Gitmo Through the Eyes of Molly Crabapple

For some time I’ve been a fan of the artist and illustrator Molly Crabapple. I’m not quite sure how to describe her style. The Guardian once described it as “equal parts Hieronymus Bosch, William S. Burroughs and Cirque du Soleil.” She once described it herself as “Where’s Waldo for Perverts.” To place it in the most general terms, much of her work has the feel of high-end contemporary graphic novels. In any case, recently I got a PR email saying she’d just been down to Guantanamo Bay to draw the detention facility and the court proceedings. And I thought, wow, that seems like such a culture clash or coming together of two worlds, Crabapple on the one hand and the tight, hyper-secretive, militarized scene down at Gitmo, I’ve just got to hear more about how that went. So TPM’s Catherine Thompson interviewed her about it (she also wrote a long graphic essay for VICE) and she was kind enough to share several original sketches from her time down there. Here’s the piece which I’m thrilled we’re publishing.