I posted a thumbnail of this art before, but it occurred to me that it has a tale behind it that may be of interest, as well as some fine points about art and legal stuff.....
When Sadam was hiding out, some editor had an idea to do a sort of puzzle thing where Sadam was hidden on the page. I think the idea stinks (and did at the time I did the art), but it was a fun opportunity to doodle some 'celebrities.' There was very little time to do the art, so I was never too happy with the results. Some you just put in the "I'm glad that's over" column and move on to the next crisis.
This is a case where doing art of celebreties is allowed under the first ammendment - falls in the category of "parody" - like editorial cartoons and the stuff you see in Mad Magazine (haven't looked at one of those in ages). - - as opposed to making pictures of the celebrities to sell without their consent (and a piece of the pie) when you are profiting on their celebrity status it is different than editorial spoofing. I got off the hook years ago when I did this 'toon thing about the "Spiel of Fortune" - a spoof on the "Wheel of Fortune" tv game show. Got letters from lawyers, but nothing happened.
When Walt Disney was buying up huge hunks of Florida real estate to build Disney World, I did an editorial cartoon of Mickey Mouse with a bib eating up chunks of the state of Florida. Nothing happened. A neighboring child care center painted Disney characters on their building and got sued. Editorial freedom vs. profiting on the characters. - Don't know just why it works that way, but seems to be the case.
