Bruce Plante and Al Hirschfeld: Hiding Ninas

I knew about Al Hirschfeld hiding "Ninas" in his drawings, but I did not know that editorial Cartoonist Bruce Plante has been doing the same for years. It's in honor of his mom, Nina (pronounced "NINE-uh").

Somewhere in the drawing -- in the shadows, in the folds of the clothing -- there's a NINA. Here's a one minute video of Bruce letting us know why he did it. And here's a link to last week's cartoons. (Click on each one  and the hidden NINA becomes visible.)

And here's where the NINA is for Bruce Plante's October 24th cartoon:

Related:

From "Welcome to Ottawa," here's a video produced by Tom Speer for the Frye Art Museum 2010 gallery show "In Line with Al Hirschfeld." The host is David Leopold, Curator. He talks about NINA at about 1:12.



 
Related: Al Hirschfeld's NINA as a prototype search task for studying perceptual error in radiology

From the Wiki page:

Nina herself was reportedly somewhat ambivalent about all the attention. In the previously mentioned interview with The Comics Journal Hirschfeld confirmed the urban legend that the U.S. Army had used his cartoons to train bomber pilots with the soldiers trying to spot the NINAs much as they would spot their targets. Hirschfeld told the magazine he found the idea repulsive, saying that he felt his cartoons were being used to help kill people.