CHICAGO—Admitting that he has completely run out of ideas at this point, local political cartoonist Lawrence Cleary told reporters Monday that he is unsure how to convey that a large sack being clutched by a U.S. senator in his latest drawing is full of money. “In order for this one to work, the reader has to know that it’s a big bag of cash the senator’s holding, but how can I possibly get that idea across? ” the Chicago Tribune satirist told reporters, referring to the as-yet-unfinished black-and-white sketch, which features an unnamed politician carrying the bulging, unmarked sack while strolling out of a building marked “Middle Class Savings & Loan,” underneath the caption “Politics As Usual…” “I was thinking of maybe having a few coins spilling from the top of the bag, or maybe he’s already dropped an open bag on the ground and we can see a bunch of cash inside of it. I guess I could always give him a speech bubble that says, ‘There’s a bunch of money in this bag that I took from the American people,’ but that might be spelling it out too much. Maybe he could be wearing a name tag that reads ‘Senator Moneybags,’ thereby denoting that the bag he is holding is in fact filled with money?” At press time, Cleary had decided to write the word “money” on the bag.

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