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Fiona O’Loughlin:
‘What’d I Say About My Mother?’

Rock, Paper, Saddam


15
Saddam: TIGER HAND! RAWR!!!!! RAWRR! rar. Hahaaa, hi. Tiger Hand. Come on! You Know! ... You don't know Tiger Hand? Tiger Hand beats paper. Like totally beats paper. Always.


Fumetti, traditionally, are what we call comic strips that use photos with captions or voice bubbles rather than drawn or painted images with captions (although, in Italian, the word refers to all kinds of comic strips). A pre-Python John Cleese famously (for comedy nerds) ‘starred’ in a fumetto for Harvey Kurtzman’s magazine Help! in the mid-60s, having landed in the US on a Cambridge Circus tour. Why is this important? Because amongst the staff of Help! magazine was a pre-Python Terrance Vance Gilliam, that’s why!

The reason I bring it up is because my buddy Emma Driver sent me the link to just about the funniest fumetto I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It lives on a site called ‘Rock, Paper, Saddam!’ and is the work of Jay Barnes. It made me laugh so hard that I was nearly physically ill. I’ve excerpted one panel and caption, which, on their own, don’t convey the extreme mirth of the entire story – so you’re gonna have to go straight to Jay’s site and see for yourself.

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