Well, the inky black prison cell where Whoever-they-are have taken Kafir certainly isn’t in Cuba*, but I was inspired by accounts of the U.S.’s notorious overseas prison complex at Guantanamo Bay when drawing these pages, especially page 60.

The inclusion of a Qur’an among the meager provisions of Muslim prisoners held at Guantanamo on suspicion of terrorism has always struck me as particularly humiliating. It is almost as if to say “just when we have deprived you of every other freedom and dignity – your own clothes, space to move around in, a private place to use the bathroom, etc. – only then will we assure you of the ability to practice your religion.”

It’s funny and sad, and very important, how the Human “as such” usually emerges only when a person has been totally debased and stripped of everything else save his life. We still define comfortable individuals in terms of their roles as communist, capitalist, Hutu, Tutsi, gay, straight, etc. etc. Only when they are starving refugees at the gates does a plea arise to respect “our common humanity.”

Not that things have gotten nearly that bad for Kafir… yet. And anyway, Kafir’s parents are Zoroastrian, you bigoted idiot.

*Where it is exactly is a mystery that won’t be explained until later in the comic!