Doonesbury.com's The War in Quotes is a startling account of the Iraq War, told entirely in the words of those who conceived, planned, advocated, and executed it. Presented in chronological order in thematic groups against a timeline of key events, this astonishing record of remarks both public and private speaks for itself, chronicling the dramatic unfolding of America's first preventative war.

THAT WAS THEN 

"Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you put in place. How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the U.S. military?" --Dick Cheney, 1991

MIND-SET

"F*** Saddam. We're taking him out." --George W. Bush, to three U.S. senators, March 2002

WMD

"If the president wants to go to war, our job is to find the intelligence to allow him to do so." --Alan Foley, director, CIA Weapons Intelligence, to staff, December 2002

THE PLAN

"There was no guidance for restoring order in Baghdad, creating an interim government, hiring government and essential services employees, and ensuring that the judicial system was operational." --3rd Infantry Division's official after-action review

INSURGENCY

"I really qualify it as militarily insignificant. They are very small. They are very random. They are very ineffective." --Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, June 18, 2003

REALITY

"Does [the Iraq war strategy] make America safer?" --Sen. John Warner

"I don't know, actually." --Gen. David Petraeus, in Senate testimony, September 11, 2007

"Where there is stress, or receding hairlines and liver spots, there is humor." --John McPherson

More than one third of the world's population is officially over the hill, while the rest of us are quickly approaching its summit. 

Be it the ritual hazing of new residents at Spring Meadow Retirement Center that requires retirees to drink 25 shots of prune juice, or the oxymoronic humor involved in the publication of the "1st Annual Swimsuit Edition of Aging Today," octogenarians, centenarians--even those younger and in between--all agree, John McPherson's comic mastery finds humor in life's most everyday act--namely, aging.

McPherson's Close to Home cartoon panel features a zany cast of malpracticing medics, denture-less dentists, and cynical civil servants. Culling more than 100 aging-specific black-and-white and full-color panels, McPherson creates the ultimate ode to getting older.

Ziggy is a "loveable, optimistic, funny-page favorite." --New York Times

* America's beautifully bald and beloved comic everyman inspires millions with his quirky mixture of poor luck surmounted by never-ending hope.

More About Ziggy on Parade

For more than 35 years, Tom Wilson's Ziggy, syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate, has turned lemons into lemonade, rain into rainbows, and seemingly downhill experiences into character-building opportunities brimming with potential.

* Ziggy never forgets to remind us that even though we may find ourselves marching through life without hair, luck, or in Ziggy's case, pants, life's toughest challenges all have the potential for ending in celebration.

* Appearing in more than 600 papers Ziggy's daily exploits continue to mirror our own lives, while helping us positively reflect from within. In the great Parade of Life, Ziggy usually finds himself bringing up the rear . . . right behind the elephants! Yet, Ziggy marches on, showing us that every step of the way, life constantly places surprises in our path that we simply cannot afford to miss!

The most influential cartoonist now working." -The New York Times

Pat Oliphant is an editorial cartoonist who leans fully to the left, but rarely loses his balance, which is important, since he carries a sharp pen." -Senator Bob Dole

More About Leadership

Neither Democrat nor Republican is safe from the influential paintbrush of political commentator and cartoonist Pat Oliphant. A master of what he calls "confrontational art," Oliphant spares no one as he covers Bush's tenure in office-drawing comparisons on the war in Iraq to Vietnam, Kim Jong Il's nuclear antics to a circus act, and President George W. Bush's time in office with the reign of The Little King.

* Oliphant is the most widely syndicated political cartoonist in the world, currently published in more than 500 newspapers and magazines worldwide, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the New Yorker.

The success of For Better or For Worse "can be attributed to Johnston's uncanny ability to see into the heart of daily life so accurately that readers feel she is speaking directly to them." --Chicago Tribune

* For Better or For Worse, syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate, appears in more than 2,000 newspapers in over 20 countries, and is translated into eight languages for a devoted readership of more than 220 million.More About Senior's Discount

Lynn Johnston's For Better or For Worse is the world's most popular family strip in which characters evolve through age and experience, rather than remaining frozen in time. Readers appreciate the daily doings of the Patterson family, which often mirror their own.

* Senior's Discount: A For Better or For Worse Collection follows John and Elly as retirement looms, Grandpa Jim celebrates his 85th birthday and suffers a stroke, Mike and Deanna adjust to the demands of parenthood, Elizabeth accepts a teaching position that brings her back home, and April strains for more and more independence.

* Simultaneous to the publication of this collection, Johnston makes an unprecedented move within the newspaper cartooning community-developing a new format by using former plot lines as a jumping-off point for new ones.

* For Better or For Worse has been syndicated since 1979 and has been named Best Syndicated Comic Strip. The strip boasts a lively Web presence at www.fborfw.com

Where there is stress, there is humor." --John McPherson

* Close to Home, syndicated by Universal uClick, lampoons the best of popular culture one controversy at a time.

Everything I Need to Know I Learned on Jerry Springer: A Close to Home Collection is a Close to Home collection. Creator John McPherson's sardonic wit creates an innocent hullabaloo with the Center for Nursing Advocacy and earns the accolades of Leavenworth Federal Detention Center's inmate #19108045.

* McPherson's mastery is elevating the mundane to the magnificent. Scenes of societal sloth, coworker conundrums, dysfunctional discord, and medical malpractice become achingly funny when sketched by his pen. 

LIO is brilliant! In this post-Calvin and Hobbes and post-Far Side world, this is the brass ring for cool! " --Dallas Morning News

* LI O is a pantomime strip featuring a curious young boy whose daydreams embark from reality destined for the dark chasm where wit and sarcasm collide.

Drawn in the age-old style of pantomime strips, LIO offers a decidedly new and edgy twist to the wordless comic format. That's right, LIO is so crafty it doesn't need word balloons, dialogue boxes, or clever captions. Mark Tatulli's cartoon also employs a unique drawing style influenced by cartooning greats Gahan Wilson, Charles Addams, and 19th-century satirist A. J. Volck.

* In describing his strip, Tatulli explains he was eager "to bring something truly different to the comics pages . . . something to appeal to all ages, drawn in pictures only. To tell a story without text, while updating the pantomime concept with a modern audience in mind."

* The result is a mind-bendingly humorous and astute journey into the darkly detailed world of young LiO--where a spit wad can put a school bus out of commission faster than a spider can hamper the efforts of the U.S. Postal Service.

Amend takes the fears, hopes, dreams, and touching moments of family life and imbues them with unparalleled humanity." -The Onion

More About And When She Opened the Closet, All the Clothes Were Polyester

Bill Amend's FoxTrot, syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate, humorously depicts suburban living through the cavortings of the Fox family. Kids Peter, Paige, and Jason, along with parents Roger and Andy, suffer through the same fads, fixations, and familial land mines that readers know so well.

As the 25th FoxTrot comic collection, And When She Opened the Closet, All the Clothes Were Polyester! features strips published from February 2006 through December 2006-including Amend's very last daily strip. Jason continues to channel his unique brand of geekiness-primarily at Paige's expense-while Peter continues to lord over them both. Parents Roger and Andy try to keep up with their children's antics, usually to no avail.

Author's web site: www.foxtrot.com/

Launched as a military blog (or "milblog") by Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau in October 2006, The Sandbox is an online forum through which service members in Afghanistan and Iraq share their stories with readers here at home. In hundreds of fascinating and compelling posts, soldiers write passionately, eloquently, and movingly of their day-to-day lives, of their mission, and of the drama that unfolds daily around them.

A dog adopts a unit on patrol in Baghdad and guards its flank; a soldier chronicles an epic day of close-call encounters with IEDs; an Afghan translator talks earnestly with his American friend about love and theology; a dad far from home meditates on time and history in the desert night under ancient stars; a Chuck Norris action figure witnesses surreal moments of humor in the cramped cab of a Humvee --Doonesbury.com's The Sandbox: Dispatches from Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan presents a rich outpouring of stories, from the hilarious to the thrilling to the heartbreaking, and helps us understand what so many of our countrymen are going through and the sacrifices they are making on our behalf.

* I really feel like most people look at this war as little more than a television event. How many have ever taken the time to stop and think about what we go through every day over here? The bullets, rockets, and IEDs are not the hard part. The hard part is knowing that life goes on back at home. --FC1 (SW) Anthony McCloskey

* The man looks at me, his jaw working in anger. For a brief second, I get the impression that he is going to attack, and then suddenly, as if the energy has gone out of him, his shoulders slump slightly and he looks down at his brother's body. --1LT Adam Tiffen

* Out here in the desert, Time is King; the minutes are his minions and the months his sabers by which you are knighted. The King controls all that you do, when you come and go, and how long until you see your children. --Capt. Lee Kelley

The New York Daily News proclaims that Lynn Johnston is worthy of the "MVC (Most Valuable Comic) Award. . . . Her genius is recognizing that 'normal' is actually a little off-center.

* For Better or For Worse appears in more than 2,000 newspapers in 23 countries and has a readership of more than 220 million.

Lynn Johnston's award-winning For Better or For Worse comic strip is the world's most popular strip in which characters evolve through age and experience, rather than remaining frozen in time. Fans appreciate that the daily doings of the Patterson family often closely resemble their own.

* Featuring more than 43 weeks of strips, with Sundays in color, this collection features Elizabeth's developing teaching skills working in a northern First Nation's community, Mike and Deanna's move to Mrs. Saltzman's upstairs apartment, April's confrontation of teenage issues like acne and self-image, while John and Elly face middle-age ailments and the possibility of retirement.

* For Better of For Worse has been syndicated since 1979 and has been named Best Syndicated Comic Strip by the National Cartoonists Society. The strip boasts a lively Web presence at www.fborfw.com.

"Insightful and venomously cynical political cartoons . . . Rall straddles stereotypes, avoids party lines like live wires. . . . A true freethinker." --Las Vegas Mercury

There simply isn't a more polarizing, more controversial, or more widely read political and social cartoonist than Ted Rall.

Matt Groening: "Ted Rall makes me laugh out loud." 

Rush Limbaugh: "What is sad is that such an ignoramus ends up as a prominent cartoonist in major newspapers."

Janet Clayton, L.A. Times editorial page editor: "He's wonderfully incisive. He has a way of looking at the world that is rarely articulated in editorial cartoons."

Bernard Goldberg, author of 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America: "There is loathsome and there is beneath loathsome. And then there's Ted Rall."

Love him or hate him, Rall has a unique drawing style and makes caustic social commentary that sets him apart from the pack. America Gone Wild features Rall's most controversial cartoons assembled for the first time in a single collection. Rall views his strips as a vehicle for driving social change. He applies his outrageous sense of humor to volatile topics from 9/11 and the Iraq war to social issues such as unemployment, the environment, and religion. This collection comprises his edgiest material and features lengthy behind-the-scenes commentary from Rall.

This zany strip enters the comic-collection scene with circus-like zeal. All that's missing is a parade of elephants and a clown-car escort.

Gary and Glenn McCoy's delightfully absurd comic panel blends superheroes, office humor, huggable animals, and twisted relationships in a bizarre marriage of Gary Larson, the New Yorker, Conan O'Brien, and Mad Magazine. Put succinctly, the brothers McCoy present "comics for a bold new world." 

Creating a world where greeting cards heal hospital patients, police officers pull over children driving bumper cars, babies use the patch to quell the pacifier habit, and nudists find out what constitutes a streaker in their colony, the St. Louis area natives alternate writing and drawing duties for the daily panel.

The brothers each have been nominated for multiple National Cartoonists Society awards, and Glenn has won in three categories. Gary McCoy's past as a comedian (he won HBO's Stand-Up Stand-Off contest for the St. Louis area in 1995) also shines through in the strip's offbeat humor.

Their impressive freelance client list reads like a who's who in cartooning: Disney, DreamWorks, and Hyperion, to name just a few.