Donald Trump was a walking political cartoon. Here’s my approach to the Joe Biden era

One of the questions I am often asked is, “Are you going to miss drawing President Trump?”

The answer is no. Not in the least. The reason? He was too easy to draw. In fact, editorial cartoonists during the Trump presidency were more like police sketch artists, taking Trump’s punchlines and rendering them accordingly. In the words of Truman Capote, dissing Jack Kerouac: “That’s not writing, that’s typing.”

The great editorial cartoonist Mike Peters once noted that every editorial cartoonist was great during Watergate, our previous national spasm with an ethically-challenged president. Faced with a new Oval Office denizen who is — gasp! — normal, where does that leave me with President Joe Biden?

Just fine, thanks. I have been following Biden since he was elected to the United States Senate since 1972, when I was 12. I’m 60 now. I still have the issue of Life Magazine that featured Biden, a still-29-year-old who needed to turn 30 to be sworn in as a senator.

Biden rocked the big sideburns fashionable at the time, and he even drew the attention of President Richard M. Nixon. On a Watergate-era tape, Nixon called Biden a “damn good young candidate.”

Six decades later, he’s still a comer.

In fact, Nixon was at the peak moment of national popularity the day Biden was elected to the senate. He carried 49 states and, as a result, felt no need to challenge the result. It’s easy to do that with 520 Electoral Votes.

I’ve been drawing Biden, off and on, for about 33 years. When he launched his first presidential campaign in 1987, he was soon engulfed in a plagiarism scandal. Biden had used lines from a speech by British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock in a debate. The ensuing scandal destroyed his promising campaign. I drew a number of cartoons about it at the time.

How will Biden stack up as a cartoon subject now that former President Who Shall Not Be Mentioned has left the building? With his bland, grandfatherly, non-dramatic appearance, Biden is a stick-figure drawing compared to his lushly and architecturally-coiffured Hieronymus Boschian predecessor.

I’ll roll with it.

I like democracy, after all.

Biden’s main foible is still his light propensity toward overly glib, sometimes antiquarian responses, which come out at Mach 2, then dribble off into a 15 miles per hour zone with the right-turn signal perpetually flashing.

“Folks.”

“God bless him.”

“C’mon man.”

“Number one, look.”

“Listen, here’s the deal…”

I’m sure that he will do that once in awhile, and I will work with it.

Of course, Biden does have his signature expressions: the lopsided 200-watt grin extending up to his forehead comes immediately to mind.

With a nod to Mike Peters, I will tell you that greatness in editorial cartooning isn’t merely coloring in Trump tweets (goodbye to all that). Greatness in editorial cartooning is drawing the cartoon about Federal Reserve monetary policy. There are other calamities with which I will amuse-bouche myself.

Gov. Gavin Newsom watchers and French Laundry patrons, please take note.

Trump’s departure means one major thing for a cartoonist like me: I have to work for a living.

Watch this space for exciting Federal Reserve cartoons. We’re going to Make Cartooning A Real Job Again.

This story was originally published January 22, 2021 at 5:00 AM.