Drawing on Tragedy

Mac McGill
IX XI MMI, 2001 (fourth of five published drawings)
IX XI MMI, 2001 (fifth of five published drawings)
Ink, opaque white, and overlays
over graphite on paper
Published in: World War 3 Illustrated, issue #32. Sacramento: Mordam Records, ca. 2001
Prints & Photographs Division
Gift of the artist, 2002
Shown online with permission
of the artist (225.2a,b)
LC-DIG-ppmsca-01752
[digital ID# ppmsca-01752]

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, comic book artists were among the first to respond creatively to the tragic events. They formed coalitions with editors and publishers and produced remarkable anthologies of comic book art. Mac McGill joined fellow artists who contributed to a special issue of World War 3 Illustrated. He created a series of five imaginative drawings that capture the devastation of the World Trade Center towers, nearby skyscrapers, and myriad human lives in lower Manhattan. McGill uses his accomplished pen- and ink-technique to render screaming buildings that gradually recede in these last two drawings of the sequence.