The news can feel like a soap opera.

You stop watching for a few decades and when you tune back in, the same storylines are still chugging along. The same can apply to the headlines.

When award-winning former Gazette political cartoonist Chuck Asay started looking back through his old work for a new Pikes Peak Library District exhibit, he noticed the interchangeability of then and now.

In his cartoon that ran Feb. 22, 1984, Asay drew Vice President Walter Mondale riding a donkey out of Iowa with Sen. Gary Hart hanging onto the donkey’s tail and being dragged behind:

“This reminds me of the primary race in the Republican camp this year,” Asay wrote in a caption for the cartoon, which is saved in PPLD’s digital collections. “Donald Trump is riding the elephant out of Iowa and New Hampshire. Nikki Haley is hanging onto the tail.”

“This shows how history repeats,” said Asay, 81. “You can just change the names. It goes around in a pattern, a circle.”

“The Names Change But Issues Stay the Same” opens Wednesday at Library 21c and East Library and runs through March. Asay will host a free workshop and discussion for the public from 4-5 p.m. Wednesday at Library 21c, where he’ll talk about how he got ideas, answer questions and draw a cartoon or two.

Asay, who also worked at the Taos (N.M.) News, Colorado Springs Sun and Denver Post, spent two decades at The Gazette, where he retired in 2007 and went on to spend half a dozen years as a syndicated cartoonist before retiring again in 2013. Now more than 10,000 of his cartoons are digitized and live in the PPLD collection. Find them online at ppld.org/Chuck-Asay.

“Some of the issues he was drawing cartoons about 30 to 50 years ago are the same issues,” said PPLD Photo Archivist Erinn Barnes. “Some stuff we struggled with in the ’80s went away, but a lot continues to be recycled. I think about some of the things we didn’t expect, like the rise of Russia and the invasion of Ukraine. Some of those things seem like the Cold War recycled, just with different titles.”

A political cartoonist, no matter their liberal or conservative slant, always will receive criticism and vitriol. Asay stepped into the fray early in life, when he drew his first cartoon in an eighth-grade Alamosa civics classroom in the 1950s.

Inspired by the popular Baby Huey comics of the time, with their huge, naive duckling cartoon character, Asay drew a big mean-looking baby in a basket extending a menacing clawed hand toward a dapper, professional man fleeing from the infant. He labeled the terrifying baby China and the scared man Russia.

It impressed his teacher so much she called the Pueblo Chieftain, which did a story on the teen. A political cartoonist was born.

“I’m not smart but I could draw,” Asay said. “I was raised in a family where we would discuss issues and we would discuss them pretty hard, but we always loved each other. I grew up feeling everyone was entitled to my opinion. But you’ve still got to love each other. You can differ on ideas.”

After high school he joined the U.S. Army, where he was noticed for his Christian and conservative views and worked as an illustrator. He met his wife, Marge, to whom he’s now been married for 60 years, and went on to have two children.

After his military service, he majored in art and education at Adams State College in Alamosa, taught at public and Bureau of Indian Affairs schools in Taos, N.M., and then made a living doing caricatures on college campuses. But he really wanted to live in Colorado Springs.

The family moved to town, and Asay got a job at the Colorado Springs Sun, the city’s second newspaper at the time. He spent a decade there before The Gazette bought its competitor and shut it down. A year later, the publisher came a-knocking and asked Asay to come aboard.

And that’s where he spent the next 20 years, creating cartoons seven days a week that prompted daily calls from upset readers who would cancel subscriptions as well as those who were pleased by his point of view.

“I came in with a thick skin,” Asay said. “I just figured they would like me, they just don’t like my ideas. That’s the way I sifted it. And if the publisher said we can’t run this that was fine with me, it’s their paper.”

Of course, responding to the public was harder at some times than others, such as when the controversial Amendment 2 was approved by Colorado voters in 1992 and prevented anti-discrimination laws that protected gay, lesbian or bisexual people.

“I’d have people in tears calling me and crying because their son had died of AIDS. Those are hard because I’ve hurt somebody,” he said. “I tried to tell them what my world view was. A lot of times I made friends a little bit because I knew they didn’t like me, but you could discuss things. I became friends with some politicians that I really ripped into.”

Barnes, who describes Asay’s work as provocative, but also sometimes funny, believes he has a knack for poking at or pushing people to explore why they think the way they do about such touchy subjects as abortion, the huge influx of Christian nonprofits that changed the dynamic of the city, and other local issues.

“He featured so prominently in the political discourse in this community for so long,” Barnes said.

“From the ’80s through the early 2000s he was a fixture in people’s conversations about national and local issues. He did a lot of commentary on Colorado Springs politics. It’s important to preserve that voice and access to that for future generations to understand where the Springs was in those time periods and what we were wrestling with politically and socially.”

Contact the writer: 636-0270

“The Names Change But Issues Stay the Same,” political cartoons by Chuck Asay, opens Wednesday, March 6 through March 31, Library 21c, 1175 Chapel Hills Drive, and East Library, 5550 N. Union Blvd., free; 531-6333, ppld.org

Something else: Workshop and discussion with Chuck Asay, 4-5 p.m. Wednesday, free

After working at the Colorado Springs Sun, then the city’s second newspaper, cartoonist Chuck Asay went on to work at The Gazette after paper bought its competitor and shut it down. He spent 20 years at The Gazette, creating cartoons seven days a week that prompted daily calls from upset readers who would cancel their subscriptions as well as those who were pleased by his point of view.

Courtesy of the Pikes Peak Library District

“The Names Change But Issues Stay the Same,” featuring work by former Gazette political cartoonist Chuck Asay, opens Wednesday at Library 21c and East Library and runs through the month. Asay will host a free workshop and discussion for the public from 4-5 p.m. Wednesday at Library 21c where he’ll talk about how he got ideas, answer questions and draw a cartoon or two.

Courtesy of the Pikes Peak Library District

“The Names Change But Issues Stay the Same,” featuring work by former Gazette political cartoonist Chuck Asay, opens Wednesday, March 6, 2024, at Library 21c and East Library and runs through March. Asay will host a free workshop and discussion for the public from 4-5 p.m. Wednesday at Library 21c where he’ll talk about how he got ideas, answer questions and draw a cartoon or two.

Courtesy of the Pikes Peak Library District

“The Names Change But Issues Stay the Same,” featuring work by former Gazette political cartoonist Chuck Asay, opens Wednesday, March 6, 2024, at Library 21c and East Library and runs through March. Asay will host a free workshop and discussion for the public from 4-5 p.m. Wednesday at Library 21c where he’ll talk about how he got ideas, answer questions and draw a cartoon or two.

Courtesy of the Pikes Peak Library District

“The Names Change But Issues Stay the Same,” featuring work by former Gazette political cartoonist Chuck Asay, opens Wednesday, March 6, 2024, at Library 21c and East Library and runs through March. Asay will host a free workshop and discussion for the public from 4-5 p.m. Wednesday at Library 21c where he’ll talk about how he got ideas, answer questions and draw a cartoon or two.

Courtesy of the Pikes Peak Library District

Political cartoonist Chuck Asay worked at The Gazette for two decades and retired in 2007.

Courtesy of the Pikes Peak Library District

Chuck Asay. Courtesy Chuck Asay

Chuck Asay. Courtesy Chuck Asay

Chuck Asay. Courtesy Chuck Asay