It came about thus. As the dust was settling and the international exaltation subsiding after the aforementioned developments in Germany, the Village Voice invited a number of its contributors to compose essays (or in my case, a comic strip) sharing our individual meditations on the breakthrough the world had been watching.
I took a metaphorical route growing out of life in these United States as it was being experienced by liberals like me back then. Having spent the previous decade being constrained by the demonizing wall of dismissiveness erected by conservatives under Ronald Reagan’s presidency, I took the occasion to create a satirical cartoon fantasy in which "my side" triumphed the way that "democracy" had finally penetrated into East Berlin, according to the narrative of the day.
Well, there was no harm in dreaming.
If only …
Hey, another strip I’d never seen!
It was actually depressing. There was such hope, at least in Europe, when the wall fell. And look at the state of things nowadays…