After Arafat

American comic strips were invented at the same time as cinema. The strips competed with movies, which were then silent. The row of panels were seen as the frames of a film.

To indicate rapid movement they often used "Whiz lines".

In order to further challenge the silent films, cartoonists tried to add loud sound effects! They did this by using the once familiar BANG! POW! WHAM! and CRASH!.

A lovely comedy technique is the "offstage event" which tricks the audience into using their imaginations to supply the missing pictures.

In the above cartoon I use all three of these old-timey devices to express dissappointment with Yasser Arafat's successor, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.