Justified Paranoia (Dan O’Neill Cartoon & Variants, early 1970s)

Hugh: If you have the feeling that people or things are out to get you and no one really is out to get you, the chances are you are paranoid.

Fred: What if you have the feeling people are out to get you and they really are out to get you?

Hugh: The chances are you’re black.

This episode of Dan O’Neill’s Odd Bodkins comic strip, likely originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle sometime in the late 1960s, was reprinted a few times in underground newspapers. It also occasionally appeared redrawn and altered, with the justly paranoid victim being referred to as a G.I. or Marine. It would not surprise me to discover the strip in a feminist paper of that era, with “a woman” replacing “black.”

Reconnaissance (Forbes AFB, Topeka, KS), vol. 1, no. 4, n.d. (1972?), p. 2; Rising Up Angry (Chicago), vol. 4, no. 8, Dec. 10-31, 1972, p. 4. 

Semper Fi (Marine Corps Air Station, Iwakuni, Japan), vol. 3, no. 17, 15 Sep. 1972, p. 10.