Cartoonist KAL Creating a 'George W. Bush Digital Puppet'

By: E&P Staff Editorial cartoonist Kevin "KAL" Kallaugher is now artist-in-residence at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County's (UMBC) Imaging Research Center, where he's working on a "George W. Bush digital puppet."

The appointment was mentioned as part of an interview UMBC's Retriever Weekly did with KAL, who reluctantly accepted a buyout from The Sun of Baltimore late last fall after he heard that the newspaper was thinking of eliminating the cartoonist slot to save money.

KAL left The Sun in January, and has not been replaced. The creator, who continues to contribute to The Economist, is affiliated with the Cartoonists & Writers Syndicate/New York Times Syndicate.

In the Retriever Weekly interview, KAL told staff writer Kate Nunley: "I had always been fascinated by the prospect of getting back into animation. I contacted the people here, knowing that UMBC has a state-of-the-art animation studio at the Imaging Research Center.

"We've decided to set up a project to build a three-dimensional bust of George W. Bush. We're going to carve it out of foam and clay. It's going to be scanned and digitalized. The idea is then to animate it. This George W. Bush digital puppet can actually talk to you. It'll be like a political cartoon coming alive in the computer."

Tomorrow evening at UMBC, KAL is slated to give a talk titled "Editorial Cartoons Move into the 21st Century."