Saturday, January 09, 2010

Is Joe Lieberman...The Devil???

Here's a fun one I just drew for the New Haven Advocate. Editor John Stoehr phoned me during the week between Christmas and New Year's to ask if I could draw a cover illo featuring Connecticut's Senator Joe Lieberman. I was happy to oblige, since I've already drawn Lieberman a bunch of times over the years, and I'm typically much more relaxed sketching a craggy politician than I am struggling with likenesses of pretty television actors, (the AMC show "Mad Men" comes to mind for some reason).

The cover story would explain how Lieberman's efforts to stall the Senate Health Care bill weren't quite as self-serving as they'd seemed. This initially struck me as a tricky subject to communicate clearly in an illo. However, when John told me that the headline would be "The Devil In The Details," I was immediately struck with this "diabolical reflection in the mirror" concept, (or perhaps I should say "re-struck," since this mirror gimmick is as old as dirt). I threw together a quick sketch, which the New Haven Advocate folks rapidly approved, and I got cracking on the final art.

Once upon a time, I maintained a four drawer file cabinet stuffed with reference photos I'd clipped from countless magazines. Now, after nearly fifteen years of continuous internet use, my swipe file is entirely digital, and I turn reflexively to Google and Yahoo for an image search at the start of every job. While tooling around the web for fresh Lieberman photos, I noticed more than a few side-by-side comparisons of Connecticut's Senator with another Senator, Star Wars' arch villain Palpatine, (who was, as far as I'm concerned, the only interesting element in the last four Star Wars movies). As I perused various JPEGs of Lieberman juxtaposed with actor Ian McDiarmid, I thought, "nah, they don't look that much alike." In spite of that thought, after a few hours spent scratching away with my leaky rapidographs under a hot lamp, I started to get a little fuzzy on whose likeness I'd just drawn.

At any rate, while I haven't yet had a chance to read the New Haven Advocate's cover story, I suspect it fails to make the case that Lieberman is either a Devil or a hooded, latex-caked Sith Lord.

7 comments:

  1. This is great! I know how fun it is to draw Lieberman. I also really liked the Mad Men illos. Your sketches look better than most peoples final products.

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  2. Nice one-great job.!
    Double the Lieberman for our money-our cup runneth over.
    BTW, I'm not sure if I have your current address but I shot an email to the website one...

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  3. Great Job on the Liebermans :)

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  4. I discovered your blog through Jed Alexander...Great work!!! :)

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  5. I agree... great sketch book. This Lieberman one is hilarious !!!

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  6. Dude! Your kind of a god. Your illustrations are the best thing about a free weekly here in NYC which shall be nameless. Simply, boldly rendered, spot-on work that straddles the void between caricature and straight-up illustration + full of subversive energy and deep understanding of the alterna-pop culture canon. I want to write a book just so you can do those illustrations the Onion wouldn't let you do for their Inventory book. You're an inspiration to us all on how you can become a success without ever compromising your warped vision!

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  7. Awesome illo , nicely done.

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