On the Record about Off the Record, DC's cartoon bar

by Mike Rhode

7/15: updates to the original post marked with *  - 4 pieces from KAL, and one sheet of photos so far.

 KAL's newsletter post about his coaster artwork inspired me to finally finish this. 

Supreme Court justices for the circular corner booth, courtesy of Ann Telnaes

A few months ago, Matt Wuerker created this guide to who was who in the 1990s caricatures by Edmund Valtman and Ron Coddington on the wall (note 1) in the bar in the Hay-Adams Hotel. He was able to identify everybody but one. To learn more about them, you can read “On The Record With Off The Record's Cartoonists,” White House History (48; Winter 2018): 60-71 at https://issuu.com/whhapubl/docs/whha_journal_48 

  

the unknown caricature

There are other cartoons and caricatures on the walls, but Matt was concerned with identifying these.  

Now, an attempt to list all of the coasters they've produced. 

Kim Jong-un by Matt and Angela Merkel by Kal

 Here's an almost certainly incomplete list of caricatures, with who drew them, and the year when known. I had a short list of ones I didn't own, but I think I've lost that. There were more foreigner leaders iirc, and perhaps a Pope.

Mitch McConnell by KAL and Putin by Matt

*Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC)	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'	2025
Angela Merkel	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'	2017
Ben Carson	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'	2015
Boris Johnson	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'	2022
Carly Fiorina	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'	2015
Donald Trump	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'	2015
*Elizabeth Warren	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'	2015
Gavin Newsom	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'	2023
George W. Bush with Barack Obama	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'
Joe Biden	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'
*John Kerry	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'	2015
*Kristi Noem	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'	2025
Mike Pence	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'	2015
Mitch McConnell	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'	2014
Paul Ryan	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'	2015
*Pete Buttigieg	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'	2025
Robert Mueller	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'	2018
Ted Cruz with Canadian Club whiskey	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'
Ted Cruz with tea	Kallaugher, Kevin 'KAL'
Chris Christie	Telnaes, Ann	2015
Hillary Clinton	Telnaes, Ann	2015
J.D. Vance	Telnaes, Ann	2024
Kamala Harris	Telnaes, Ann	2021
Lindsay Graham	Telnaes, Ann	2022
Melania Trump and the Trump children	Telnaes, Ann	2016
Ruth Bader Ginsberg	Telnaes, Ann	2017
Anthony Fauci	Wuerker, Matt	2021
Bernie Sanders	Wuerker, Matt	2015
Bernie Sanders with FDR on the wall	Wuerker, Matt	2019
Biden vs. Trump	Wuerker, Matt	2024?
Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi	Wuerker, Matt	2016
Chris Christie and Michellee Obama	Wuerker, Matt
Donald and Melania Trump decorating the White House	Wuerker, Matt	2025
Elizabeth Warren with Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, and Beto O'Rourke	Wuerker, Matt	2019
George HW, Barbara, George W and Jeb Bush	Wuerker, Matt	2015
Hakeem Jeffries	Wuerker, Matt	2024?
Hillary Clinton with Bill Clinton	Wuerker, Matt
Jeb Bush	Wuerker, Matt	2015
Joe and Jill Biden	Wuerker, Matt
John Boehner	Wuerker, Matt
John Boswell	Wuerker, Matt
Kamala Harris with Joe Biden	Wuerker, Matt	2019
Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the House, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, George Santos. Republican representatives.	Wuerker, Matt	2023
Kim Jong-un	Wuerker, Matt	2017
Marco Rubio	Wuerker, Matt	2015
Mike Johnson	Wuerker, Matt	2024?
Omarosa Manigault Newman	Wuerker, Matt	2018
Rand Paul	Wuerker, Matt	2015
Ron DeSantis	Wuerker, Matt	2023
Sarah Huckabee Sanders	Wuerker, Matt	2018
Scott Walker	Wuerker, Matt	2015
Tim Kaine with Hillary Clinton	Wuerker, Matt
Tim Waltz	Wuerker, Matt	2024
Vladimir Putin	Wuerker, Matt	2017

my collection mounted in a portfolio *updated - missed this page originally

Ruth Ginsberg by Ann

John Boehner by Matt

Melania and Trump by Matt

(1) These are part of the Library of Congress' Art Wood collection, but were hung in the bar before the Library acquired it from Wood.

Flea Market Finds, with some modern bootlegs

As regular readers of the blog know, I look for comics and cartoon oddities, especially at antique shops and flea markets. Here's this weekend's haul, with hi-res scans of some to come on Flickr later, and donation of the postcards to the Library of Congress later this summer.

  A flyer from the Dunes casino is Las Vegas - is this by Frank Frazetta?

 

 

A 1938 tearsheet by Jimmy Swinnerton of Canyon Kiddies. I don't usually buy tearsheets, but it was a dollar. I'm no purist though; I tearsheet the newspaper and New Yorker regularly.

A Disney World postcard, probably circa the 1970s

 

 

...and a few I didn't care about but bought to get a deal... 

but this one is interesting...

 

 

It's a stupid pun, and not a great drawing, but the reverse of the card says, "This is an original etching by W.M. Standing Noted Indian Artist." More research is needed, but not on a Sunday night.

 

 

 

 

This was the card that caught my interest.  It's signed H. Empie and credited to Empie Kartoon Kards in Arizona. Again, more research is needed.

 

Another dumb scatological cartoon, only of interest for the the reverse noting "Not for mailing. Suitable for framing." By who? I guess you could put this under doctor cartoons (aka graphic medicine) though.

 

 

A weird 19th-century trade card "Playing Bank President Dining with a Wall St Bull." selling crackers and cakes in Reading, PA

 

 

 

 

Another trade card, and I think this is a gag cartoon, "A Long Tramp." It's advertising H.F. Brammer  Manufacturing Co. of Davenport, IA which would sell you a washing machine, refrigerator, and step ladder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Percosi, a book, in Italian, which I don't read, about Giorgio Cavazzano. 

 

 

A truly lovely #37 issue of Marvel Fanfare by Charles Vess, which I bought new, but couldn't say no to a second time. Marvel should really reprint his work for them.

 

 

A reading copy of Sidekicks, a graphic novel by Dan Santat, of more interest after I saw him speak this year. 

 

I originally bought some of these Bob & Bobette British reprints of Willy Vandersteen's Suske and Wiske in the 1980s. They're lovely, stupidly fun comics. I couldn't remember which ones I had so picked three that seemed unfamiliar.

 

 

 

 

 

Another Herblock cover for Time magazine. this time of Khrushchev and Castro visiting New York in 1960.

 

 

A couple of little books of military gag cartoons that need more research. Prost by Niles (above), and You've Had It (below)

 

 

 Some American comic books...

 

 

 

The anti-Nixon cover of this has fascinated me for years. I think that's Murphy Anderson art. 

 

Abbie an' Slats by Raeburn ... a successful comic strip, now completely forgotten. 

 

 

 

 

Two issues of Titan's Undersea Agent, which I think was in the THUNDER Agents universe, back when starting a new comics universe was really rare. The art in one of them is by Frank Robbins, and definitely not Wally Wood.  

 

 

I almost certainly have this Weird Wonder Tales 19 already, but I'm a sucker for character introductions (or at least I was when they were rarer), and it's a Kirby cover.

 

Speaking of Kirby, Our Fighting Forces 161-162 featuring the Losers had Kirby interiors but Ernie Chan and Joe Kubert covers. 162 sees Kirby returning to his perennial comics interest in kid gangs. As you'd expect in the Silver Age, the covers misrepresented the stories. The story in 161 is a particularly demented story of a dream-haunted British soldier 

 

 

This is a seriously beat-up copy of second issue of the Marvel Treasury-sized reprint of the first Star Wars movie adaptation. Actually, it's a reprint of a reprint because it's Whitman's version which were usually sold in discount stores, aka Five and Dimes. Oddly enough, I think these really did become collector's items.

I bought these children's stamps when they came out years ago because an argument could be made that Seuss and Falconer were cartoonists. Again, it was a dollar. I'll find a stamp collector friend who needs it.

And I got some 3-D stuff too.

 

 

This Best Dad in the Universe mug shows how much Superman's iconography has penetrated the world. 

 

 

An Avengers Endgame metal popcorn bucket for when they could be re-used as trashcans and weren't the head of Deadpool or Galactus. 

 

 

A couple of the 1970s Sunday Funnies drinking glasses featuring Brenda Starr and  Terry and the Pirates. I think these were promos for the NY Daily News. 

Something not bought (it happens) - 2 posters signed by Joe Quesada. I really enjoyed The Ray, but who has the room. 

 

And finally the modern bootlegs. Green Kush marijuana is probably not a licensed Green Lantern product, and I'm also thinking that Kevin, while an excellent firework, isn't really part of the official Minion merchandise. I love a good counterfeit though.