t’s the opening of the vocal part of the Ninth Symphony, just before the musical rendition of Schiller’s Ode to Joy. In full: “Oh friends, not these sounds! Let us instead strike up more pleasing and more joyful ones!” (“O Freunde, nicht diese Töne! Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere!”)
It is to be remembered that 1962 was the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the trade embargo was imposed against Cuba (that remains in force as of this day in 2023) only a month prior to this strip’s publication. The U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers was exchanged for a Soviet spy also a month before. It was a time of rather messy foreign relations for the US and its allies.
February 8, 1963