How the Artist Barry Blitt Turns Politics Into Cartoon Cover Gold

The New Yorker

Armed with watercolors and a “passive-aggressive” sense of humor, the illustrator finds the funny, even in ugly times.

Transcript

00:00I don't think any of this is annoying at all.

00:06Um, Barry, why don't you start by looking into the camera and introducing yourself.

00:13My name is Barry Blitt.

00:14I'm a cartoonist and illustrator.

00:18There's really nothing else to say about me.

00:20I hate to do this to you, but I think we're going to have to change your shirt.

00:23The white is not looking great on our camera.

00:34I got this stripe number.

00:36No, stripes is no good.

00:37Oh, is that right?

00:38Yeah.

00:39This is always a winner.

00:40Oh, that's nice.

00:41I got a red corduroy.

00:42Oh, I love the red.

00:43You want to go red?

00:44I don't really.

00:45Okay, let's go blue.

00:46Let's go blue.

00:47Can I at least have some privacy?

00:48Yeah, we can give you privacy.

00:49Is that okay?

00:50Yeah, give us a little, uh...

00:51Jesus.

00:53I really don't like the direction this is going in.

00:55I've never been so humiliated in my life.

00:58I don't even know where to begin.

01:00Well, you can imagine how lost I am.

01:03All right, well, let's start from the beginning.

01:06I drew as a kid, as most kids do, and I kept drawing as I got older, and went to art school,

01:12and then...

01:13Oh, God, this is so boring.

01:15I was in Toronto, where I went to school, and I would bring my portfolio around, and

01:20then I moved to New York City and started to do cartoons, mostly for Entertainment Weekly.

01:24I was drawing a lot of celebrities and portraits and caricatures of celebrities, but then there

01:30was a Bill Clinton, Monica Gate thing, and suddenly it seemed like the political became

01:35the pop cultural.

01:37Before I knew it, I was doing a lot more political stuff.

01:40I think the first job I did for The New Yorker was a page cartoon.

01:44It was presidential allergies through the ages.

01:47I mean, it didn't mean anything, and this would become a theme, I think, in my work.

01:50Sometimes I'd do drawings that I have no idea what they mean.

01:54They just strike me as funny.

01:56Francoise and I have had a couple of instances where I send her an idea, said, don't self-edit.

02:02You don't worry about that.

02:03Just send me your ideas, and so that's what I do.

02:06There's probably certain things I should keep to myself.

02:09Often send things that have no chance of ever being published by any sane publication.

02:14Here's something no one wanted.

02:16This is Putin as some kind of aquatic life.

02:20Nor were they interested in Alex Jones being forced to liquidate.

02:24Here's a drawing of Biden triumphant with his ice cream.

02:27Henry Kissinger being, looks like he's being denied entrance into heaven.

02:32This is mercifully free from any drawings.

02:37My first cover for The New Yorker was smokers standing on window ledges having their cigarette

02:41outside because that was the year when people could not smoke inside offices anymore.

02:46And it became a cover.

02:47You must have felt like a hot shot.

02:49No, I didn't feel like a hot shot.

02:51I can never find the one I'm looking for.

02:55This has been accepted.

02:56Yeah, the sketch was, they told me to go ahead with.

02:59And it'll run on the magazine's site, a drawing of Kamala and Trump.

03:06He's spouting off about dogs being eaten, and she's sort of looking at him pathetically.

03:15On a base level, I'm making fun of characters.

03:18The work I feel I'm doing, it's not coming from any great knowledge about policy or about

03:23history.

03:24I mean, the thing about Trump, as much as I dislike him, when a bully walks into a room

03:29and insults everybody, then everyone's insulting everybody after that.

03:34It makes the job easier.

03:36It's really an ugly time, but it keeps cartoonists busy.

03:40Can I ask you a really annoying question?

03:43I would expect nothing less.

03:45Favorite cover and least favorite cover you've ever done?

03:47I did a drawing of another smoker's cover.

03:51I think it was during SARS, early 2000s.

03:54The drawing was particularly clumsy, and the colors were particularly faded, and it confirmed

04:00all my worst fears about my visual talents.

04:04One of my favorites was Hurricane Katrina.

04:07I had a sketch I sent to Francoise and Bush's inner circle, and they're all like, you know,

04:13planning and fretting over what's going on, and they're all up to their nipples in brown

04:17water.

04:18What would you say is your most well-known?

04:21You know what you're asking.

04:22Well, there's the fist-bump cover of Barack and Michelle Obama.

04:26It was an ambitious attempt at satire.

04:30A lot of people didn't find it funny, but, you know, like the other covers, it came and

04:35went.

04:36Do you feel like your sense of humor is hard for a lot of people to understand?

04:39I don't think it's everyone's sense of humor.

04:41I mean, there are things that make me laugh a lot that other people don't seem to laugh at.

04:46It's passive-aggressive.

04:47I guess that's what I would explain my style as sort of passive-aggressive.

04:51I often don't have the guts to come right out and say something in bright, harsh colors,

04:57but I'm sort of whispering it or saying it in brackets or, you know, I'm desperately

05:02looking for laughs.

05:03It's pathetic.

05:04If I have work in front of me, if I have a drawing in front of me to do or a problem

05:09to solve work-wise, I'll be thinking about that.

05:12I'm not good at the future or the past.

05:15How many hours a day are you in this room?

05:17I'm in this room a lot.

05:18Do you have any hobbies outside of drawing?

05:21No.

05:22You've got to do everything yourself around here.

05:28It's a thrill every time that you get a cover approved for The New Yorker.

05:41The last one, I fretted over how I handled the drawing.

05:44I drew Trump and Vance going down on a roller coaster and Kamala and Waltz going up.

05:51It's come and gone, and it's on to the next.

05:54How many covers have you done at this point?

05:56I've done a lot.

05:58You know, I don't know how many there are.

06:00I don't know the number.

06:01Over a hundred?

06:02I think there are over a hundred.

06:11What do you want to do for the rest of your career?

06:14I'd like to lie down.

06:25I should have practiced before.

06:26I think we've got what we need.

06:27Good.

06:28Yeah.

06:29I'm taking us up to Arthur Miller's cabin.

06:33He made himself a pot of coffee and wrote the first act of Death of a Salesman.

06:37Or that's what the real estate agents said when they sold us the house.

06:40You still with me?

06:43Don't be afraid.

06:44Come on.

06:45And how would you assess the smell in here?

06:47What does it remind you of?

06:48Is it just must?

06:49It's a little musty.

06:51I like it though.

06:52You like it?

06:53Yeah.

06:55Smells like I'm in a cabin in the woods.

06:57Right.

06:58Well, that's definitely where you are.

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