Wrapped in Old Newspaper-Editorial Cartoons Part 2

Bossa Nassau Baby. Copyright 2001 Newsday. Used with permission

This decade-old piece, on the subject of the somewhat historic (locally, anyway) election of Democrat Thomas Suozzi to the office of the Nassau County Executive, was my second editorial cartoon for Newsday  a daily, rather than a free weekly newspaper. It was commissioned by editor (and Elvis fan) Valerie Kellogg, some of whose articles I had illustrated when she had written for the Voice. I came up with the title and the faux-movie soundtrack motif, but the majority of the parody song titles are hers. (I've been told that there was at least one inquiry from a reader who wanted to purchase the nonexistent album.)

It was also the first instance of my using a computer to letter a cartoon, and it shows! (The kerning! THE KERNING!)  Since I didn't have a scanner or even know how to use Photoshop back then, I printed the computer-generated text and graphic elements onto a piece of paper on which I drew the figures in colored pencil. It's a long way from there to the all-digital New Yorker entries I posted a few weeks back.