The blog of Richard Thompson, caricaturist, creator of "Cul de Sac," and winner of the 2011 Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

Showing posts with label it's magic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label it's magic. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Rubber Room


Here's an illustration I did for this week's New Yorker. The story's about the Rubber Rooms that the New York school department uses to stash teachers with various complaints against them, where they can stay for months or years, even till retirement. Some of the complaints lodged against them can be fairly mundane, usually involving negligence, but a few were pretty lurid. Like one who was falling down drunk in the classroom.

So this was the first rough I did, which was rejected as being too extreme. Understandably, as it's a little extreme, you know?


Here's the final from the second sketch. I cleaned it up some and photoshopped out some clutter on the desk, The size changed on the page, so they cropped it on top, mimicking the watercolor edge and lowering the word "today". Et voila, an illustration is born. Or made.