Go Gonzo

The Tantrum

This week, I took so dang long to create my cartoon that I've decided to show you step-by-step what the process is like.First, I drew the President as a little kid throwing a tantrum. This is actually my second try. His face was too fat and the mouth just didn't look. His eyes were open too and frankly, he just looked possessed!
Next, I drew the sandbox. Okay, I'll confess, I pretty much traced some piece of clip art, but I made the shovel bigger and I changed the truck into a tank.
Then, I drew the "Mom & Dad," Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Ried. I started with him first and was a little worried that he looked too much like former Defense Secretary Rumsfield. In the end, they remind me a lot of Grant Wood's Farmer & daughter in "American Gothic." Of course, he always did- he's just too square to represent Las Vegas. As you can see, I had a little trouble with Madam Speaker's hair. For one thing, she has it fixed different in different photos. I also had some trouble finishing her body. She's a very lovely woman, but being in her sixties, I didn't want to overdo her femininity. I think I probably did over do the mascara and the smile, but maybe that will make my Republican readers happy. I had meant to give her a forced grin like June Cleaver when she's really lost her patience with the Beaver, instead it's bordering on clownish. This is when I pretty much decided to put the parents in the foreground, so I could cut off most of their bodies.
I love how this turned out. I wanted to show a child's scream and I knew that neither my pen or any computer font would do it. I thought about a Sharpie marker, but I decided that that would be too smooth. So, I went with a charcoal pencil. PERFECT.
Believe me, this is about as good as MY handwriting gets.
Oops! I can't believe I forgot to just draw a baloon around that. Oops! I hate how I never remember how to spell "b-a-l-l-o-o-n."

All the King's Men

They're all "bad-eggs." Whew! I think this whole process took almost two hours and was pieced together from four drawings. Would you believe my inspiration was Easter Eggs? With all that's going on between the U.S. Attorney firings, the Plame/Wilson leak, Libby trial, the Congressional battles over an Iraq exit deadline, and now the saber rattling with Iran, the Nixon-esque Humpty Dumpty/All the Presiden't Men analoy seemed appropriate.