TOKYO (NEXSTAR) — When he was marketing director for the IOC, Michael Payne made a hobby of collecting Olympic-centric cartoons.
In the back of his mind, he thought it would be great to use them in a book.
He didn’t have time, until COVID-19 hit and Payne had plenty of time on his hands.
He started his research and collected more than 3,000 cartoons.
The hard part was tracking down the cartoonists for permission and digital copies of their work.
“In some countries — perhaps for good reason, because they are fairly critical of the establishment — they don’t have a public profile, they don’t appear on social media, because they are scared of being trolled,” Payne said.
The goal was to create a unique history book about the Olympics.
For example, did you know that in 1900, club swinging was an Olympic sport?
Throughout the book “Toon In!” Payne shares his behind the scenes insight, like how Muhammad Ali was selected to light the cauldron for the Atlanta games and how the queen was convinced to jump into opening ceremonies in London.
“A friend of mine was sitting next to Prince William and Prince Harry in the stands, and they see her majesty jumping out of the helicopter and they go, ‘It’s granny!'” Payne said.
The family never knew.
“They said, ‘one must have ones little secrets,'” Payne said.
“Toon In!” also delves deep into the constant state of crisis surrounding the games: doping, zika, politics.
Tokyo is the first Olympic Games ever to be postponed. The Games have only ever been cancelled three times. The 1940 Olympic Games were originally awarded to Tokyo and Sapporo, but with the outbreak of its war with China, Japan forfeited the right to host and the Games were initially re-awarded to Helsinki and Garmisch-Partenkirchen before finally being cancelled. (Cartoonist: Chicane, New Zealand) 
It is interesting how some politicians and media refer to the Olympic Games as being overcommercialised, when the Olympics remain the last major event in the world NOT to have any advertising around the fields of play or on the athletes. (Cartoonist: Adrian Raeside, Canada) 
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games will not be the first where hazmat (hazardous materials) suits are part of the official uniform. In Rio 2016, such was the concern from polluted waters to the Zika virus that some teams supposedly took special biological suits to Rio. (Cartoonist: Jim Thompson, USA) 
Russia is still paying the price for its “little misunderstanding” in Sochi, where it was caught running a programme swapping “dirty” urine samples for “clean” ones. Russian athletes will only compete in Tokyo as neutrals, with no flag or national anthem. (Cartoonist: Jim Thompson, USA) 
Tokyo – not the first Olympic Games with calls for cancellation due to a health crisis. Four years ago, medical experts were calling for the cancellation of Rio, due to the Zika crisis. (Cartoonist: Chicane, New Zealand) 
The first known sports competition for people with disabilities was staged by the USA in 1911 and was inappropriately called the “Cripples Olympiad.” The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games will see 4,400 athletes across 22 sports. Such is the importance of medal success at the Paralympics that cheating is now just as prevalent as it is in the Olympics. (Cartoonist: Jim Thompson, USA) 
The countdown to Tokyo has fuelled a media and political frenzy about whether the Games should be cancelled because of the continued challenges of COVID-19. Calls for the cancellation of the Games are not necessarily the new: PyeongChang 2018 (too dangerous due to the Kim/Trump nuclear stand-off); Rio 2016 (the Zika virus outbreak); Sochi 2014 (Chechen security threat)… the list goes on… (Cartoonist: Roger Dahl, Japan/USA) 
Will the fight against doping ever be won? Scientists working on gene manipulation have already created “mighty mouse” in their laboratories, prompting coaches to immediately offer their whole team as guinea pigs. (Cartoonist: Ingrid Rice, Canada)
“It’s a remarkable history,” Payne said. “If you look back at the crisis the Olympics faced in the 80’s with boycotts and no funding and no future host cities. The book reminds everybody of the incredible resilience of the Olympics.”
He’s not working for the International Olympic Committee any longer but Payne still has plenty of friends there: leaving many curious about what they thought about his book.
“When they first saw it, some of the staff members went, ‘help, my god, sue him,'” Payne said.
But the official response, Payne said, was “‘This is a scurrilous, outrageous and probably libelous book’ — and they’re probably right — ‘and we can’t wait for the second edition.'”