"When it comes to the war in Iraq, the time for promises and assurances, for waiting and patience, is over." - President Obama
"This is a time for reflection, not retribution." - President Obama
Had some trouble with this one - the idea isn't meshing well with the artwork, or vice-versa; not sure if the concept is clear enough, or if I've gone and mixed too many metaphors again.
The premise is President Obama as the Cheshire cat on the topic of prosecuting (or even investigating) the torture antics of the Bush administration. Late last night after surfing around reading news-sites and blogs, I finally reached the breaking point with the whole "no use dwelling on the past/time to look forward to the future" apologetics infecting our government. It's symbolic of the wishy-washy spinelessness of Democrats, who will inevitably wind up capitulating and giving the bastards a free pass on everything from the war on down. Even if - miracle or miracles - something does come out of all this, holding the proverbial feet to the fire is part of an editorial cartoonist's job. Yeah, guess this means the honeymoon's officially over with me now.
Also threw in the leopard caricature, as in "a leopard cannot change its spots," as in politicians never change. I do like the logo doubling as spots, they were a pain to do but worth the hassle, unlike the cartoon itself. I abandoned probably half a dozen compositional sketches trying to wrangle this cartoon into a format that the newspaper could use, seems it works best with the two panels stacked vertically. Ideally you'd want to stick to a fairly horizontal design to fit better on the opinions page (thus making it more palatable to an editor), but in this case that'd mean reducing the overall size of the image to the point it'd become aesthetically hard to read. Plus I bailed on experimental backgrounds, opting to just keep it clean and simple.
The caption probably needs some more work too, minor tweaking - I wanted the familiar refrain "Change You Can Believe In" but with a more threatening edge to it. Variations were "Change You Can't Believe In," "Change You Shouldn't Believe In," "No Change," "Keep the Change" etc. So Obama's mantra is doubly ironic given what I strongly suspect will be business as usual, and progressives are being played for suckers. Sad, especially seeing as how his election was to a very large degree predicated on cleaning up this fucked-up mess, and troop levels along with money for more war has gone up, and there is no end in sight. Suckers...
This is the kind of job security that I get no satisfaction from whatsoever, and I'm pissed as hell about it.
More Rolaids & Megadeth.
"And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved...." - George W. Bush
"I call on all governments to join with the United States in prosecuting all acts of torture." - George W Bush
"This is a time for reflection, not retribution." - President Obama
Had some trouble with this one - the idea isn't meshing well with the artwork, or vice-versa; not sure if the concept is clear enough, or if I've gone and mixed too many metaphors again.
The premise is President Obama as the Cheshire cat on the topic of prosecuting (or even investigating) the torture antics of the Bush administration. Late last night after surfing around reading news-sites and blogs, I finally reached the breaking point with the whole "no use dwelling on the past/time to look forward to the future" apologetics infecting our government. It's symbolic of the wishy-washy spinelessness of Democrats, who will inevitably wind up capitulating and giving the bastards a free pass on everything from the war on down. Even if - miracle or miracles - something does come out of all this, holding the proverbial feet to the fire is part of an editorial cartoonist's job. Yeah, guess this means the honeymoon's officially over with me now.
Also threw in the leopard caricature, as in "a leopard cannot change its spots," as in politicians never change. I do like the logo doubling as spots, they were a pain to do but worth the hassle, unlike the cartoon itself. I abandoned probably half a dozen compositional sketches trying to wrangle this cartoon into a format that the newspaper could use, seems it works best with the two panels stacked vertically. Ideally you'd want to stick to a fairly horizontal design to fit better on the opinions page (thus making it more palatable to an editor), but in this case that'd mean reducing the overall size of the image to the point it'd become aesthetically hard to read. Plus I bailed on experimental backgrounds, opting to just keep it clean and simple.
The caption probably needs some more work too, minor tweaking - I wanted the familiar refrain "Change You Can Believe In" but with a more threatening edge to it. Variations were "Change You Can't Believe In," "Change You Shouldn't Believe In," "No Change," "Keep the Change" etc. So Obama's mantra is doubly ironic given what I strongly suspect will be business as usual, and progressives are being played for suckers. Sad, especially seeing as how his election was to a very large degree predicated on cleaning up this fucked-up mess, and troop levels along with money for more war has gone up, and there is no end in sight. Suckers...
This is the kind of job security that I get no satisfaction from whatsoever, and I'm pissed as hell about it.
More Rolaids & Megadeth.
"And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved...." - George W. Bush
"I call on all governments to join with the United States in prosecuting all acts of torture." - George W Bush
No comments:
Post a Comment