The primary wars are in full flame, so I decided to post a few of my recent political cartoons which bring the focus back on the real enemy. Most of these haven't yet been published here at DailyKos.
I strongly suspect that in the next several days we will see the beginning of the end of Rudy Giuliani's political career, so here's my eulogy in the form of a few recent toons that found him at the tip of my gnawed and gnarled number-two pencil. Ding dong, the day is nigh when we can say good riddance and drive the final stake through the heart of this lisping Nesferatu.
I knew this one would be somewhat controversial for various reasons when I drew it a month or two ago. As far as the now-famous Sinclair Lewis quote, and deciding exactly which of the wingnut contenders best fits the bill, surely some would argue that Huckabee would corner the creepy religious component, and this is exactly what Ron Paul alludes to in reaction to Huckabee's "floating cross" Christmas commercial, but I still suggest that Rudy has got to be the hands-on favorite for the potential happening-hereness of that which cannot happen here. It was secularist Giuliani, after all, who got Pat Robertson's endorsement. And I can say from my own years living in NY that if there's any psycho who's even more predisposed to dictatorial rule than the Idiot-King, it's the guy who tried to use 9-11 as an excuse to extend his mayorship past his term.
As far as impending complaints about the possible racial overtones, I'll let you take it up with Jimmy Breslin, who described Giuliani as "a small man in search of a balcony". (Not that this would absolve me of any possible insensitivity; simply noting that I'm not the only one who drew a connection between two autocrats who made the trains run on time in their respective regions and eras.)
And as for the broader point of the legitimacy of drawing a comparison between Giuliani's evident lust for authoritarianism and Mussolini's Fascism, let me say that one of the purposes of a political cartoon is moreso to pose a question than to provide a definitive answer. The whole point of literally caricaturing a public figure is to hyperbolize a trait or condition. Yes, of course it's over the top, but it opens up a discussion. I also contend that there's no better way to frame an issue than to render it 1) as a visual, which accesses a part of the human brain where words get caught in filters; imagery/iconography bypasses these cognitive layers and topedoes its raw message into the consciousness of the viewer, and 2) humor, which is very difficult for opponents to defend against.
I won't say much more about it, other than to mention something about the artistic element here, for what it's worth. Mussolini's original explanation for his particular brand of despotism is rooted in the Roman fasces, which is a distinct historical symbol showing a bundle of sticks, or rods, bound around an axe. Here, I made it a bit more organic, to imply that the living spectre of Mussolini coalescing in Rudy's "mirror mirror" is sort of slowly gathering the sticks of history, ....perhaps swirling itself to life from the traumatized collective psyche of those who are ruled by fear and hatred of otherness. Here Giuliani is much more savvy and polished than the crass old-world Benito and his brutish bundle of sticks, but nonetheless ready to exploit and modernize the same ugly impulse.
Some of you may have seen this one before; I think I'v posted it at least once or twice at Dkos during the debate season. Here Rudy and Mittens and Maverick Magoo try to out-Reagan each other.
For the background, I used the actual sky from the original photo of the soldiers raising the flag at Iwo Jima which this image satirizes. I love experimenting with combining good old-fashioned pencil drawings with photographs; it can be jarring if you don't get the balance right, but there's something visually invigorating about mixing the media.
This next one is not a political cartoon, but it's a weirdly semi-relevant piece that I dug up:
This was the cover of a hand-drawn playbill that I did several years ago, back when Rudy was still Mayor of NYC, and before the attacks of September 11th.
The play was an incredibly scathing off-Broadway show written and produced by my sister. It had a budget of exactly zero dollars, (hence why I was recruited to do the art-work), but was really brilliant and very very New York. Since the play was about Superheroes, I of course drew the playbill to look like a comic book.
It's impossible to go into the whole New York-centric storyline (you can sort of get a hint of it just from the poster here), but suffice to say, if you look in the lower left section of the poster, there's ol' Rudy, spoofed here as Mayor Ruliani. It was a real howl, because the actor they cast to play the part looked hauntingly like Giuliani.
This was from so long ago that I'd forgotten all about it. Long before I'd ever had the barest thought of doing political cartoons, I had indeed already done a little caricature of Ghouliani. I was surprized to actually manage to dig up a copy of it (I believe I'd also done a much more intense color version of it, which I suppose is now lost to time unfortunately).
The play had a very limited run, which was too bad; obviously I'm biased, because I think my sister's a genius, but the production played on so many different levels and was very ahead of its time, and was just frackin' hilarious. For good measure, I'll plug the film she's currently producing, which very cleverly combines the renaissance of Burlesque with the sublime poetry of a guy named Bill Shakespeare.
The thing that had jogged my memory about the playbill was that I was recently experimenting with doing political cartoons that were made to look like posters for theatrical productions. I was thinking about how everything in government is like kabuki theatre, so I invented this imaginary venue called "The Beltway Theatre" where the latest drama would be spun for the unwashed masses.
I've only done two of them so far, both alluding to classic existentialist dramas (the surreality of which just seems to fit painfully well in this era of Bush and the Neocon agenda).
Anyway, here they are:
That's all I've got on Giuliani. My own little bloggy nails in the coffin. But since we're starting a new year, hey, indulge me in a couple more images to close the book on 2007.
This is one of the pieces that I was working on for a series called An American Christmas Carol. I just couldn't finish it in time, which is a bummer, because the concepts were a lot of fun, but now it's moot.
Basically, Dubya is visited by the Ghost of Impeachments Past, in the form of Dick Nixon, who is bound not in chains a la Jacob Marley, but in miles of incriminating Watergate tapes.
The Ghost of Christmas Past arrives in the guise of a very snarky Tom Jefferson, showing Dubya what kind of risks the Founding Fathers took to write a little thing called the Constitution, and condemns Dubya to "a place way down below which is very very hot", which Dubya assumes to be Paraguy.
The Ghost of Christmas Present is an American soldier recently killed in the sands of Iraq.
The Ghost of Christmas Future is represented as the iconic Abu Ghraib hooded detainee. Among other horrors, he leads Dubya to the tombstone of his failed legacy.
Last but not least, here's a shitload of penguins.
A few of these in this series were featured on the Front Page, but I don't recall which ones (they're all the same concept, which I'm happily beating into the ground.... Heh....). I don't think either of these two have yet been posted at DailyKos.
Happy New Year, America.