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Peter Kuper's Rejected Trump Cartoons

By Peggy Roalf   Friday October 7, 2016

In a flurry of emails about climate change and the abysmal tone of the presidential campaign, Peter Kuper sent over some drawings from his archive about the malevolent effect Trump was exercising on Our Fair City--back in 1989! So as you can imagine he's still at it, and when begged, sent over some recent ones as well. In the spirit of Art Beyond Reason, Peter grudgingly agreed to share a few of his Rejected Trump Cartoons. But first:

In 1987 I visited the Berlin Wall and afterwards, sitting in a cafe, I got a crazy idea for a comic. In my story real estate mogul Donald Trump decides to build a wall that separates the East Side of Manhattan from the West Side. In 1990 I got around to drawing it up and titled it "The Wall."

At that time Trump was busy plastering his name on everything and all the pieces of my 11 page story easily fell into place (you can see the whole story in my book Drawn To New York ). --Peter Kuper

Then in 2000, Peter had a chance to strike again, this time in The New York Daily News: -- Peggy Roalf


Here in 2016 I find myself again compelled to draw cartoons related to the man. This time, however, it is with a much greater urgency and the tongue in my cheek has withered.

I've been pitching cartoons ideas to anyone that would have them, though it is hard to find humor that supersedes our absurd, out-of-whack reality.

Following are several cartoons that never made it into print, though just committing them to paper stopped me from biting my nails for whole hours at a time.--Peter Kuper


Peter Kuper is a cartoonist appearing in magazines around the world including Mad and The New Yorker. His recent book Ruins won the 2016 Eisner award for best graphic novel. He teaches at The School of Visual Arts and is a visiting professor at Harvard University. 


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