Fail To The Chief

Another Cup of WTF!

“If you’re really successful at bullshitting, it means that you’re not hanging around enough people smarter than you.” - Neil deGrasse Tyson

My apologies for being a bit late in posting about this cartoon from last week. I’d like to blame Antifa or some horrible person with a box cutter, but the responsibility falls directly on me. Anyhoo, I hope that all of you had a wonderful 4th of July weekend. My wife and I spent most of our Saturday in preparation to host a cookout for 2 other couples at our house. To describe our gathering in the words of the President, it was “packed.”

Trump’s hijacking of the United State’s 250th birthday was just another failure that he pathetically attempted to spin as a success. Even Fox News and a few of his political toadies bent the knee and the truth in order to shine a positive light on the Great American State Fair, but we all could see with our own eyes that attendance was scant.

I love this country, but I found this years 250th birthday disappointing in comparison to our 200th birthday. I was 17 years old and a senior in high school when the Bicentennial took place in 1976. I remember it as a huge series of events that celebrated our nation for more than a year. Beyond the tall ships sailing into New York and the pageantry of celebrations that took place in Washington DC and beyond, my favorite thing was a series of 912 spots broadcast on CBS beginning on July 4th, 1974. They were called the Bicentennial Minutes. Each evening we were treated to a celebrity informing all of us to what major event(s) had taken place on that same day 200 years earlier. These highlighted moments were key to understanding the happenings and people that would help shape the birth of our country. The Bicentennial Minutes were a wonderful way to educate Americans and honor America at the same time. They were extremely popular until the last one aired at the end of 1976. You can still find them on Youtube if you wish.

Sketches & sketchy stuff…

Mocking the attendance numbers at Trump’s Great American state Fair was pretty much low hanging fruit and there were a number of ways to approach it. The difficulty with the topic is that there has already been so many memes about it on social media and I always want to make sure that my approach is different.

I ended up landing on the idea of playing around with Trump’s 45-47 Presidency numbers as estimated attendance numbers. I did a number of sketches with those digits on a hat to be sold at the fair, but I just kept getting stuck in regards to the composition of the panel. I then pivoted to a different idea utilizing the numbers on a giant Great American State Fair billboard to represent the attendance figures rather than Trump’s 45 and 47 terms. To me this seemed like the better approach and all I needed to do was contrast the large sign with 2 smaller and random people to provide the commentary. I also added some patriotic bunting and a few flags to help convey a festive appearance of a fair.

I’m pretty sure that the giant hat idea would have worked if I had explored it a little further, but there are moments when you just go with your gut and move forward in another direction. I used to tell my art students that this isn’t math where 2 + 2 = 4. In the world of art 2 + 2 = porkchop or bulldozer or kangaroo or tape measure. The answers are endless.

Final drawing…

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