and the Comic

Many think of the newspaper comics as a diversion from the hard news that appears on the other pages of the paper. Some, with their on-going story lines, and others with an odd cast of characters do serve as an alternative to the news stories. Sometimes they can even make you laugh at some of those difficult issues. However, comics are not only a source of laughter. They are also a source of commentary on the world around us. Comic strips can express opinions or points of view on controversial topics, clearly present the absurdity of a personage or issue, or present a dialogue between dissenting political views. Occasionally comics can express a collective point of view in a straightforward, simple way.

The following comic strip appeared in the Boston Globe on Monday, February 8, 2010:

This comic appears almost one month after the earth quake and is a very clear reminder that we should still be thinking about Haiti; that Haiti should still be on the front pages of our minds, even if not on the front pages of the newspapers.
Another example of social commentary in the comics was also in last weeks newspaper (Boston Globe, February 8, 10 & 11). In the series the girl is talking on skype with her grandmother, who is in Thailand doing Peace Corp type work. The grandmother tries to reframe her granddaughters complaints in a global context. The conversation presents the privilege of the United States in relation to much of the world, the lack of knowledge about the world that many people in the US have, and even the quality of American education in regards to the world.

Of the more than 6 billion people on the planet more than 2 billion cannot read today.
It is very difficult to imagine the state of the world sometimes, and even harder to figure out what it all means in relation to you. An effective way of envisioning both the state of the world and get a sense of your relationship to it is to reduce the global population to 100. To view statistics of the world compressed to 100 people visit the following websites:

http://www.miniature-earth.com/me_english.htm

or

http://www.gumption.org/2002/village/village.htm

In viewing the world in such a compressed way, what is most noticeable to you? Is there anything surprising?
-R. Sipho Bellinger