Obituary for RR Anderson (to run 4/6/2078)

Richard Ryan Anderson (known to millions as RR Anderson) died Thursday. He was 99.

The Pulitzer prize-winning American cartoonist achieved notoriety in Tacoma, WA, (before it was annexed into Portland, OR, in 2056) for his satirical cartoonist that poked fun at local public figures.

On March 9, 2008, he celebrated his first year of the “Tacomic” at a Tacoma gallery. Well-wishers at the gala were surprised when Dale Chihuly, a glass artist and frequent figure of ridicule in Anderson’s cartoons, crashed the party and challenged Anderson to a duel.

Anderson accepted and the two battled it out in the streets for three hours before Chihuly surrendered. Local wisdom has it that the severe potholes in Tacoma’s streets were created that day by the punches of the fighting artists, though many Anderson scholars dismiss this as myth.

The duel propelled Anderson into the public spotlight. His reputation as a renegade and a rebel was solidified after he published cartoons mocking George W. Bush’s surprise re-election to a third term in 2008.

In the years that followed Anderson became a celebrity cartoonist, penning covers for the new editions of the Saturday Evening Post and The New Yorker.

After the Greater Depression of 2043 and the landslide election of President Chelsea Clinton the year after, the new President mentioned to a reporter that Anderson was her favorite cartoonist. Always the gadfly, Anderson drew an offensive cartoon portraying the new President as Medusa, with every snake on her head resembling either Bill or Hillary whispering advice in her ear.

Although most Americans didn’t understand the classical Greek reference, the message was clear enough, and Anderson was forced to fleet the country. He spent the next 36 years drawing tourists outside of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, under the pseudonym Fronzel Ambrose Neekburn. It was there that he and his wife Darcy had their last seven children: Rex, Rita, Roy, Reynold, Robin, Robert, and Roland.

Welcomed back to the US just three days ago to claim his Pulitzer Prize, Anderson was attacked by decency activist Doreen Deeble, who had been tracking Anderson through his entire career. The 99 year old cartoonist gave her a good fight, but in the end he faltered.

The citizens of Tacoma are raising money to build a statue to their fallen hero in Tollefson Plaza, a park public officials are still trying to bring life to … 73 years after it was built. We here in the London Offices of Exit133-Googlezon Corp. feel Anderson would find that particularly fitting.