The news can be stressful. New York cartoonist Barry Blitt wants you to laugh

Barry Blitt states that it is an uncertain moment for editorial cartoonists among political tensions in the United States – but laughter, he says, is the key to facing heavy things.

In its three decades as an editorial cartoonist for New Yorker, the Canadian American illustrator contributed over 140 covers to the magazine.

The New Yorker – an American publication with journalism, comment, fiction and satire – turns 100 this year. Together with his written pieces, the New Yorker became worldly renowned for his illustrations and political cartoons.

Support for editorial animated cartoons is in decline in recent years, with high -profile comic book departures such as Ann Telnaes of the Washington Post e The Halifax Chronicle Herald’s Michael de Adder.

In 2019, the New York Times stopped managing editorial cartoons completely.

Barry Blitt spoke to The Sunday magazine It hosts Piya Chattopadhyay on the challenges that face editorial cartoonists and how to find humor in humor.

Political cartoonists often get their best ideas from the absurdity of politics. Are you a Canadian and you are an American – from your point of view as an illustrator, how are you looking at this strange moment between our two countries?

It is impossible to look away; It is like the proverbial train disaster. I don’t watch any political TV. I can’t stand it even in the best case. Every time I read something online it is really depressing. I am just filling my notebook of anger and absurdity, in essence.

Ok, so let’s enter that notebook. If I had to draw an illustration of this relationship tense right now between Canada and the United States, what could you create?

Oh, only many angry Trump drawings – Trump was attacked by alci and geese. I am a little insensitive with everything I’m putting down. I feel a lot of anger and I am very tempted to go back (in Canada). I moved (to New York) at the end of 1989. I suppose that in Russia a cartoonist cannot draw Putin’s bad drawings. I don’t know if this will extend here. He will be worrying for someone in my position to attract Trump and his sequel. It is a very uncertain moment for me and for many people.

Three decades are a lot of time to draw cartoons at the top of your game, not only in New Yorker, but many high -profile magazines. When you walk next to an newsstand and see your coverage there, what is the feeling you feel?

Just to stop right there – I haven’t seen a newsstand for a long time.

When I moved here and when I lived in Toronto and Montreal, there were shops full of magazines. It was very intoxicating for an illustrator to examine all the work that was published. There were so many places that I could still try to sell my things. This was really reduced, so few magazines remained.

I am very grateful that the New Yorker is going well and that they publish my things. It is electrifying to make a New York cover; I think I have done perhaps over 140 of them. It is still incredibly unnerving to obtain the call. As for its publication, I invariably regret the visual decisions I made. This is how it always goes.

So when you sit down to make a coverage, what are you thinking about?

I’m just trying to make me laugh. There are some topics for which I want to refer and find good metaphors. A beautiful metaphor that makes you look at a situation differently. Basically I am trying not to inhibit too much and to scribble and exploit myself from a situation that annoys me or interest me in some way. Sometimes an idea opens and think “how did it happen?”

You won the Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for “the work that skews the personalities and policies that emanates from the White House of Trump with deceptively sweet watercolor style and apparently delicate caricatures”. How did you see that duality?

I described my graphic style as aggressive passive. I would like to be able to skewer with a clearer pen and hard caricatures. I love the caricature work of Steve Broadner, Phillip Burke or Robert Grossman. There have been many caricaturists who are purple in their graphic style. I try it and simply don’t go out well. It seems that I am screaming when it is more comfortable for me to suggest it with a moderate voice.

We are talking about one of your covers that has achieved a certain repercussions. You depicted Barack and Michelle Obama Fist that hit – people had many opinions on it. Tell me about what inspired that cartoon and the problems that people have had with it?

When Senator Barack Obama was running for the first time for the president, there was so much allusions in the air on him, and obviously a lot was racist. When Barack and Michelle Fist hit each other, they called him a “terrorist fist” on Fox News. It seemed a fun idea to describe everything they were saying and highlight how absurd it was. So that’s what I did. I designed Barack Obama as a secret Muslim and there was innovation on the fact that Michelle was a black panther. So I designed all this – and I designed an American flag in the fireplace.

Many people have not had the joke and therefore it was accepted badly. Jon Stewart The Daily Show An editorial about it and said, is it just a cartoon, why are we going crazy? And this seemed to lower the temperature. But the first two days in which he came out were a little shocking for a passive-aggressive cartoonist like me.

Many people have difficulty finding a laugh in all seriousness and tension of the world. Why is it important for us to find humor in things that often seem without humor?

It is just a way to face horrible things. I am not a philosopher or a psychologist, but the easiest way to face me heavy things is to find a way to laugh. It is a way to reduce something that seems enormous and overwhelming. It is a coping mechanism in practice – and a laugh is pure. If someone is laughing at a drawing, it is a reaction to something real.