Cartoonist suits up for the 2016 election with new deck of political playing cards

As the 2016 presidential hopefuls began to emerge and trade barbs, Peter Green was gathering fodder for his political caricatures — all 54 of them.

Every national election cycle, the Glendale graphic artist puts out his latest edition of Politicards, a full deck of playing cards featuring cartoonish portraits of candidates and pundits.

This year’s release is called PolitiKids because all of the satirical images depict their subjects as youngsters.

“In the world of politics, these guys are acting like little kids because kids say the darndest things,” Green said.

Naturally, Republicans are given the red card suits, while the Democrats have the dark blue ones.

One of Green’s favorites this time around is billionaire Donald Trump, whose card ties into his conservative stance on immigration.

“He’s got a little elephant piñata, which really was perfect about Donald,” he said. “He’s wearing a little kiddie country club outfit. I probably didn’t have to try very hard on that one.”

Democratic front-runner Hilary Clinton is depicted wearing Cinderella’s tiara and signature glass shoes, while also wearing her trademark women’s business suit.

President Barack Obama — given the ongoing controversy over the Affordable Care Act — is shown as a young boy wearing roller skates while tending to a scraped-up knee caused by losing his balance. Green calls that one “O-Band-Aids.”

Each playing-card parody is accompanied with a book quotation.

The first edition of Politicards came out in 1972 when the race for president was between George McGovern and Richard Nixon. Green was tasked by a client at the time with making a political chess set, but he pitched it for the simpler idea of playing cards.

He’s been doing it for every national election since 1996. Green claims he never aims to push one political party over another, so he takes a nonpartisan, even-handed approach to his humor.

“I just don’t like to get mixed up in that kind of political in-fighting,” he said. “I’d rather have people say, ‘Let’s go have some fun.’”

While he has conservative leanings nowadays, Green said he’s a registered independent.

He said his sketches tend to be on the lighter side. Bart Everett, a former Los Angeles Times editor who saw Green’s work when he was a freelance cartoonist, agrees.

“I think it’s really easy to be mean … That’s not Peter’s nature. That’s not the way he is,” said Everett, who is also a Politicard fan.

About 200,000 decks are sold during each election cycle. While some assuredly are used for games of poker or blackjack, they’ve also become a popular collectible for autograph seekers.

When John McCain was running for president in 2008, Green said he bumped into the Arizona senator at a fundraiser.

“[McCain] said, ‘You don’t know how many of these I’ve signed,’” he said.

Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan has even used his own Politicard as a Christmas card.

Green seeks out autographs, too, by mailing his parodied subjects their respective cards. If he gets a signed one back, he keeps them in his San Fernando Road office, where he also does the original watercolor paintings of the characters before the cards are made. The overall process takes about three months.

There will be a 2020 edition of Politicards and even more down the road, Green said. The plan, as usual, will be to keep things light.

“It’s tough to do that as an editorial cartoonist, not having a position … I really want people being stimulated about different issues by looking at the cards and playing with them, but not necessarily walking away really pro or con for anything,” he said.

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Arin Mikailian, arin.mikailian@latimes.com

Twitter: @ArinMikailian