The following piece was commissioned as part of the Illustrated PEN‘s State of Emergency feature, intended to bring forward the voices and stories of communities whose concerns and lives may be most at risk under the new administration. Our hope is that the stories created for this series will help empower and inspire people to stand up and speak out and to begin to repair what’s been so thoroughly broken.

Robert Kirby is a cartoonist, editor, and reviewer living in Minneapolis. Among his books are Curbside Boys (Cleis Press, 2002), The Book of Boy Trouble (Green Candy Press, 2006), the Ignatz Award-winning anthology QU33R (Northwest Press, 2014), and his latest, What’s Your Sign, Girl? Cartoonists Talk About Their Sun Signs (Ninth Art Press, 2015). His reviews and features appear in The Comics Journal, Panel Patter, Rain Taxi, and other publications.