As a kid I used to love to look at my dad's subscriptions to Time magazine, not because I understood the news or politics, but because they used to feature a caricature of some famous person every month in one of the columns. I used to cut them out and collect them, and so caricatures have always interested me. Also as a big baseball card collector as a kid, I grew very fond of cards of all types over the years. This was a huge plus for me after I converted and discovered that Catholics had so many prayer cards! :) So I decided to stray away from my typical illustrations and start doing caricatures of leading Catholics, or at least people who are positively (in my view I guess?) impacting the culture in some way in the form of cards. Here are the first several I have done... my favorite priest Fr. George Rutler, Dennis Miller who was born Catholic yet fallen away, hopefully he will convert back as he seems to be seeking God in some way these days, my 'first pope' as a Catholic, Pope Benedict (I did not intend for the Pope to look angry, although my wife informs me he is does :) Maybe I will need to take a second go around at him in the future), the Archbishop of Atlanta Wilton D. Gregory, atheist debater and Catholic Dinesh D'Souza, and public defender of the Catholic faith (from time to time on his show) and a great defender of children's rights Bill O'Reilly. Enjoy!
3 comments:
I agree with your wife! Pope Benedict has been falsely labled by anti=catholics (before being confirmed by the Holy Spirit as Pope) as 'God's Rottweller' because he sought to Promote and protect the Catholic truths.
I suggest you redo his caricature to not play into that sort of thing. I laude your desire to caricature individuals as it is a fine art form in my opinion- but to show, in one drawing, a suggestion of kniving, or anger or any negative trait in a reigning pope-especially one who is so saddened by the priestly abuse of children ( listen up, secular pundits!) is not a good 'road to hoe'. Because the world so hates Christ, we Catholic artists need to step forward with our talent for image portrayal and support His Church. Yes, we are all sinners, every one-even the Pope- but be very careful of not feeding the public with yet more reason to be Anti-Catholic. I know this was not your intention, but consider -why did you make him scowling like that? The term German Shepherd is a loaded gun for anti-Catholics. These opinions are my own and not of this fine Guild. As I said above, the art of caricature is a fine art skill- one which I shall never be able to acquire. I hope you post more of your work and I look forward to laughing, crying, and 'ahh-ing' at the possibilites of your idea- to caricature Religious personalities.
Your Friend in Christ- John Howley- a humble member of this guild
On the subject of Pope Benedict, this was just too good not to share:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b12aglwd8QY
J.R. thank you for your feedback, and I definitely appreciate your concerns about the Pope, as i share them myself. I can assure you that I did not attempt to draw him with an angry expression, but used several photos for reference in which he has a tendency to look scowling when he smiles. After I showed these to my wife, she agreed, although there may be some middle-ground there where i can take it back some and still not lose his expressions. As far as 'German Shepherd', I thought this was a great expression of both his German nationality, and the fact that he is the Shepherd of the Church, and from what I have seen and read very strong about standing up for the truth. Thank you very much for the response though J.R., I will take those things to heart.
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