Tickets are now on sale for “The Art of Satire” on October 7 at Philadelphia’s fabulous Kimmel Art Center.

Sponsored by The Economist, the show features sketch comedy, interactive animation, live drawing lessons and more. Tickets are moving fast so I suggest that your reservations soon. 

Go to http://artofsatire.economist.com/ for more information.

I am posting some samples of my sketches from my 2 week stint at the Democratic and Republican conventions. Of the 10 conventions I have covered over the years these events were among the most interesting. There were good plot lines, interesting locations and a very close race.  The weeks ahead should supply ample material for the political satirist.

Above is an entry from the Republican convention below is a set of sketches from the Democratic convention.

I will be contributing sketches to The Economist’s website during the next two week’s Democratic and Republican conventions. You can view daily slide shows HERE.  

I drew this cartoon for The Economist. This prompted a call from the BBC to discuss the symbol of the Russian bear. Symbols like the Bear, Eagle, dragon (see post below), Uncle Sam, Lady liberty etc. have long been used by cartoonists as a kind of visual shorthand. 

The bear had been a staple of for cartoonists during the Cold War. I explained to the BBC I hadn’t used the bear symbol for a time.  It was interesting for me to return to the familiar old friend. More interesting was how using only the smallest of hints (a shadow with round ears and a black hairy claw) it is not difficult to conclude that the old bear symbol is back.

I found some earlier bear cartoons which I include here.

When the Soviet Union broke apart, it was first called the Commonwealth of Independant States.  The cartoon below reflects the news of that time.

Here’s this week’s Economist cartoon. My recent trip to China was very much on my mind as I spent the day constructing and drawing this commentary.  You can find below some of the rough sketches that went into the development of the cartoon. The first are incoherent but eventually I found my way.

I drew the above cartoon for this week’s issue of The Economist to accompany the magazine’s weekly column dedicated to American issues titled “Lexington”. The subject is long-time Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens who has gotten himself into a little legal mess with allegations of financial/ethical wrongdoing.

Stevens has a great face for drawing. His age (84 years) has helped accentuate his sallow cheeks and scowling brow. You can see below some of my early sketches of the embattled Senator.

I am just back from a fascinating trip to Hong Kong and central China. I had been invited to the region to be a juror at an international festival dedicated to Asian comics and animation.  

My visit was a professional and personal revelation. The backdrop for the experience was the city of Guiyang, the capital of China’s poorest province Guizhou. Located in the beautiful foothills of south central China this city of two million was wonderful example of the dynamic tensions that are confronting this important nation.

Guiyang is an appealing city rarely visited by western tourists (which accounted for the curious looks we received from residents) and is a city on the move.  It sports up-market western style shops (even a Walmart, which doesn’t exactly qualify as up-market). New demolition and construction is evident as the urban city center becomes quickly and determinedly modernized.

Within the monied downtown there are still pockets of poverty. From our hotel room you could eyeball small shanty homes complete with outdoor gardens and chickens built on the roofs of nearby apartment buildings. As you descend from the city to the countryside you immediately travel back several decades to a rural economy where water buffalo and wiry agricultural workers toil in the fields. It is a region of deep and growing contrasts.

The animation and comics festival (AYACC) was lavish affair located in modern hotel and civic building near the town center (which was graced with a giant statue of Mao). The hosts offered great hospitality punctuated by many banquets with copious toasts featuring the local liquor Moutai. In its second year, the AAYAC was established to nurture the young Chinese comics and animation industry as it tries to move into the 21st century.

China has only recently established an animation industry to create an Asian partner and rival to Hollywood. As more and more expensive TV and film animation is outsourced overseas to lower priced labor markets, China is poised to become a major factory for the world’s animation studios. Some accounts suggest Chinese colleges are training over 100,000 animation students for the challenge. In time, the Chinese want to move beyond being laborers in the animation factories and instead create original content for their growing domestic market and the world.

In order to make that leap The Chinese will need to learn from the best practitioners in the world today. Hence, the establishment of the AYACC.

The animation festival assembled an impressive array of guests to interact with members of the Chinese animation industry, students and important animation leaders from across Asia.

The Awards ceremony was a televised Oscar style event which featured local traditional entertainment as well as a “We are the World” grand finale.

I was  joined on the festival’s jury by a celebrated group of artists from around China and the globe. There were two sets of jurors for the festival, one dedicated to judging comic art and a second assigned to animated films. I was assigned to the comics panel which included among others, celebrated French caricaturist Patrick Ricord and Temple University professor and expert on Asian comic art and animation John Lent. The animation panel had first class collection of international film stalwarts whose titles included Lord of the Rings, King Kong and the Incredible Hulk.  

In addition to the cartoon competitions, there was also a series of lectures presented by invited guests. I was asked to be the opening speaker on the first day of the festival to discuss and display my adventures in 3-D political animation. This, I thought would be a rather curious scenario. As a political satirist, my job is to openly criticize the leaders of my country… a alien notion in China.

I was delighted to find that my animation was extremely well received. In addition to showing my political animation I gave the audience a lesson in the benefits of motion capture technology (see film HERE). The viewers clearly enjoyed the use of topical political figures in 3-D animation and the new technology. I am pleased to say that lecture prompted invitations to animation festivals in South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia. 

I saw, observed and digested a great deal on this visit to China. It is impossible to describe it all. But one thing that I can share, China is a massively complex and rapidly evolving megalith.  I, like many, had little understanding of its enormous potential and pending challenges. Now that I have had the opportunity to visit China I have a greater appreciation of the nation’s critical influence upon our future.

The Economist and Second City partnered again for another successful stage event in San Francisco on June 25. “The Art of Satire” received a rapturous response from the sold out crowd at the Yerba Buena Arts center. The show, which is touring to several US cities later in 2008, is an exciting mixture of sketch comedy, satiric video, interviews and “Stand-up Cartooning”.

The newest addition to the show was a unique collaboration between myself and Bay Area motion Capture company PhaseSpace. I had the good fortune to have worked with PhaseSpace in the Spring on an earlier animation “Debate 2008“. We conspired at the time to produce a cutting edge presentation to feature in the “Art of Satire” show in June.

Our plan was to employ PhaseSpace’s Realtime Motion Capture system to bring alive my animated versions of Barack Obama and John McCain. We understood this would be technological challenge and an entertainment treat.

First I created a script that would both show off PhaseSpace’s technology and my digital puppets. The theme was a “Dancing with The Stars” parody. We announced to the audience at The Yerba Buena Center that the two candidates had agreed to have a live special debate that evening.  The format was to be a “Dance-off” where the audience would suggest dance styles and the candidates would have to compete for the audiences’ favor with some slick moves. The audience was then to be introduced the contestants who were fully animated real-time animated caricatures of Obama and McCain. The audience would then pick a winner who was awarded electoral votes as a prize.

On PhaseSpaces’ part, they erected a 16×20x8 framework out of aluminum poles backstage. They added 20 digital cameras for capturing data. They teamed up with Digital Steamworks (my great crew from Baltimore) to add further facial animation enhancements.

Finally there was the actor. I was to act the role of both Obama and McCain. I was to wear a leotard festooned with PhaseSpace’s lit digital markers. I would be wearing a wireless microphone filtered through voice recognition software to create mouth movements for my digital characters. Simultaneously, a puppeteer from Digital Steamworks, Martin DeRiso, would be manipulating the facial expressions of Obama and McCain while I moved and talked. We had programmed a selection of camera angles to toggle through for added interest.

This new, innovative experiment was an enormous hit. First, technically everything went off without a hitch. PhaseSpaces’ professional team of Kan, Ketrina and Milton were completely prepared for all eventualities. Even with minimum rehearsal time the routine was a technical success.

My John McCain character made his world premier with howls of approval from the audience. However, despite his best Fred Astaire steps, McCain was out-Boogied in the audiences’ opinion by Barack’s disco moves. The finishing touch to the piece was when I was called out onstage to take a bow in my leotard with lights attached. Quite a sight.

PhaseSpace’s real-time Mocap system worked amazingly in a demanding environment. I was whirling around the 16×20 virtual dance floor doing ballet, the moonwalk, even the Macarena. All my movements were captured without a problem. I can highly recommend them for their quality goods and professional manner.

You can see here some shots taken of me backstage during the performance by the gifted photogragher Maggie Hallahan. If more images of the performance appear I will share them with you. Stay tuned for more news on “”Art of Satire” shows with cutting edge animation slated for 2008-2009. 

During the cold war there was this joke about two cartoonists, a Russian and American. The American says:

“ In the USA we have the freedom to express our opinions. So in my cartoons, I am free to criticize my president whenever I want”.

The Russian cartoonist responds:

“ In Russia, we have the very same freedom.  In my cartoons I am free to criticize your president whenever I want”.

Funny but sadly true. Political cartoonists in much of the world today work with serious constraints. Drawing their head of state is a definite No-No. If they dare to use their cartoons as tools for domestic commentary they risk dangerous consequences. These cartoonists are the foot-soldiers in the battle for freedom of expression in their countries.

You would expect to find suppression of free thinkers like cartoonists in authoritarian regimes. But there are many new emerging democracies that are also struggling with issues of freedom of expression.

Many of these young democracies are former soviet era protectorates. After decades of Communist single party rule they have no tradition of robust, healthy and open political debate. These nation’s powerbrokers are skeptical and distrustful of criticism. These new countries struggle to embrace political dissent in the media and cartoons.

Azerbaijan is one of these countries.

Azerbaijan is a small secular Islamic nation of enormous potential. It is blessed with a literate population, a strategic location and an important resource: oil.

It is also a democracy… of sorts

In 2005, a highly irregular Presidential election placed Ilham Aliyev in office (others would say on the throne). He succeeded his recently deceased father and the “father” of modern Azerbaijan Gadar Aliyev.

In his short time in office he has consolidated his power and has shown iron- fisted “Putin-esque” tendencies when dealing with public criticism. Some suggest he is planning to be “re-elected” indefinitely until his 12-year-old son will be ready for succession.

It is into this political environment I ventured during a recent visit to Azerbaijan. I was there on the invitation of the US embassy to hold an exhibition of my cartoons and meet with diplomats, journalists, artists, filmmakers and citizens. Our discussions would center on political cartooning and its valuable role of free expression in western democracies.

Bringing a political cartoonist to Azerbaijan was a smart and effective initiative for the US Embassy. My exhibition was chock full of hard hitting cartoons targeting US Presidents of both parties. These were your typical fare for American audiences familiar with the long tradition of political satire and lampoonery in western media.  To the Azerbaijani audience, the exhibition was a revelation.

National television and press gave ample coverage to my exhibition and my visit. The consistent question posed to me was “ Do I ever get in trouble for portraying my leader in such negative light?” 

To their surprise my answer was no. I would tell the audience that not every one of my readers agreed with nor enjoyed the cartoons. I often received criticism from readers and political supporters of my targets. I told my questioners that my role as a cartoonist was not to make people laugh but to make them think. My cartoons are mini commentaries whose goal is to provoke discussion, not hostility.

There was plenty of discussion and laughter. Cartoons are great tools for engaging, entertaining, and addressing serious issues.

I have to commend the US Embassy in Baku.  My visit, my exhibition of cartoons, and my meeting with citizens created the perfect opportunity to partake in a conversation on the western tradition of freedom of expression in a vibrant democracy.

I have always thought you can judge the maturity of a democracy by the amount of satire it can endure. Azerbaijan is a young democracy. There is still hope that it can mature into a secure and representative nation. However, it will only be welcomed into the community of modern nations when it can tolerantly endure an environment of open debate.

An environment where no one fears to draw their head of state.

My visit to Azerbaijan has been an intriguing whirlwind of meetings, gatherings and car rides (with requisite traffic jams). Among the many surprises on this visit was my invitation to the Baku Institute of Fine arts. This is one of the preeminent art colleges in the region with over 1000 students from Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Turkey, and other central Asian nations studying undergraduate and post graduate degrees in graphic art, architecture, sculpture and fashion (among other subjects).

When I arrived at the Institute, I received the welcome of a diplomat. I was immediately whisked into a special oversized classroom. There I was escorted to the center of a long table at the front of the room occupied by an elite cadre faculty members and famous Azerbaijani artists. I was instructed to join them and sit in the center of the table. I was then informed that I was now an honorary member of the Institute’s jury for the graduating artists in Fashion design.

Spot the American above.

The event was an amazing spectacle. First, I had the best seat in the house. Impossibly tall and languid (as well as self conscience) models trapsed down the side aisle of the packed room to booming techno music.

The models would then walk the length of the judges table like it was a catwalk. On their return trip they would stop in front of me, swivel (with an attitude) and make eye contact with me. They were posing for me under the assumption I was the head of the jury. They then continued their stroll. It seemed at times like their show was being put on for my benefit!

What was most fascinating was the fashion statements by the students. The themes chosen were interesting fusions of old and new, east and west. They drew upon ancient images like the castle wall surrounding Baku’s old city and new progressive themes like “Emancipation of Woman”.

More importantly, The show gave a interesting insight to the emerging nation of Azerbaijan. This is a progressive liberal muslim country that feels comfortable with women exploring the extremes of fashion. It takes pride from its past yet embraces the present, is rooted in the culture of the east yet embraces the west. It was a privilege to witness such progress up close.

Fortunately, I was not asked to help grade the students work. I did get a tour of the school and had an opportunity to meet and talk with some students and faculty. I only wished I had dressed better.

My next entry will discuss the opening of an exhibition of my cartoons in Baku and teaching Azerbajainis how to draw George Bush.