OBAMA CARICATURED

When at the HuffingtonPost, Diane Tucker talked to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s editooner Mike Luckovich about Obama, she began by asking him whether it was easy or difficult to draw a caricature of “No Drama Obama.”

“At this point it's hard because for eight years we've had George W. Bush, a president who doesn't like dissension, who's sort of arrogant, and who feels God is talking through him,” Luckovich said. “Obama seems like a completely different personality. That's good news for the country, but for cartoonists it's going to be tough not having Bush around.”

When she wondered about the size of Bush’s ears, Luckovich said: “I don't draw Bush as a human being any more. He's become a cartoon character who also has a beak-like nose and circles for feet — just  two simple black circles. I draw Bush smaller and smaller as his incompetence grows larger and larger. And as long as Obama does well, he'll maintain his current height in cartoons. But this brings up another problem. Obama moves in such a smooth way — he's so physically comfortable with himself — that it's difficult to lampoon the guy. Bush always looked awkward and phony to me. I often drew Bush with his arms out, like he's going for his guns at high noon.

"Whether you agree with a president or not,” he continued, “the longer they're out there, the more likely it is you'll have a cynical view of them. I'm worried about Obama, though, because the more I see him, the more I like him. For me, that's scary.”

If Obama becomes unpopular, Luckovich said he’d make his ears bigger and more rounded, “like the ears on a Mickey Mouse hat. I'd make his neck really skinny, so he has a lot of shirt collar left over to fill, and I'd furrow his eyebrows to make him look bewildered. Finally, I'd deepen the nasolabial folds on his face, so it looks like he's aging rapidly.”

But if Obama “comes up with a great economic stimulus package and everyone gets back to work, I promise to draw him with black hair even though his real hair is turning gray.”