Big Bill Clinton occupies the White House, Dolly the sheep gets cloned and in sports a guy named Mickey Mantle is wowing 'em as the Senators take the pennant (OK, I don't know sports). It's 1997 and a young cartoonist is about to embark on a stage in his career that will have far-reaching repercussions. Here, for only the second time in living memory, are two pages from the June 8 Style section of the
Washington Post for 1997 that introduced an as-yet unnamed feature to an uncaring readership. And so,the very first Richard's Poor Almanac took up most of page C-1 --
then jumped a few feet inside, where the cartoon proper was hidden. This was something of a trial run for the cartoonist, whose only injunction from his then-editor, Gene Weingarten, was to make him laugh. ("And no penises!")
The rest is history, though there remains one mystery: the original drawings disappeared, only to be found in a trashcan on the Post's fifth floor
with the imprint of a sneaker clearly visible . Rescued from the trashcan, the art now decorates Gene's basement office.
