World War 3 Illustrated #39
Edited by Peter Kuper and Kevin Pyle

The recent release party for the latest issue of World War 3 Illustrated featured a live improvisational jazz band playing in time with projections of the book’s strips. The move marked a change from previous celebrations, which found the artists reading aloud from their pieces, a shift that reflected the new issue’s “wordless worlds” theme. When the time did come to speak, the publication’s long time editor Peter Kuper explained that the wordless issue #39 (co-edited with Blindspot’s Kevin Pyle) was meant as something of a break coming off the last eight years—and before heading off into the next eight.

It’s a change for the long-running progressive comics magazine, which has never been especially soft-spoken when it comes to issues of politics—or, really, anything else for that matter.  But while there are always plenty of arguments to be had, eight years of yelling has the tendency to leave one hoarse. Of course the lack of words contained herein doesn’t necessarily single a change in focus—plenty of the works maintain standard themes of environmentalism, peace, anti-corporate greed, and just good old-fashioned humanism.

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