Posting late today, so I’ll keep the production notes brief. This toon took a lot of photo-referencing: in order of appearance, Boss Tweed (based on Thomas Nast’s caricature, of course); Teddy Roosevelt and John D. Rockefeller; Joseph Stiglitz and Dick Cheney (no ref needed for him; he’s old hat for me); Obama (ditto), John Boehner and Michael Steele.

Panel one also required reference for 19th Century Irish-Americans, a real challenge, because most visual information we have of them comes from pretty vicious stereotypes. Think leprechaun, only more violent, apish, and drunk. But I found a decent photo that suggested worker dress styles of the period. I suppose I could have just dug up “Gangs of New York,” but I prefer primary source material if it’s available. I have a lot of empathy for Irish-American immigrants of that period; it’s too bad the political machines exploited racial animosities and labor competition to corral the power base. Good thing we’ve gotten past all that.

Yes, that was low-level irony. Don’t make me use a <sarcasm> tag.

Tags: barack obama, capitalism, health care reform, john boehner, john rockefeller, michael steele, politics, teddy roosevelt

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 27th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under In Contempt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.