Political cartoonist Henry Payne stooped in front of the whiteboard and, with a few quick strokes of his marker, brought a cartoon figure to life.
“As good looking as he is, he’s got big ears,” he said, as elephant-like ears appeared on the board.
Dark, thick eyebrows soon followed with large lips, a prominent nose, and a mole.
“And he has freckles,” Payne said. “The freckles play up the fact he’s inexperienced and young.”
Soon the familiar face was finished, and Barack Obama stared out from the whiteboard. But Payne was not finished.
“I often draw him in an entertainment setting,” he said, adding a microphone. “He is a celebrity as much as he is a politician.”
The Political Cartoons of Henry Payne exhibit opened on Sunday in the Sage Center for the Arts Daughtrey Gallery. The exhibit showcases Payne’s cartoons –– many he drew this year as well as some of his limited edition prints.
Sophomore Julianna Chuslo, a gallery manager, said that the atmosphere of this exhibit is different than in the past.
“Typically people come in and they’re like, ‘That’s pretty,’” she said. “This time you hear laughter.”
Margaret Smith said political cartoons express something different than other pieces in that the message is just as important as the artwork.
“It’s a reversal in that a cartoon is message over execution,” she said. “I think the two are on par [in Payne’s work]. The execution is brilliant.”
Payne said a cartoon should, first and foremost, be funny.
“It’s a powerful visual statement,” he said. “It’s that punch line that should grab you.”
Payne, a syndicated cartoonist, has been in the business for 25 years and now creates cartoons and writes for The Detroit News. Payne’s cartoons appear in around 60 newspapers beyond The Detroit News. He also runs the Michigan View, a conservative, online publication.
Payne creates 12 cartoons a week — six for local news and six for national news, but he says he has never run out of content.
“Fortunately for me,” he said, “Detroit is the most dysfunctional city in America.”
Payne said the majority of his time is not spent actually drawing the cartoons, but watching film and looking at pictures of his characters.
“There’s a lot to body language and how they compose themselves,” he said. “It’s not just a likeness, it’s trying to capture what’s in a person.”
Payne said that in this year’s election cycle, he enjoyed having Newt Gingrich, a caricature he was already familiar drawing.
“He’s a great caricature in so many ways with that scowl and shock of white hair,” he said.
Gingrich and Mitt Romney were a good pair to play off one another in his cartoons, Payne said. But with Gingrich now out of the race, Payne said the combination of Romney and Obama is a bit boring.
Payne said he has also been developing the caricature of Paul Ryan, another difficult task.
“He’s very fit — damn him,” Payne said, laughing.
When Payne joined in the cartoon business, he said there were around 350 political cartoonists around the country, which has shrunk down to around 60.
“I think it might be that politicians have become so hard to draw in the TV age,” he said. “They keep getting better and better looking.”
But Payne said he will keep working on developing Ryan as a caricature, pointing out his lazy, blue eyes and unusual hair.
“There’s a lot to work with there,” he said.
