Four years ago I was fiddling with a little op-ed cartoon idea inspired by something I had read over the weekend. It was right after the Trump/Raffensperger phone call came to light. My memory of details is hazy but — as is shown in the text of the animation — the story reported that the Trump team had tried calling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger 18 times in the effort to pressure him to rig the election in Trump’s favor. But good ol’ Raffy sensed there was fuckery afoot and he wasn’t answering the call. At least he made them wait, eh?
It was scandalous, of course, but also kind of cute and funny in the seemingly unserious cacophony of unhinged nonsense flowing from MAGA back then. I was tickled by the image it conjured and so was inspired to make this cartoon. "La la la. Do you hear a ringing? Is that the phone? Jeepers, it stopped ringing just as I was about to pick up. Too busy to answer. La la la."
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| Cartoon animation of Brad Raffensperger not answering the phone. |
I had been experimenting with simple animation, so i put together the wiggly drawing above, just for larks. I had the flimsy notion of showing it to an editor at work— we weren’t doing any editorial cartoons or animations but there had been discussions about developing a project along those lines. Maybe I’d show it as a proof-of -concept, or simply as a reminder that I had been paying attention to what we had talked about.
I finalized the gif before work and wasn’t happy with it. I was not inclined to show it but hadn’t completely decided against it. Then I logged in for work — January 6, 2021, y’know? — and saw the newsfeed; MAGA was attacking the Capitol. Total shitshow.
Suddenly a small joke about Raffensperger avoiding answering the phone wasn’t cute or charming. Or relevant. So I put my cartoon in the rear-view mirror and moved on. I saw the gif yesterday morning while rummaging through an old external drive and, considering the timing, I thought I’d set it free.
Hang in there fellow Americans. Another shitshow incoming.
