A new political cartoon depicting what slain assistant football coach Aaron Feis may have experienced in the wake of losing his life in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School tragedy is going viral on Twitter. Feis was among the 17 people killed in the shooting on February 14 in Parkland, Florida, when former student Nikolas Cruz opened fire.
As reported by the Daily Herald , 46-year-old artist Pia Guerra said she felt helpless when she heard about the tragedy. Therefore, during a sleepless night in her Vancouver home, Pia started to sketch. By 6 a.m. the next morning, she learned about the death of Feis, a coach and security guard who was being hailed as a hero for shielding students from gunfire and saving lives.
As reported by the Independent , Pia intends to create more cartoons in the wake of the tragedy. But it is her viral cartoon that has drawn commentary, with people reporting that the image has made them cry. Ironically, although the rendering appears to paint a scene of heaven, Pia calls herself an atheist.
Pia said an image came to mind, and she made sure to begin sketching the image in her mind’s eye before time would cause the rendering to be diluted. By that afternoon on February 15, Pia had published her editorial cartoon to her Twitter account, as seen below, with the titled “Hero’s Welcome.”
Hero’s Welcome. #guncontrol #Parkland pic.twitter.com/NHto6MO73A
— Pia Guerra (@PiaGuerra) February 15, 2018
Pia’s cartoon shows a little girl reaching for Feis’ hand and telling him that many others wanted to meet him.
“Come on Mister Feis! So many of us want to meet you!”
Notably, the heavenly crowd appears to be filled with children.
Pia responded to the big response the cartoon has garnered on social media, with the artist responding to some of the nearly 50,000 Twitter likes and more than 21,000 comments her artwork has gotten thus far. When some Twitter users criticized Pia for not seemingly including any children of color in the cartoon, Pia wrote that her thought process included thinking of children mainly killed in areas like Parkland or at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, and in communities where violence isn’t supposed to happen.
Football coach Aaron Feis courageously sacrificed his life shielding kids from gunfire. Aaron’s selfless heroism says infinitely more about the character of the American people than the evil acts of a cowardly killer ever will https://t.co/jnxFevhOIM
— Kayleigh McEnany 45 Archived (@PressSec45) February 16, 2018
