Morgan Gold, on why he draws comics (on Substack, sadly):

Comics have a peculiar magic: they can smuggle ideas and challenge injustice in ways that words alone cannot. […]

TikToks and tweets can be useful in political turmoil. Their strength isn’t depth. It’s speed and realism. A tweet can put a feeling into plain words and make it portable. Videos go further by creating a sense of being there. Sometimes it is carefully edited persuasion. Sometimes it’s raw footage to serve as evidence. Sometimes it is a parasocial lifeline, like a FaceTime with a friend. These media can witness, rally, soothe, or inflame. And much like a gas station burrito, they pass through you quickly. And then it’s on to more. Keep reacting. Keep scrolling.

Comics are different. They wait for you. They tell the story at the reader’s pace. Each panel is a bite-sized chunk of the story. Words and pictures conveying ideas and/or stories. Comics do a wonderful job of taking an abstraction—a policy, an injustice, a sinking feeling of dread—and give it a face. You can make it discussable. You can make it mockable. Going from panel to gutter and then panel again, you can look at the monster from a safe distance and acknowledge the reality of it without being ruled by the feeling.

Gold opens his essay with a comic (naturally) of ICE recruits learning how to terrorize, the first panel of which is “Today’s Lesson: How to turn a school drop-off into a war zone.” Rule number one: “Always create your own danger.”