ANNAPOLIS — A drawing from 2001 represents the jet leased by Gov. Parris N. Glendening, dubbed “Air Parris,” and from 2003 is Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s face on a slot machine.
The images, often humorous and irreverent, appear in a collection of posters Maryland officials have kept in secret to chronicle the high and low points of each General Assembly session since 1980.
“They have a weird sense of humor over here,” said Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Attorney General’s Office in Baltimore.
Robert A. Zarnoch, legislative counsel to the General Assembly and attorney general staffer, hangs the posters on his door as a way of tracking the legal analyses his staff completes. “It’s what describes the session that year,” he said.
“It was a functional thing; it wasn’t intended to be artistic,” Mr. Zarnoch said. “We just said, ’Give me a chart showing our progress in how we’re doing reviewing these bills.’ ”
The posters began as a simple sketch of a thermometer like those used in fundraising campaigns. Then Assistant Attorney General Sandy Cohen began embellishing them, illustrating a baby clawing at a cigarette vending machine in 1995, when lawmakers required warning labels to be affixed to the machines, and an empty cupboard in 1992, the last time the state faced massive layoffs because of a budget crisis.
Mrs. Cohen, whose understated style is reminiscent of editorial cartoonists from the 1950s and ’60s such as Herb Block, now lives in South Dakota and was unavailable to comment.
Sandy Brantley, an assistant attorney general in the Annapolis office, called such cartooning “a lost art.”
In 1999, the electricity deregulation plan by Mr. Glendening, a Democrat, was represented by a faux Monopoly board, with a footnote at the bottom of the Electric Company tile that reads “Anyone’s Guess.”
The 2001 poster features the Senate Office Building named for Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., Prince George’s Democrat, with the exclamation — “It’s Miller Time!”
In the 2003 poster, the face of Mr. Ehrlich, a Republican, appears three in a row on the slot machine with those of Mr. Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch, Anne Arundel Democrat. However, they never lined up to support legalized slot machines.
Mr. Zarnoch has tried to get the posters digitally photographed and posted publicly by the Department of Legislative Services, but talks stalled. For now, the posters will remain hidden away.
“It’s for political junkies,” he said.
The images have not been shown to any governor, including Mr. Ehrlich, whose poster has a caricature of staffer Joe Steffen — the self-proclaimed “Prince of Darkness” — as the Grim Reaper.
The tradition continued this year, but in a more subdued style.
A large, smiling sun sits in the left corner of the poster for the 2007 legislative session, marking Gov. Martin O’Malley’s “new day” in the state capital. Mr. O’Malley, a Democrat, defeated Mr. Ehrlich in the November election. In the upper right corner of the poster, storm clouds hang over the state’s looming $1.5 billion structural deficit.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.