Election Week's Sneak Peek

 This is that most dreaded of all weeks in editorial cartooning.

The cartoon has to be drawn before election results are known, to appear after we know who won.

Or at least who's ahead.

Eight years ago, I drew a cartoon of a gay couple watching TV and rejoicing that that year's election campaign was finally over. But by the time that cartoon was published anywhere, to the shock and horror of gay couples everywhere and plenty of other Americans, Donald Trump had beaten Hillary Clinton. Not in the popular vote, of course, but in the the all-important Electoral College.

Sixteen years before that, my better half and I were planning a vacation that would keep me away from my drawing board in the week following election day, so I proposed to the syndicate editor that I would send him two cartoons: one for use if the Democrat won and one for use if the Republican did.

My editor rejected that proposal, and it's as well that he did. While my better half and I were enjoying sunny Mexico, the United States was enjoying hung chads and lawsuits over recounts in Florida. We still didn't quite know whether Al Gore or George W. Bush had won the election by the time we got back home.

So here's one more reminder to get out and vote, if you haven't already, so that I know what the heck I'm cartooning about next week.