DonkeyHotey Is One Of The Preeminent Political Caricaturists Working Today . . .

His send-ups of the high and mighty have appeared at numerous websites and in a slew of publication, and have graced many of my Politix Update columns.  

When I approached Mr. Hotey in his secret lair and asked him to fashion a caricature of My Beloved and Myself, as well as our various critters, based on "American Gothic," the 1930 Grant Wood masterwork, he enthusiastically agreed. Actually, he balked, but after I shared photos of our cute critters and ourselves, he went "Aww!" and agreed.

These critters include (clockwise, from top) our cats Kimba, Iggie, Mister Taj and Django, and Jack and Nicky, our brother-sister chocolate labs.  (All, incidentally, are rescues.)

Then there are the people photos I gave Mr. Hotey: Myself at an Allman Brothers concert and My Beloved back at the shack. Mr. Hotey then worked his magic and transposed the photos onto the "American Gothic" palette. 

Some fine tuning and detail work were then in order, including doing some landscaping and customizing the luggage tags.  Among the tags were an Obama sticker, one of our favorite sayings (based in part on a lyric from "Compare to What," Gene Daniels' legendary anthem to irony) and a kangaroo because My Beloved is an Aussie lass.

Presto, chango, and Mr. Hotey worked his magic.