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.
