Kirk Anderson revisits his 'Banana Republic'
by Euan Kerr, Minnesota Public RadioSt. Paul, Minn. — In recent years editorial cartoonist Kirk Anderson drew for both the St Paul Pioneer Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
It was the latter paper which offered him a rare chance.
"They offered me the opportunity to have a weekly gig, a weekly quarter page, which is a cartoonist's dream," he says.
Kirk Anderson then created "Banana Republic" which ran in the Star Tribune editorial pages from October 2005 to November 2007. The strips have now been collected into a book.
Anderson says he wanted to spur more public debate about national issues, such as the tactics of the war on terror, and local issues such as stadium funding.
He told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr, he invented Amnesia, a small dictatorship facing similar political conundrums, populated with some distinctive characters.
