In his senior thesis, Thomas Gibson '77 explored the impact of political cartoons. His twenty-five years in Washington have allowed him to put theory into practice.
Though he had done some cartooning in high school, Gibson, a varsity football player, did not have time to focus on his artwork before his last year at the University. As a senior, Gibson took art classes and decided to write his thesis on political cartoons.
Gibson interviewed Eric Sideman, an editor at The New York Times Week in Review, as part of the background research for his thesis. He later gave Sideman copies of original works he had created for the thesis, which led to a freelance commission that spring, Gibson's first real opportunity to draw professionally.
His senior thesis, Gibson pointed out, "became a real device to start [his] career."
Political cartoons
After graduation, with encouragement from University visual arts professors Joe Brown and Henry Martin, Gibson decided to spend a year trying to find work as a cartoonist. He worked in construction and as a substitute teacher to support himself while he continued to pursue cartooning.
In that first year out of college, Gibson attracted some attention — his first Washington Post cartoon was published on the front page. However, by the end of that year Gibson decided it had been too difficult to get a steady level of commissions, and he went to work on Capitol Hill, writing speeches for a senator.
After leaving the Hill in 1979, Gibson worked as an "apprentice lobbyist" for a law firm for several years.
At the same time, he returned to cartooning, working on his drawings at night and on weekends. He received much recognition this time around, getting four or five drawings a week published on the Washington Post oped page.
In 1982, Gibson was asked to work for a new paper: USA Today. "They needed a conservative on the opinion staff and I was happy to play that role," he said.
At the age of 26, Gibson experienced what he termed a "full-immersion baptism in the newspaper business." His day would begin with an opinion editorial meeting, and then he would often play a role in both editing and illustrating the oped page.
After a year at USA Today, Gibson received an offer he couldn't refuse. He was tapped to serve as associate director of White House Cabinet Affairs for President Ronald Reagan.
Writing for Reagan
While working in cabinet affairs for the next two years, Gibson had the opportunity to write opinion memoranda for the president.
From 1985 to 1987, he served as director of White House Public Affairs — his responsibilities included ghostwriting for the president and briefing him for some press events.
Gibson wrote much of the humor for Reagan's speeches after 1985, he said. The work schedule was intense, Gibson remembers.
"For six years of my life I basically didn't see the sun rise or set," he said.
Gibson found that one of the major challenges of his work in the White House was to be very careful with word choice.
"The most dangerous part of word choice has to do with humor," he noted.
Gibson believed that as a staffer, he should keep a low profile. "Not screwing up was probably my greatest legacy there," he said.
Changing paths
After leaving the White House, Gibson worked for several years as a consultant for corporations in the areas of communications and public affairs. From 1990 to 1996, he focused on energy and telecommunications with the Wexler Group.
While working as a consultant, Gibson also worked to help promote reform in the young democracies of central Europe.
Under Reagan, he had been supportive of the solidarity movement in Poland. His initial support of the cause led Polish reformers to ask him for help after he left the White House. Gibson worked to promote debt reduction in Poland on behalf of that nation's finance minister and was involved with the promotion of privatization programs in Czechoslovakia.
Gibson also "helped edit" Macedonia's Declaration of Independence and worked to promote recognition of that nation.
Also in the mid-1990's, at the request of billionaire philanthropist George Soros, Gibson worked to put together a coalition to lobby the Clinton administration to take action in the former Yugoslavia.
Politics and technology
While serving as an executive at MCI from 1996 to 1998, Gibson became interested in innovative uses of technology, especially involving the Internet.
After leaving MCI, he began drawing more and did consulting work through his own company.
In 2001, inspired by some of the technological advances he had seen at MCI, he founded a company called Advocacy Animation that designs web-based animations for clients.
"One of my innovations was to do extraordinarily small files that can load fast on dial-up [connections to the web]," he said.
Gibson created online animations for Haley Barbour's successful campaign for governor in Mississippi this fall. He carried out a targeted email voter registration drive for Barbour involving animations.
"We had some real successes working with animation as a grassroots tool," he said, adding that he hopes to do similar work for a 2004 campaign.
Gibson is also creating web-based animations to promote secular democracy in a Middle Eastern country — he requested the specific country not be printed — on behalf of a diaspora group. Because it is based offshore and is untraceable, the site cannot be shut down by the country's government, he said.
Gibson said that cartoon art on the web is now "the last frontier of strong commentary," because of cautious editors at print publications.
"There's a lot of self-censorship going on" because editors are afraid of offending readers, he noted. "There's a lot of good editorial art that is strong and compelling that isn't getting printed."
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