The Nuclear Option

Today, you get a rare glimpse into the process behind the cartoons here at the DCN. You see, yesterday afternoon, I was inspired to craft a panel full of parody about our president and his recent comments about how big and powerful his nuclear button was. So, for a couple hours, I worked the panel from a blank white rectangle, into a sketch, inked over the lines, added shading and tone and even applied a black and white filter so you were sure to get the full experience in print. That yielded the frame you see below.

I was pretty satisfied with the overall, selfie-vibe it gave off. Originally, the button was going to read "PANIC." But that didn't seem to fit too well. So, toward the end of the process, I changed it to read "MELTDOWN," which came with a more emotional characteristic attached to it. The trouble was, my mind didn't stop there. It was filled with visions of a meltdown button literally attached to Trump (since his tweet doesn't actually specify his button is on his desk). Or perhaps I could draw a giant Kim Jong Un pushing a tiny Trump's buttons. Or perhaps I could draw a fictitious stuffed animal of a Trump with over-hyped packaging like "Nuclear button now bigger and more powerful! It really works! Just try him!" The trouble was I only had a couple hours left in the day and I wanted to get the cartoon down to our sister paper in Spencer, since the panel would be more relevant the sooner it got to print. That meant I ultimately didn't do a color version of my second idea (save for the bit of color left in the tweet-bubble itself, which I found gave it a little bit of a cheeky quality). So this version was the result. Both use the same words from the president, and yet they say different things in a way. It was difficult to choose between them. Luckily, there's plenty of room for both here.