Imprisoned Russian punks inspire political comic from wordy songsmith.
Last month, New York songwriter and comic book artist Jeffrey Lewis released ‘WWPRD’, a song that flipped the oft-heard Christian motto “What would Jesus do?” into a secular query: “What would Pussy Riot do?”
Now The Guardian has commissioned a comic strip from Lewis, asking him to ponder what the radical Russian art-punks would do in a variety of topical situations. Inhabiting the roles of NSA leaker Edward Snowden and Newsnight editor Ian Katz, among others, Lewis sketched out five cartoons, which you can see in full here.
Lewis’ ‘WWPRD’ was part of a three-track EP released on 7″ and digitally via Rough Trade last month. Pussy Riot members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich were convicted of “hooliganism” after their protest performance in a Russian church last year. Alyokhina recently attempted a hunger strike in protest of the Russian court’s decision to prohibit her from attending her own parole hearing.
In other cartoon news, The Smiths’ licensing group Universal Music yesterday ordered the takedown of a Tumblr that mashes up Morrissey lyrics with Peanuts comic strips.
See the rest of the comic strips here.