As a student of cartoons and caricatures
for most of my life, I have made it a practice
to study and employ certain outstanding
features and traits of my subjects.
Mostly, my intent is to focus on particular
facial and bodily attributes of a the person
I have chosen to illustrate . If the nose is
pronounced, make it larger, should the
ears be oversize, focus on enhancing them
freakishly. Beady eyes and heavy brows,
elaborate those. And so on.
There was one character, however, who
possessed a unique trait which did not
fall into those previously mentioned
criteria. His name, Bob Cox. He was
the executive vice president of King
Radio, a company where I was employed
in the 1970s and early ‘80s.
Mr. Cox was a tall, lanky man who
made it a practice of always having
his hands in his pockets and putting
his rather gargantuan shoes on your
desktop whenever he stopped by to
talk. Rather disrespectful and
disgusting I would propose. Muslims
would have removed his head for
such an offense. Who knows what
kind of filth he had plodded through
during the course of a day? If a desk
wasn’t available then an empty chair,
a container or trash can would do.
The minute he stopped to talk, he’d
plop his size 14 clod hoppers up in
your face on whatever was available.
That, my friends, is how I decided to
portray his image as a unique and
clownish individual. No face or head
revealed for Bob Cox. No sir, just hands
in pocket and those gunboat shoes of
his up in your face. What’s more, and
the beauty of each portrayal, everyone
knew who it was being caricatured.
That’s how Mr. Bob Cox exercised
his stature and power as VP over the
minions at King Radio back in the day.
I’m guessing likely he has since passed
away. Had he become renown as having
done something great or outrageous
for humankind, he may have had a
most unique bronze of himself cast,
posed headless, hands in pockets,
wing-tips propped up revoltingly yet
cartoonishly laughable in your face.
At least he was captured and
preserved immemorially by me
in pen and ink on paper.
-30-
Chris Hanch 10-8-2023
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