How to draw a political cartoon in 38 E-Z steps.

Thought I would give you all a catastrophe break and let you into my studio.

I am often asked, “How do you come up with your cartoon ideas?”

OK, not that often. I don’t get out to the Natomas Rotary as much as I used to. Anyway, here is my day and my process, since you’re here and not the Natomas Rotary. Maybe a few of you are in the Rotary. That’s cool.

Since I am 63.9 years old, and usually go to bed around 9:30, like any sensible boring person, I get up at 5.

Not a typo. 5:00 AM. That means one thing.

Let’s move on.

I turn on my local Public Radio Station, which is called Capitol Public Radio. Capitol Public Radio has gone through some difficult moments, which led to many, many people being fired or resigning and sent to NPR Gitmo.

It’s very pleasant there.

There was some money that wasn’t spent properly, shall we say. I think they bought a studio that could house NASA, and then didn’t use it. It used to be that public radio was kind of a pleasant little college classical radio station where they would play a lot of Elgar and periodically read the news, politely, in whispers. Now it’s a real thing, and has a jillion reporters who have really cool names. Someone was posting a game awhile back about NPR names, and I can’t remember how it goes, but my name is a lousy NPR name. However, if I inverted my name to Ohman Hamiltonjack, that would be a hell of an NPR name.

Anyway, again.

Once I have finished my 34 minutes of ablutions (no one uses the word ablutions except to describe what they do first thing in the morning). No evening ablutions. No midday ablutions. In fact, this would make an excellent NPR segment on Morning Edition.

“Next, we gather that morning ablutions are on the way out, and evening ablutions are the next hot thing. Ohman Hamiltonjack has that report.”

In fact, “Morning Ablutions” would be better than “Morning Edition”.

Wasn’t this about drawing a political cartoon? Yes. Yes, it was, Jim “Floater” Leinfelder (my Minnesota homey friend, a longtime NBC producer, is about the funniest, smartest person I’ve ever met) who observed that NPR uses “gather” a lot. NPR should do a story on why a guy from Minnesota would be nicknamed “Floater”. He says it’s because he was a good basketball player at Highland Park High School in St. Paul, and they said he would float under the basket. I am pretty sure that’s a canard, which is another word that Floater would use, along with epistemological, ontological, and maybe syzygy. In conversation.

Anyway, cartoons.

I tell the Natomas Rotary (and the Roseville Lions, the Beaverton Odd Fellows—there’s a club name that didn’t age well—and the Cedar Mill Grange—yes, there are Granges, still…which is like discovering William McKinley is in Assisted Living in Canton, Ohio) that cartooning isn’t an art job, it’s a writing job.

So I listen to Capitol Public Radio (yes, I am a member, still…it’s like paying for Substack ;-)), read things on my phone to gather news (heh, Floater again), such as Barely The New York Times Anymore, The Washington Post, the AP, The San Francisco Chronicle (subscribe to that, too, but I am cheaper, but I also don’t have great sports coverage, which the Chronicle does).

Like, I’m the dumb one of the Chronicle columnists. Garafoli, Ostler, Killion, King, and, well, everyone else is like Shakespearean actors and I’m an extra in Progressive Insurance commercials.

Funny enough, I guess. For a Progressive Commercial extra.

Anyway, I also read a lot of stuff I can’t remember where it came from. I subscribe to the Times, the Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, the Chronicle (you’d think I’d get a free subscription), and few things I am going to drop. Soon. Oh, I also read eBay, Amazon ( I got a Leatherman the other day—18 tools!), Etsy, a few fly fishing sites, and about a dozen Substacks I give money to. Bob Dunning, who ruthlessly copy edits this, Simon Rosenberg, Jonathan Alter (great guy), Gene Weingarten (just talked to him for the time, and what a talent), and a few others I don’t have time to type out.

I’m on deadline here.

Once I have consumed news for several hours, I am looking for a phrase. Not an idea. Not a sketch.

A phrase.

Let’s see. Today was “Kamalamania VS. Maniac”. This would be my Chronicle Sunday cartoon, which is a bitch.

You heard me, Pete Wevurski, my too-amusing editor who is better at doing these phrases than I am, by far. He used to be Copy Desk Chief at the Chron, which is like being the CIA Director. No one can do shit without him, and, yes, “shit” is CQ, because Substack.

I struggled this morning for quite awhile, knowing that immediately afterwards I would have to bang out my Chronicle column on the Crypto-Currency-Nazi-Make-South-Africa-Great-Again-Trumpster-Fire-Hate-Enabling nimrod.

In about a half hour.

So I called Pete and did my dead-on Woody Allen impression a few times on his voicemail. It’s very good, although my daughter says I can’t do that or anything else anymore.

He called back and I said, “Um, I have Kamalamania and maybe her, in a fantasy world, carefully choosing to be Black.”

“Yeah, no. Do Kamalamania.”

“What we have here is a dead shark. I’ll call later”.

It’s close to noon now, and I really don’t have an idea. I then thought, hey, dumbass, do a debate between Trump and Harris, which I hope happens, but since he shit the bed yesterday, I’d just hit the links until Election Day.

I need to shift back to past tense.

I ran this by Pete, who said he’d pay to watch said debate. So I took that as an approval. I never talk to my top editor, Matt Fleischer, except to complain bitterly about various things. He’s a very nice guy. I think he feels like he’s talking to his dad sometimes, so I try not to scare him too much.

Having sold the Harris debate idea, I then took a piece of Strathmore that I had carefully cut out the exact shape as the cartoon: 8 1/2 X 12”. The Chronicle cartoon is almost invariably a multi panel cartoon with lots of teeny caricatures, microscopic lettering, Easter Eggs (which are comprehensible only to people as whack as I am), and meticulous Photoshopping.

I grabbed my highly technical equipment: a Bic mechanical pencil, and banged out the rough in about fifteen minutes. I had to meet my buddy Dale Kasler for lunch at 1:04 PM, who is a charter member of this here Sub Club. We had a great chat about our former life at The Sacramento Hymenoptera (NDA). We both agree he’s happy in retirement. He’s one of the finest reporters I know, and worked at the Des Moines Register back in the day before it was gutted by Gannett, which is newspaper chain I can shit on publicly.

I had a half hour or so before I had to leave, so I inked up most of the cartoon. I use a cheap number 2 brush and Higgins ink. Many of my remaining colleagues in editorial cartooning ( six people, you’d like them) use tablets now, which is an abomination to God, Allah, Zeus, Odin, and any other idol you got. One guy, my friend Nick Anderson, uses not one, but TWO EFFING WACOM MONITORS. No ink. I don’t even know if he uses a brush (subscribe to him after you subscribe to me).

Upon my return, facing a 4:00ish PM deadline, I had to do all the lettering, finishing the backgrounds (hardly any today), and then erase the drawing’s many pencil lines.

You want to know what I hate the most about cartooning? Erasing pencil lines. Period. No contest. Because I always miss some errant lines in the lettering, so I have to go in with a microscope eraser tool in PS, which is a bitch. Trust me. Nothing slows me down more than that.

Once the finished drawing is done, and since I am a Luddite, I use..wait for it…a Flair pen to do the lettering. Super fancy. Like Daumier, really. Oh, and a Micro Uniball pen for crosshatching, which I barely did today.

Bear in mind while I am drawing this, I am pondering the illustration for my column I have to turn it at five, as it will post at 4:00 AM Friday. I do not wish to keep Lt. Pete Wevurski, USA, (ret.) waiting, as he is downtown in San Francisco after an exhilarating BART trip.

I scan the drawing into my scanner, at 300 dots per inch. I then import it into Photoshop, where I am at a trained dog-level of expertise. I can’t even paste a face onto another body, but I can on my iPhone. I’ll post the JD Vance one I did the other day. It took maybe five minutes. But not into Photoshop.

.Yes, this is very amusing! (self-congratulations because of childhood approval issues)

I then commence to do the color, after spending most of the time cleaning out the pencil lines in the tiny letters.

I don’t have a hell of a lot of time, so I don’t have the luxury of really hitting the caricatures too hard today, although I did add a nice splash of orange on former President Racist Dope’s face.

I mailed this cartoon in at 4:10, about when I told Pete it would be in, more or less. Not bad. He’s cool.

I then made a coffee, hit the head, and came back and very quickly executed my illustration, which is about Elon Musk and the very talented Kentucky cartoonist Marc Murphy (subscribe to him, if you’re wealthy—he’s also a fucking law professor, so there’s that. Also, he’s a genius and a great guy. The column will post tomorrow and I’ll be able to post for you on Sunday morning)

.Note hair plugs. Nice touch.

Please bear in mind I have drawn about 14,000 political cartoons, most of which are in a secure, undisclosed location: my garage.

If you’d like several pounds of cartoons, please contact me at Substack.

Ok, kids. That’s how you do cartoons. I do eight per week. I think tomorrow is a light day: one. It’ll be on the San Francisco Zoo.

Off to bed.

After all, it’s 6:28.