Cartoon published in The New York Sun; 01/20/05.

In January, 2005, I got word that the editor of The New York Sun wanted a cartoon from me. I’d never created anything in this genre: all of my drawings up to that point were black and white illustrations, pictures that humbly accompanied the writings of some author. In this case, however, I had to think up an idea, a caption, and create a picture in color as well.

At that time, Rice was going through the senate confirmation process that was required for her to become the State Secretary. Some of the senators made the process very uncomfortable, and the outcome was in doubt. The Sun was very much on her side.

The idea of Liza crossing the ice, the famous scene from Uncle Tom’s Cabin floated into my brain. I’d seen this image in old theater posters: it’s part of America’s collective mind. By adapting it to present circumstances, I won recognition for my talents as a cartoonist.

The outlines of the Capitol dome establish the location, as they do in many cartoons. I had drawn the Capitol before, and I had the image on my hard drive, so it was an easy matter to paste it into the composition. I have noticed that Thomas Nast, the 19th Century cartoonist often did something similar. He, too, had an image of the capitol that he pasted into his compositions again and again. But he got the shape wrong, and it is consistently wrong in all his cartoons.