The Cincinnati Reds unveiled the new Pete Rose statue at Great American Ball Park, which seems like a good excuse to unveil how I drew the cartoon about the sculpture of Charlie Hustle.
Before I settled on doing a Rose cartoon, I sketched up concepts for other topics. One sketch is something I might use later. The other was about the brouhaha surrounding FC Cincinnati possibly building a new stadium in Newport. I find it ridiculous and hilarious that so many people have a problem crossing the river. Even though I was born and live on the best Ohio side, I married a girl from Northern Kentucky and travel back and forth across the river all the time.
Pete Rose is a complex issue in Cincinnati. Yes, he's the Hit King, but then there's the gambling, the ban and everything else surrounding his legacy. Rose did some great things for baseball and our city, but it will always have that caveat. Generations of kids will look at this new statue and ask, "Who is Pete Rose, and what did he do?" I wanted to sum up Rose's complicated history, get a point across, but also leave it somewhat open-ended with the dad's "Well ..."
Having an idea is just the start of a cartoon. Sometimes I spend hours just trying to write the right words. And sometimes, like with the Rose cartoon, I spend a lot of time working on the composition. The Rose statue is long and horizontal, which doesn't really work well with the squat rectangle that I have to work in. I did between 10-12 thumbnail sketches to work out the composition.
Once I worked out the composition, I started on the final sketch. I start a drawing drawing big, blobby shapes, refining them down until I get a tighter sketch. While drawing the statue, I decided to change Rose's face. The statue's likeness of Rose is heroic, almost serene. But do a Google image search of one of Rose's signature head-first dives, and you'll see that his face is usually scrunched up, his top lip curled, bottom lip out and hair wild. That's what Rose looks like in my mind's eye, and that's how I drew him. So what if it's not exactly how the statue looks. It's a cartoon!
