Created for the Berkeley Barb, a leading voice of the Bay Area underground press, Gas Mask General was intended for circulation as anti–Vietnam War imagery. Parkinson’s dense, agitated line transforms military authority into a grotesque composite of weapons, machinery, protective equipment, and fragmented bodies, collapsing soldier and arsenal into a single dehumanized figure. The handwritten instruction “Reduce 1⁄3” remains visible below the image, preserving the drawing’s original function as material prepared for public reproduction.