Ruben Bolling 🪲 (@rubenbolling@mastodon.social)
mas.to
Attached: 1 image Here is that first comic I did after the attacks. I had a job in the World Financial Center and had to escape the financial district on that day. It's hard to convey my emotions as I reluctantly and resentfully cast about for comic ideas and came up with this.

It sort of reads like a surrealist antijoke through modern eyes.

  • sbv@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    The way I read the comic was that the attacks sucked everything else out of the public consciousness. Which was true for months.

    North Americans felt like they were in uncharted territory - we went from “We won the Cold War! It’s the End Of History!” to feeling threatened in the course of a few hours.

    (I’m saying this as a Canadian, so maybe I don’t have it quite right)

    • Bob@feddit.nlOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      the attacks sucked everything else…

      That makes sense from a retrospective view but I think that wasn’t as apparent the day after the terrorist attack itself.

      • sbv@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        It was apparent.

        I worked in Ottawa, Canada. I had to walk the last few blocks to work that morning because my bus driver stopped to listen to the radio. The driver played it loud so the passengers could hear. At work, I was in a crunch to get stuff done for a conference in October or November, but it was cancelled on that day, so I took the afternoon off.

        TV and radio channels were exclusively talking about the attacks, the rescue/recovery efforts in New York, and reactions from around the world. I mean exclusively. Literally nothing else was getting coverage.

        News websites were unresponsive because so many people were checking them. I’m not talking about CNN and US sites, I’m talking about the CBC, BBC, and Globe and Mail.

        I’m pretty sure there were flyovers by military craft, but I remember the skies being otherwise empty. Ottawa didn’t get a tonne of air traffic, but it was noticeable.

        The attacks sucked everything out of the public consciousness. Even in other countries, TV, radio, and online coverage switched to the attacks immediately. People changed their daily activities because of it.