Election Day

I did this art for the alumni magazine at the University of Minnesota, art directed by Kristi Anderson. This is how it works. Patient, civil, public-spirited, honest, fair. Vote like your life depends on it because it does.

How Not To Cut

I woke up Monday morning to an assignment from the NYTimes. One of those neat little drawings that draw the reader's eye to the letters on the editorial page. Maybe this is why they are called drawings.

The subject was the one on everyone's mind: the draconian sequester cuts––it's unusual when two of the three words describing the issue of the day are words nobody uses much and most people couldn't define for you. We have half the country enthused (to the point where they should maybe go lie down) about cutting federal spending. What's interesting is the people most rabid about cutting are the ones whose lives and whose districts would be most negatively affected. Here's where we enter the realm of unintended consequences. ("Honestly, doctor, I didn't realize I shouldn't cut that branch closer to the trunk than the point where I was sitting on it.") It's the Red Districts that receive most of the federal dollars and they also, conveniently, pay less in taxes than they receive. There is a Snopesian cleverness about this which I almost admire. But it is hard to squeeze all of these thoughts into a drawing the size of your thumb. So, as always happens, I resorted to metaphor. And there is actually a thumb in the metaphor, although it isn't the thumb which the budget cutter is about to sever.

Point is, we don't always think about deeds and consequences. Sometimes wars cost money. Sometimes poisoning the air winds up poisoning the people who breathe it. Sometimes cutting federal spending during a severe economic downturn ends up cutting the only spending that's happening. At which point the economy begins to lose any semblance of a pulse.

Republicans and rich people like to give advice to the poor about thrift, but only poor people know thrift.  They are experts at it. The Republican gasbags (there are Dem gasbags too) like to preach the morality of spending cuts "to save our children". They preach austerity while driving large cars and owning twelve homes. Forcing austerity measures on an economy during a recession is like starving your children to protect their inheritance. Which sounds stupid, but to rich people it's actually smart, because after the children of the poor starve, their money carefully unspent will remain in banks where the rich can go on playing with it. I enjoy drawing pictures describing damnfoolishness like this.

(I would like to thank Ben Shahn and Ludwig Bemelmans and a few others who taught me how to draw hands and papercutters.)

Political Geography-The Road to 2012

I did this illustration for Northwestern University to help them promote a panel discussion about the election. The event was titled "The Road to 2012". They'd seen the POETRY magazine cover I posted on my website and liked that look. I changed the houses from familiar suburban ramblers and moderns into 21st century mansionettes shaped like red and blue states (choosing states with recognizable outlines––there are a lot of rectangles.) In the final version we added signs with the electoral college count for each, but I like the basic version, which is more conceptual and interesting for being less concrete. Raul Torres art directed.

My Debut in the New Republic

I did this double portrait of Bono for the New Republic that's on the newsstands now. I did about a dozen illustrations in all for the Lists Issue. Bono is on their list of "pseuds". Not having spoken with Bono recently, I can't say whether he's any phonier than other rock musicians who have political opinions. He does have nice eyewear though.

Here's another, this one depicting the overcoverage issue. Too much media attention about the usual non-topics. I've been an admirer of the design and the writing at the New Republic. The design is by the estimable Joe Heroun.

Little Drawing, Big Topic

I did some art yesterday for the New York Times op-ed page. The topic, while not as important as the sexual foolishness of a congressman, is pretty important: congressional gridlock, two political parties unable to compromise. Not a sexy issue. Given such a small space the key is to convey the essence in as few lines as possible, so I drew two angry men face to face. I drew them several ways.



















































To underline the nature of the confrontation I thought of overlaying the word NO in a gray tone.



















































I liked the look, but wondered whether it added nuance or unhelpful complexity. Did it distract? The point of this small illustration in the letters column isn't to make readers stop and make sense of it but to make them read the adjacent letters. We left the word NO out.

The word NO also conveyed a false equivalency. It implied that both parties were saying NO with equal force, which I don't think is true. One of the two parties has shown a greater flexibility over the past decade. Yes, they are both angry, but I think the one party (the one on the left) is angry because it's tired of always giving in.

I'm saying this very carefully because the illustrator's job isn't to shape the meaning but to convey it, which is also the job of journalists. I think False Equivalency is a big problem. If there are two sides to an argument a journalist is supposed to impart both of them in a fair manner. This sometimes puts the writer in the uncomfortable position of treating foolishness and intelligence the same, or fairness and bigotry, or greed and generosity. If you equate moderation and extremism equally and without any negative weight on one side, after a while the more extreme position is rewarded and encouraged.

Is it a cop-out for an artist to go only as far as the text goes and no further? Or is that his job? A lot of thought and worry goes into a small drawing.

Mission Accomplished

I drew this cartoon eight years ago and sent it off to Bob Mankoff at my favorite magazine. Actually, I realize it was almost eight years ago today that I drew it. It was never published. America was immune to ironies at the time. I don't feel celebratory today either. It's all too somber. It's no time for hubris or cheers or feeling satisfied. We and the world deserve better. Luckily we have more serious leadership now.

Toy Pistols

On the 30th anniversary of the attempted assassination (and subsequent deification) of Ronald Reagan, it seemed fitting to put up some handgun art. It's also the anniversary of the terrible injuring of Reagan's press secretary James Brady. Brady never recovered, never got his job back, and then lost many of his friends when he and his wife began an organization opposing gun violence. He was demonized by some of the same people who deified his former boss. Irony is lost on some people. I did this drawing for a group that opposes handgun violence, but it was never used. And I see why. The guns I drew are simply too interesting, too fun, too iconic. They are like toys or playfully phallic little machines, perfectly sized to carry in one's pocket. I grew up playing with toy guns, so maybe some of this old fascination endures like a tattoo you forget you have, but I outgrew my boyhood gun fetish. It's fun to draw them and watch movies about them but I don't own one. They seem like relics of an interesting former age.

The Puzzle of Egypt

I did this illustration for a feature article in the Atlantic, probably something by P. J. O'Rourke, whose pieces called for an ironic edge. Despite everything, Egypt is still there, still sweeping its problems under the pyramid, so to speak. Rioting erupted this week, in reaction to events in nearby Tunisia, and the riot police were called out. The Nile and the adjacent desert appear to be unaffected.

The Politics of Tea

I wrote a little bit about the original Boston Tea Party in my book. Those hooligans were as ragtag as the current ones. They too were worked up about politics outside their control; then it was about overseas trade more than taxes to fund social programs. (There were no social programs then.) Today's tea partiers have legitimate fears, fears that many of us share. It's the way those fears are being channeled that should worry us. Also in my book is the story about John Adams, a young lawyer, who in the aftermath of the Boston Massacre, undertook the legal defense of the British soldiers charged with murder. Today he would be hung in effigy. Our early democracy was more complex and open-minded than many of today's so-called "patriots" would like to believe.

Deciderer, Part II

I did this drawing in the messy, expensive aftermath of Bush's "victory" in Iraq. It's jarring to make a comical drawing of someone who created so much harm and crisis.

Bush Jr. Returns

Junior is back on TV this week, touting a new book about how he grappled with decisionmaking. One can almost picture it. Anyway, I thought it might be worth trotting out this diagram I painted for the New Yorker. This is as accurate a picture of the Bush White House's decidering process as I've seen. Flow charts are a very useful form. A map of a thought process or a criminal transaction or, in this case, a muddled philosophy.

Tea Party Politics

This is one of three sketches I did for a New York Times editorial page assignment. The topic was the Tea Party. They went with the simpler one of the hand holding a ballot, but I liked this one best. I probably should have included a few dollar signs in the voice balloon, since the Tea Party was organized and funded by two secretive New York oil billionaires.

Portrait of a Crowd

People in an elevator? It looks like that. Actually it's a thumbnail from a drawing I did depicting America's suspicion of otherness. Our suspicion of immigrants and other ethnicities and other religions. When it comes right down to it, we are not very tolerant here, despite being a nation made up of others and immigrants, a nation founded by free thinkers, founded to welcome other religions. Divide and conquer is an ugly strategy, except it works very well. Especially when there is money behind it.

Underfoot

There are things a drawing can convey better than a photograph can. It's hard to photograph a feeling or an idea, an abstract relationship, a sense of oppression or liberation. Sure you can show the look on an individual face, and that's real, but even that is open to interpretation, relying on context or subtext for its meaning. A drawing can express something without explaining it. You nod your head without even knowing it.