World War 3 Illustrated is the foreboding title of a comic book and graphics magazine founded in 1979 by a dedicated collective of mainstream and alternative newspaper, magazine and comic book illustrators. They were (and remain) progressively political in their targets of dissent. At first conceived as a short-lived topical publication, it has survived five presidential administrations, numerous regional and global conflicts, the rise of the alt-right, Antifa, election deniers, Christian nationalism, healthcare reactionaries and the debated onset of calamitous climate change. World War 3 Illustrated continues publishing uncensored graphic commentary and paves the way for new artists and writers.
Remarkably it serves as a reliable platform for many of its original contributors, including Isabella Bannerman, Scott Cunningham, Eric Drooker, Sandy Jimenez, Sabrina Jones, Mac McGill and Kevin Pyle, among others. Virtually every issue is devoted to a contemporary theme. The current one is a jam-packed book devoted to “Animal Rights and Planet Wrongs.”
Inside there is also a candid interview with the acerbic painter, printmaker and activist Sue Coe, who is one of the original WW3 cast and the advocate par excellence of animal rights. I asked co-founder and periodic editor Peter Kuper to sum up decades of this rare survivor of topicality and shifting fortunes.
Since the publication of your first issue, what has been the visible and invisible shift in the tone, topics and relevance of such an “institution”?
The first issue was concerned we were about to go to war in Iran. There was the hostage crisis then and the threat of nuclear war. The topics have expanded, but our concerns haven’t.
Has your POV changed or mellowed in the years that WW3 has existed?
Naturally in some ways, but since there’s a group of us, there’s not a hive mind on POV. More women have taken leading roles. Any given issue has multiple editors and more specific themes.
What are your plans for the future?
Hopefully surviving to do another issue.
Do you have a generation waiting in the wings?
They are not waiting. The latest issue includes a number of first-time contributors who are still in art school or doing their first comic. Since a number of us are teachers, we have been able to tap emerging artists and give people the experience of seeing their work in print. This is an aspect of the magazine that is a thorough success. Many careers and graphic novels have been launched that first appeared in WW3. Eric Drooker first published what became his graphic novel Flood! in the pages of the magazine, same with David Wojnarowicz, James Romberger’s Seven Miles a Second. Sabrina Jones got her start in the magazine along with Kevin Pyle and a long list of others. All of us got the opportunity to share our developing work and get feedback along the way which was, and is, invaluable.
How effective has WW3 been in cautioning about the hazards we live with?
We are fighting against entrenched systems that are very well-financed. As Jules Feiffer said to me, “It’s an endless fight. Endless fights go on endlessly!” But we’ve been around long enough that parents, and dare I say even grandparents, have shared our work with their kids. Nobody pops out of the womb politically informed. What you are exposed to forms your perspective as you grow up. I hope we have been part of that education process. Actually, as it happens, “Education” is the theme of our next issue!
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