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Frank Mariani shares his madness via Buffalo Born Babble. If you like this multi-frame gagfest, visit https://frankmarianidesign.substack.com/p/political-chaff and please donate to support his work.
Like a panicked fighter jet pilot dumping chaff, clouds of Mylar-coated fibers to throw off a missile, Trump spews wild rants, nicknames, and circus-sized distractions whenever trouble closes in. This “political chaff” works the same way—cluttering the screen so nothing locks on target. The result? A storm of shiny nonsense that keeps the spotlight off his scandals.
I have no “making of” video to show, but you wouldn’t see any major transformations from the rough idea to the final art. I was working under severe time constraints, so employing a more primitive, loose style helped me meet the deadline.
Multi-panel editorial cartoons
Single-panel format is usually superior for editorial impact—it delivers a fast, powerful metaphor that sticks. A multi-panel approach can be more effective when the joke relies on escalation or you want to satirize a process rather than a snapshot.
Jack Ohman, Ruben Bolling, and Jen Sorenson are three well-known editorial cartoonists who use slow reading editorial cartoons with excellent results. I haven’t used that technique too many times in the five years I have had my gig with the Niagara Gazette, but the first two I drew for that paper did use multiple panels to build the gag.
