[W]hen Ted Rall wanted to see Bernie Sanders get animated, he could have tuned in to one of the Vermont presidential candidate’s arm-waving stump speeches. Instead, the nationally syndicated political cartoonist grabbed a pen and paper and began drawing.
“In America today, what we are seeing is the disappearance of the great middle class,” Rall wrote in a quote balloon floating above an illustration of the self-described democratic socialist looking like a cousin of “The Simpsons.”
“Who is this man?” the cartoonist continued on another sheet. “Where did he come from? Why was he uniquely situated to address people’s anger over income inequality, while the rest of the political establishment remained clueless?”
Some 200 pages later, Rall bound everything together in “Bernie,” a new Seven Stories Press paperback that, for all its comic look, is a serious if not sectarian biography of the pioneering politician.
“This book is a response to criticism that cartoonists get a lot: ‘You guys are so negative — all you do is complain, complain, complain,’” says the two-time Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist.
At first, the usually alternative-leaning Rall didn’t see any other option.
“I’ve never seen a positive political cartoon that was ever any good,” the onetime Village Voice contributor says. “A friend of mine says there’s a name for that — a greeting card.”
Then, turning 50, Rall discovered his “first bona fide political hero,” U.S. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
“I thought he really did the right thing,” the artist and activist says.
Rall researched and illustrated a 224-page paperback “graphic biography” with the one-word title “Snowden” for distribution by Penguin Random House.
“When you sell some books, your publisher says, ‘Can we have another one just like that?’”
Enter Sanders, who was just joining the presidential race a year ago.
“I thought, ‘Here’s a guy who’s trying to effect positive change from within the system.’”
Sanders, however, was polling so poorly, one Washington Post headline summed him up simply as “Unlikely Contender.”
“When I wrote this book, we didn’t know how he was going to do,” Rall says. “This was definitely going to be a Hail Mary pass.”
Sanders is notorious for declining interviews that stress personality over policy. But he agreed to speak with the cartoonist for a rare one-on-one.
“He was very open, but I had all my ducks in a row,” the artist says. “I came knowing everything written about him — I just asked him about the holes. He doesn’t like to talk about his past. He thinks it’s a distraction from the issues. And he’s kind of right. The biographical stuff is kind of irrelevant.”
Then again, Rall can draw connections between Sanders’ growing up in a struggling working-class family and his ongoing commitment to economic equality.
“Bernie Sanders has been the same guy politically for the last half century,” the cartoonist says. “What’s changed is the country and the Democratic Party.”
The book outlines that shift, rewinding back to 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern losing to Republican Richard Nixon and showing how the party moved closer to the center in subsequent decades before the dawn of the 2011 Occupy movement.
Next comes Sanders, whose life story is illustrated from birth to his current campaign.
“Bernie’s a reset,” the cartoonist says. “He’s representing an impulse that has been dormant for 50, 60 years.”
Rall, deemed “the most controversial cartoonist in America” by Cartoon.com and “Most Annoying Liberal” by Right Wing News, isn’t for everyone. He faced a firestorm of criticism, for example, when he pictured a widow of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks saying, “Fortunately the $3.2 million I collected from the Red Cross keeps me warm at night.”
But the artist’s latest book debuted on the New York Times best-seller list and is among the top 20 nonfiction graphic titles on Amazon.com. That has led his publisher to announce a third biography: “Trump,” a 128-page paperback set for release July 19.
Unlike its predecessors, don’t look for the book to place its subject on a pedestal.
“President Trump,” Rall says, “will be much harder for me to draw in exile in France.”
