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Editorial Cartooning, Then and Now
And how drawing Trump is not that easy
Ever since the election of Donald Trump, I am asked, “What is it like to draw Trump?” It seems people think that for cartoonists, drawing the current president is like being a kid in a candy store, that somehow it’s fun and easy. Over the past seven months, I have been wrestling with how to draw the new president. In a world where everyone has an opinion, how can you make a statement that has impact? Is one’s own opinion that important? And how have cartoons helped in bringing truth to power? Have they at all?
Political cartoons have been a part of my visual world for as long as I can remember. From the greats of my youth — Herbert Block, Garry Trudeau and others — my nascent passion for cartooning was shaped during a tumultuous time in our country’s history. I grew up in Washington, D.C. during the Watergate years, the civil rights era, and the women’s movement. I was drawing as a young girl, trying to understand what was going on around me; as a painfully shy child, I also drew to communicate. We are living through a similar time, and now, as a professional editorial cartoonist, I find I am still drawing to understand.
After Trump was elected, I looked around to see how my colleagues were responding to the new reality. I asked my friend and colleague Ann Telnaes, president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and a cartoonist for the Washington Post, what her feelings are about it. I could see that her drawings are as opinionated as ever. Here’s how Telnaes sees the role of editorial cartoonists today:
“The job of an editorial cartoonist is to expose the hypocrisies and abuses of power by the politicians and powerful institutions in society. I think our role has become even more urgent with the new political reality in 2017. Political dog whistles have become red meat to be tossed out regularly by politicians without the slightest attempt to conceal racism or sexism. Except for journalists and cartoonists, there’s no one keeping a check on conflicts of interest or unethical behavior in government.
