Cartoonist: How I created Tea Party Comics

A. Globe Opinion Editor Marjorie Pritchard and I were talking about the idea of doing a full page for the paper. I had a number of ideas, but since this was going to be a full page, I wanted to do something different than just one big comic. I had parodied the comics page before in my college newspaper, and once in the early 1990s for the (now defunct) Twin Cities Reader in Minneapolis. The Tea Party is so ripe for satire that suddenly these two ideas came together. I think the first idea that came to mind was "Peanuts" - so perfectly able to morph into "Teanuts." Instead of Charlie Brown, President Brown, since so many Tea Partiers fixate on Obama's skin color. And I just thought of the very first "Peanuts" cartoon - this is the only one on the page that is a direct parody of a specific strip.

The difference between doing this kind of parody now compared to back then is that it is so much easier to find reference images for the strips I wanted to parody. Back then I had to go through piles of old newspapers or look through books at the library ... Google Image Search has revolutionized all that. Drawing parodies of the various styles of comics was one of the most fun aspects of creating this piece. Because these strips have recurring images and themes ("B.C." and the dictionary, "Mark Trail" with the obligatory animal panel, etc.) they have become iconic. Yet they are at their essence a fairly simple collection of lines and colors - the challenge of getting that right was really fun to do.

Q. Our readers love the 'Family Circus' takeoff. What is your favorite
among the strips you parodied? Was there a brilliant reject, an idea or an execution too harsh or lurid for a family paper?

A. I am thrilled that ALL my ideas for this project were approved and I managed to fit them all on the page! So there are no outtakes, nothing that didn't make the cut. There are other comics that I considered but decided against parodying. Comics like "Fox Trot" or "Sally Forth" or "Baby Blues" are well known but to me they didn't jump to mind with much parody connection to the Tea Party the way, say, Garfield and his laziness did. Perhaps the biggest one I ended up not parodying was "Doonesbury." That was on the top of my list initially, but once the list got long, I realized it might be difficult to tie in here. For one thing, I already had a parody of "the Boondocks," and that seemed to fill the quota for parodies of cartoons that are political and left-leaning. Another complicating factor is that "Doonesbury" has changed a lot in that it has a lot of focus on military and veterans issues - a serious topic that didn't seem to fit the kind of broad satire I was attempting.

You asked earlier about my favorite strips. "Family Circus" is my favorite cartoon ... to lampoon. There are so many repeating devices in that strip - the cute-kidspeak, the dead grandparents watching over the family, "Not Me," etc. Its surreal wholesomeness just begs to be satirized. I created a rock poster for the band Gas Huffer in the early '90s with a parody of Billy.

I think my favorite parody here is the "Family Circus" parody because the fearful hysteria embodied by Tea Partiers seems a natural fit coming from the mouths of irrational little children.

Q. Have any cartoonists reached out?

A. I've gotten a lot of great feedback from fellow cartoonists and other friends, but have not heard from any of the cartoonists of the strips I am parodying - yet, anyway. I do know a good number of cartoonists but have not met any of these from the daily comics page.

Q. What's the best response you've gotten so far?

A. OK, I think the best response so far was being sent a message of "resounding praise" from the "Usual Gang of Idiots" at MAD magazine!