Your President's Day Special Unnecessary Spot Illustrations of the Day

Richard Nixon was the cartoonists' president, so here are ten drawings of him. Most of these are roughs I did for a New Yorker story that ran the year he died.

 He had so many caricaturable parts and tics and postures that any president since has been a let down, almost. The arms in the air victory pose is a good place to start, so here are several of them.

 This was a rough for a children's history book and it illustrated an ingenious rhyme by Carol Diggory Shields.

 Okay, so it gets repetitive, but I like the hands.

 Another NYer rough, this one with a Marley's Ghost angle.

 This one also for the NYer, showing him older and more pensive.

 The rough below is the one the NYer chose, and this is the rough sketch for the rough sketch.

 The final looked almost exactly like this, though I trimmed the nose down some and tilted the drawing to the right (note the horizon line). My favorite of the roughs I sent in for this story is the first one in this post, with his hands clasped.

 Here's a rough for another NYer story, dealing with the reactions of various Republican politicians to Nixon's passing and his legacy. Pete Wilson and Bob Dole choke up at the end of a Nixon movie.

A color piece for US News & World Report. I forget the exact point of the story it illustrated, but the pot full of tapes provides a clue.