I was asked last week by Christine Car and Joe Heroun to do the cover for this week's New Republic- "The Unnecessary Fall of Barack Obama"..."In an atmosphere primed for a populist backlash, he allowed the right wing to define the terms..."
There was already a consensus that the image should evoke the mythological Icarus. My initial mental image of this was not positive...sometimes you have to think about things a bit- the first thing that I thought of was the President in a toga falling out of the sky with wings strapped to his arms- an image that I felt would have an overly negative "tea party" vibe to it. I needed to spend the first of my six days just thinking about this picture how could I do this and keep Obama's dignity- which I see as an essential part of his charachter. I finally realized that his dignity IS his charachter- that he couldn't be wearing a toga or be naked- it had to have an essentially dignified look to the piece. After a phone call, Joe agreed with my premise and I started doing thumbnails.
