Eric Orner was working as a cartoonist for a Boston alternative weekly in early 1989 when he met Barney Frank at a reception in the southern district of the city.
The Democratic congressman remarked that he liked Orner’s recent cartoon lambasting the city’s archbishop for his stance on AIDS.
So began Orner’s on-and-off gig for 20 years as staff attorney and press secretary for the influential and trailblazing politician.
He worked for Frank during some of the pivotal days of the liberal congressman’s three-decade career, including the Great Recession, when Orner came to Washington after losing his job as a Disney cartoonist.
The move from cartoonist to congressional aide was natural for Orner, who grew up in a “Democratic Machine family” in Chicago, went to law school and knew the ins and outs of politics and government.
Orner, who now lives in Tarryvillefused his talents into the recently released graphic novel, Smahtguy: The Life and Times of Barney Frankan irreverent and moving biography of the iconic lawmaker who became one of the first openly gay members of Congress.
smahtguy dramatizes Frank’s childhood in New Jersey, his years at Harvard, his introduction to politics as Boston’s assistant mayor, and his rise to national prominence as a Wall Street reformer and gay rights advocate and civil rights – while struggling with his own sexual identity until he finally came out in 1987.
Witty, peppered with profanity and delivered in the Bayonne and Beantown accents of its characters, the illustrated 220-page volume takes readers on a tour inside the maze of Beltway politics, confusing its inhabitants in road course. Orner isn’t shy about exposing the congressman’s flaws, but his respect and affection for his subject is clear.
While carving out a career as a cartoonist, Orner turned to law, politics, and government to make ends meet when art wasn’t paying the bills.
His time in Washington put him in “a great front row seat to hear some of the stories in this book,” Orner wrote in an email. Some of the best political stories, he said, “are not about the workings of politics at all. They concern the whole spectrum of human interaction: friendship and betrayal. Violence and love. Loyalty and envy.
Despite its “warts and all the unauthorized representations”, Orner said Franks liked the book and appeared with it at a recent book signing in Cambridge, Mass. The former congressman, now 82, published his own memoir, Frank: A life in politics, from high society to same-sex marriage, in 2015.
Orner moved to Tarrytown last year with her partner, Blake MaherCEO of Serious Fun, a non-profit organization that organizes summer camps for children with serious illnesses.
“We loved it instantly – the village feel it has – people waving at you on the street, standing outside the Sweet Shop or the Set Back Inn,” he said. “We like the Ancient Croton Aqueduct path, the Dutch Reformed Church‘s concerts, and the wonderful Transom Bookstore it is open.
adorn previously written Ethan Green’s near-fabulous social life, billed as one of the nation’s first and oldest gay comics. His comics and illustrations have appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicleand The New Republic.
Smahtguy: The Life and Times of Barney Frank is available from Macmillan Publishers (us.macmillan.com/books/9781250191588/smahtguy); Amazon and local booksellers.