The ol' switcheroo

Hello!

Here’s a new cartoon!

By now you’ve likely heard the story of how Trump ducked inside a catering truck to switch aircraft during his recent Mideast trip.

When I first heard about it, lots of ideas came to mind: I could show his frustration that the catering truck wasn’t McDonald’s...or maybe he goes into the undercover truck with his wispy combover and comes out with a new wig...or...

Nothing was quite landing for me. And I knew I needed to do more than just make a joke. And then, this idea began to take shape...first inspired by a word. I saw “switcheroo”* used in a headline and bells went off!

I mean, how often does one get to use “switcheroo” in a cartoon? Not sure I’ve ever used it, actually. It’s such a great word. I got to thinking about what major thing recently has he pulled over on us? I mean, there have been multiple things where’s he’s pulled a switcheroo...but this one was related to his recent trip and planes and...the war, of course. And another broken promise.

You get the idea!

And after I got the idea, came the next challenge: the drawing. Half of drawing cartoons involves problem solving the layout and overall design. The difficulty here was that I would have to draw two large aircraft. Not an easy task to fit into one rectangle. I mean, it’s easy enough to draw two airplanes in a single panel but relatively speaking, I would have to make both planes small enough to fit inside. And so then what happens is that you not only lose detail of each plane but you have to make the catering truck much smaller, too. Which makes the whole cartoon hard to read.

So. How do I not only make those planes look really big and also put the focus on that catering truck, and even more so, infer that Trump’s inside?

That’s when I decided to caricature both planes and cut off their noses, so to speak. So I’m inferring both planes. It’s just enough to show you the planes and to still allow enough space for the truck to be front and center. The catering truck with that necktie is the visual joke, so to speak. I mean, “Forever War” is the real point here, of course, but the truck and tie are the joke. I guess in that way it’s sort of a twofer.**

This is probably getting into the weeds, but those are just some of the things I have to work out when drawing a cartoon.

Thank you for your sustaining support of my human-made creativity, journalism, and satire.

—Jeff

*Did you know that “switcheroo” is in Merriam-Webster? I didn’t realize until now that it’s a real word.

**So is “twofer.” Wild

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