Latest / Draw Me Anything with Jason Chatfield / DMA#39: Diagon Alley for Pen Nibs, A Crosshatching Masterclass, and the 5-Line Rule with KAL!

Transcript

DMA#39: Diagon Alley for Pen Nibs, A Crosshatching Masterclass, and the 5-Line Rule with KAL! · Draw Me Anything with Jason Chatfield

0:00
Well,
0:01
we've got almost 50 people in,
0:02
so we may as well officially kick off.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: Welcome, everybody.
0:05
SPEAKER_01: You're all taking your seats.
0:07
SPEAKER_01: I know there's still people shuffling in, so come on in.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: Get comfortable.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: This is another edition of Draw Me Anything.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: For those of you who are the first time, my name is Jason Chatfield.
0:17
SPEAKER_01: I'm a cartoonist and comedian living in New York City,
0:20
SPEAKER_01: and I have a substat called New York Cartoons.
0:22
And my guest today is a repeat guest,
0:24
one of my favorite people in the world to talk to.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: Kev Kalaher.
0:27
He's one of these extraordinarily prolific cartoonists who I
0:35
think the last time we
0:37
SPEAKER_01: spoke,
0:39
I can't remember if it was when we were in Baltimore or having
0:42
lunch or if it was
0:43
SPEAKER_01: on one of these,
0:44
SPEAKER_01: but...
0:44
SPEAKER_01: I remember just thinking, God, I could just talk your ear off for hours.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: You've got so many stories and experience.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Cal.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: We were just talking about the fact that you have this outlet.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: You're a political cartoonist and you have been for many, many years.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: You've seen these cycles,
1:01
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:02
SPEAKER_01: some cycles come and go and others have a new sort of spin on them.
1:07
I looked through your collection of cartoons that you gifted me
1:10
and I noticed some
1:11
SPEAKER_01: very familiar patterns in there and then some not.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: So I want to kind of talk to you about that.
1:18
We continue the conversation we're having about the fact that
1:20
it's getting
1:22
SPEAKER_01: difficult to reconcile some of this stuff.
1:24
You know,
1:25
you get a little stir crazy,
1:27
you know,
1:28
working through it in your head.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: Well,
1:30
SPEAKER_00: also,
1:31
SPEAKER_00: particularly for someone like yourself,
1:33
SPEAKER_00: and I guess in some ways like me,
1:35
SPEAKER_00: when you're a foreign national here,
1:37
SPEAKER_00: or,
1:38
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:38
SPEAKER_00: you spend a lot of time abroad,
1:41
SPEAKER_00: and the picture of America being seen through the vision of Trump,
1:46
SPEAKER_00: and Trump's this choice of war and so on,
1:48
SPEAKER_00: and because so much of the rest of the world is deeply impacted by this,
1:53
SPEAKER_00: and then they look to America and say,
1:55
SPEAKER_00: why did you get this guy?
1:57
SPEAKER_00: How did we get here?
1:58
SPEAKER_00: How did you get here?
2:00
SPEAKER_00: And then when they explore that even further, they say, you're nuts.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: You're all nuts.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: And so you can easily understand how they might come to that conclusion,
2:09
SPEAKER_00: but then you feel also obliged to...
2:12
SPEAKER_00: And make folks understand, well, guess what?
2:15
SPEAKER_00: Not everybody here likes them.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you know, hundreds of millions of people don't like this too.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, we have this crazy system that has gotten us here.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of it needs to be changed.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: But we're in this terrible.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: And we're suffering.
2:32
I don't think we're going to be suffering as badly as other
2:34
people are going to be
2:35
SPEAKER_00: suffering because of this.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
2:38
I really liked,
2:39
you and I were just talking earlier about Bush and the
2:45
craziness of that.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm kind of nostalgic for that now, are you?
2:49
SPEAKER_01: The innocence of Bush Jr.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: The Freedom Friars incident and how over there was sort of like,
2:56
SPEAKER_01: how the hell could you vote for this guy?
2:58
SPEAKER_01: How did you let this happen?
3:00
SPEAKER_01: What were you saying about the number of people in France?
3:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, so I was at a cartoon festival that year.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in Brittany.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in Brittany.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to remember the name of the town.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: Carkafoo, Little Tiny Village.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Carkafoo, right.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they had Red Dead.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's right.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: And you were there once.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: I did.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: So they had this forum talking about America, cartoons and so on.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: And this was like weeks into the conflict.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: And there was a very...
3:32
angry French audience peppering me with all sorts of questions
3:37
about what's going
3:38
SPEAKER_00: on in America,
3:38
SPEAKER_00: how to do this,
3:39
SPEAKER_00: all this sort of thing.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: And at one point I said to him,
3:41
SPEAKER_00: look,
3:41
SPEAKER_00: I just want everyone to know that more people voted against George W.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: Bush
3:49
SPEAKER_00: then live in France.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
3:51
SPEAKER_00: So they give you just some sort of idea.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: And people don't understand this.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: It's a really big country, you know?
3:58
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
3:59
SPEAKER_00: I think it's also their emotions are fueled.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: and I'm sure you understand this from your experience in Australia,
4:08
SPEAKER_00: by stories about crazy things that go on in America,
4:12
SPEAKER_00: you know,
4:12
SPEAKER_00: small things,
4:13
SPEAKER_00: small town stuff,
4:16
SPEAKER_00: included bigger stuff where everybody hears,
4:18
but they can easily put together a whole publication of just
4:22
crazy stuff going on
4:23
SPEAKER_00: in America last week.
4:24
Now,
4:25
there's,
4:25
of course,
4:26
writers in America who make money just doing that.
4:29
But when you live here,
4:30
you understand that that's kind of in proportional,
4:33
you know,
4:33
that's
4:33
SPEAKER_00: You never have witnessed it in your own life.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Those things don't really happen.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: But when you have 300-plus million people, crazy stuff's going to happen.
4:41
But it means that it paints a distorted picture for people
4:44
outside of just how mad it is.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a funhouse mirror, right?
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
4:51
Some folks who do wouldn't come to America because they thought
4:54
it was too dangerous,
4:55
right?
4:55
SPEAKER_00: And of course, it is.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: There's the parts of America damage,
4:58
SPEAKER_00: but,
4:58
SPEAKER_00: you know,
4:59
SPEAKER_00: most of America is not slightly bit dangerous.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: It's true.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the thing is, it's hard to argue because, yes, there is a truth.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: There's a sort of grain of truth in all of it where it's like,
5:08
SPEAKER_01: yes,
5:09
there are parts of America that are dangerous and there are
5:11
crazy things happening
5:12
in Minnesota and there are crazy things happening here and on
5:14
the border in Canada.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: And,
5:16
SPEAKER_01: you know,
5:16
I have friends in Australia who have cancelled trips that they
5:19
had planned for
5:20
SPEAKER_01: America.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: And my sister came over for a road trip last year in July,
5:25
SPEAKER_01: in the summer,
5:26
and she was petrified that she was going to get turned around
5:28
at the border because
5:30
SPEAKER_01: of social media.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: She had to get a burner phone and
5:37
SPEAKER_01: Like you say,
5:37
SPEAKER_01: they're looking at it through the prism of the news,
5:40
SPEAKER_01: the certain writing,
5:41
the sort of funhouse mirror thing where they're just getting
5:42
the bad stories
5:43
SPEAKER_01: because those are newsworthy.
5:45
And I always wonder how you...
5:46
Because you have a very level-headed approach.
5:48
I think you and I think Patrick...
5:53
We were just talking about this the other day.
5:55
I was having dinner with Anne the other day and we were talking
5:57
about your work on
5:58
SPEAKER_01: Substack and how you have...
6:00
I don't know where you get your news and I'd be curious to see
6:03
where you're
6:04
SPEAKER_01: curating your sort of information diet,
6:07
SPEAKER_01: but you seem to have a pretty even keel on...
6:11
SPEAKER_01: The story,
6:13
SPEAKER_01: you have a,
6:14
SPEAKER_01: for whatever reason,
6:16
the facts of the story get distorted from different outlets
6:19
based on whatever their
6:20
SPEAKER_01: biases are,
6:21
but you seem to have created this clear-headed truth from this
6:27
amalgam of different
6:30
SPEAKER_01: news sources.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: How are you getting your news and not having this funhouse mirror effect?
6:35
SPEAKER_00: You should see the inside of my brain.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: Um,
6:40
SPEAKER_00: well,
6:40
SPEAKER_00: I think that,
6:40
SPEAKER_00: um,
6:41
SPEAKER_00: the training that I,
6:42
SPEAKER_00: um,
6:43
SPEAKER_00: or the discipline that I've evolved over time was,
6:47
SPEAKER_00: I think largely instilled in my decade,
6:49
SPEAKER_00: um,
6:50
SPEAKER_00: living in the UK where,
6:52
SPEAKER_00: uh,
6:53
SPEAKER_00: you know,
6:53
SPEAKER_00: uh,
6:54
SPEAKER_00: you come in as an outsider like yourself to,
6:57
SPEAKER_00: to a culture.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: And, um,
7:00
You start looking around,
7:01
you see sort of the craziness that's happening.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: But what's different for you as the outsider,
7:08
SPEAKER_00: for the people that are the citizens that live there,
7:11
SPEAKER_00: is that you can see the idiocy on that side.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: And you can see the idiocy on that side.
7:15
You can criticize that side,
7:17
criticize that side,
7:18
and not feel like you're betraying your tribe.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Right.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: You have none of these deep rooted attachments to those experiences.
7:26
And so suddenly you get it's kind of a little bit of a
7:29
privileged position because
7:32
SPEAKER_00: you get a little clear eyed view of what's going on.
7:35
Furthermore,
7:36
at that distance,
7:38
it gave me a more more distinct and clear eyed view of America.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: So every time I would go back to America,
7:46
SPEAKER_00: I'd see it a little bit different,
7:47
SPEAKER_00: see it with different perspective,
7:49
SPEAKER_00: a little bit in more experienced eyes or maybe more critical,
7:53
SPEAKER_00: whatever.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: Come back to UK, get another view of that.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: And this,
7:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
7:57
SPEAKER_00: over decades going,
7:58
SPEAKER_00: you know,
7:58
SPEAKER_00: or years going back and forth,
8:00
SPEAKER_00: boy,
8:00
SPEAKER_00: you really get that reservoir.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: So you get that bit of critical criticism of one's own opinions.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: You sort of say, yes, I think this.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: You go, well, you know what?
8:11
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first thing.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: But second thing, I read The Economist, right?
8:17
SPEAKER_00: The Economist is amazing for their critical thinking.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: They're absorbing different arguments, you know, making their reasoned
8:30
SPEAKER_00: assessment of whether those are good or bad arguments.
8:33
But it's just such a delight to be in a place where there is
8:37
real candid and smart
8:38
SPEAKER_00: people discussing important issues.
8:41
And what I love about The Economist today,
8:42
it's not just a weekly magazine like it was
8:46
SPEAKER_00: nearly 50 years ago when I joined it.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: But now they have this kind of full array of media possibilities.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: So they have a daily radio show.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: It's about 25 minutes long.
8:57
They have these great podcast series,
9:00
maybe 10 or 11 of them,
9:01
some of them award-winning series.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Great stuff.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: The journalists are all doing this stuff live,
9:06
SPEAKER_00: and they're really smart and really,
9:08
SPEAKER_00: I think I'm surprised because I know most of them,
9:11
SPEAKER_00: how comfortable they are.
9:15
Before,
9:15
they were comfortable in front of the radio,
9:16
but now cameras are getting comfortable.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: I can't say enough good things about The Economist.
9:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's interesting.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: And I guess The Economist is a fascinating,
9:27
SPEAKER_01: kind of in the way The Wall Street Journal is in that,
9:31
SPEAKER_01: Rather than it being like a tabloid or even a broadsheet,
9:37
SPEAKER_01: it's a traditional sort of left-wing broadsheet newspaper.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: It's its own thing.
9:43
SPEAKER_01: It feels like it's its own thing.
9:44
SPEAKER_01: The Economist has always been its own...
9:46
thing and and and the stories instead of it just like churning
9:50
out breaking news
9:51
all the time as the story is developing it's had time to come
9:55
together and get the
9:56
facts and fact check and then go all right there's an entire
9:58
context now here's the
9:59
actual story um in its in its you know fullness rather than
10:04
just like these scraps
10:05
SPEAKER_01: and bits and pieces throughout the day um
10:09
I'm really fascinated by your work,
10:10
and we've had a lot more people join since we started.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: So by the way, I'm talking to Kev Callagher on St.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: Patrick's Day, of course.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: Hey, hey, Kevin Patrick Callagher.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Kevin Patrick Callagher, I'll tell you.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: Kevin St.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: Patrick Callagher from Baltimore.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: Long-time cartoonist, over five decades now at The Economist, right?
10:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, coming up, actually, I think two years' time is my fifth year.
10:34
And I will announce it here that we're planning a 50th
10:40
retrospective exhibition
10:41
SPEAKER_00: that hopefully with luck it will tour.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: So anybody's got museums that they want to see my
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Cartoons in, you'll let us know.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: Yes, absolutely.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: That's so exciting.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: We'll have to get the Society of Illustrators here to do something.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: Ah, that'd be fun.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: That'd be great.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: The big Museum of Cartoon and Comic Art,
10:58
SPEAKER_01: that whole wall,
10:59
SPEAKER_01: we could do a retrospective of all your work.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: That'd be really cool.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: We should talk to them.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's talk.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: That's exciting.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: That's really exciting.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: Because it's such a,
11:09
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:09
SPEAKER_01: cartooning is such an interesting job because,
11:11
SPEAKER_01: and I think I spoke to Jim Borgman about this,
11:14
SPEAKER_01: because it's one of those jobs that,
11:16
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:16
SPEAKER_01: where people change careers,
11:18
SPEAKER_01: depending on the generation.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
11:21
SPEAKER_01: People change careers several times throughout their lives depending on,
11:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:25
what industries kind of ebb and flow and some people pivot and
11:30
go to something
11:31
SPEAKER_01: else.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: But the cartoonists really stick at it for pretty much their whole life.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, once they're in it,
11:37
they they don't stop it's it's a it's a not it's kind of a
11:41
compulsion it's like you
11:42
can't not do it um you know could they say cartoonist died the
11:45
drawing board
11:46
because we don't really retire i mean we can and some have but
11:50
uh you know it's
11:51
it's one of those things that just like uniquely people stay in
11:55
it for a very long
11:56
SPEAKER_01: time we're lucky in that sense that we have that but
11:58
you in particular have had this extraordinarily um the breadth
12:03
of your career has
12:03
been incredible from fleet street all the way to you know to
12:06
now and i think i
12:10
learned so much more from people like you and jim when he's
12:13
working at the cincy
12:14
inquirer and and and telnese and um and some of these other
12:18
cartoonists uh michael
12:19
SPEAKER_01: the adder and um uh
12:22
SPEAKER_01: God,
12:22
SPEAKER_01: there's so many great editorial cartoonists that I,
12:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
12:26
SPEAKER_01: I've sort of gleaned so much insight from that you all kind of,
12:31
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
12:33
SPEAKER_01: you can read all the books you want,
12:35
you can go to SVA or SCAD or CalArts or whatever and do all
12:39
these courses,
12:39
SPEAKER_01: but you really learn the most,
12:41
SPEAKER_01: I think,
12:42
SPEAKER_01: from talking to and studying the work
12:45
SPEAKER_01: of great artists that you admire.
12:47
SPEAKER_01: I think you learn a lot.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, so it was a real pleasure going through your book.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: I really sat down and made a day of it.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: It was really nice.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's so cool.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: Any favorite cartoons?
12:58
There were a few in there and I'm going to send them to you
13:00
because I took some
13:00
SPEAKER_01: photos on my phone.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: And the thing,
13:03
SPEAKER_01: and I want to talk to you about this because,
13:06
SPEAKER_01: and as anyone who hasn't been on one of these before,
13:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:10
about halfway through we flip the camera and I draw while we're
13:14
chatting and
13:15
SPEAKER_01: Oh, we're both going to be drawing.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: We're both going to be drawing.
13:19
SPEAKER_01: Because you're an extraordinary draftsman.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the things that jumped out at me in the book was the
13:24
draftsmanship and also your ability to use analogies and
13:28
similes and symbolism.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: Because cartoons have the luxury...
13:34
SPEAKER_01: I guess comedians do as well in a way,
13:35
SPEAKER_01: but,
13:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:36
SPEAKER_01: cartoonists,
13:36
we have this luxury of being able to analogize and to be able
13:38
to explain complex
13:43
SPEAKER_01: issues and stories through using symbolism and to a degree,
13:49
SPEAKER_01: cliche and things that might make it a little,
13:53
SPEAKER_01: without being reductive,
13:54
SPEAKER_01: make it a little more digestible,
13:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:58
SPEAKER_01: and you're extraordinary that you have this great vocabulary for that.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: One of the challenges,
14:04
SPEAKER_00: of course,
14:04
with The Economist being as a global publication that can be
14:07
read across so many
14:08
SPEAKER_00: different cultures is hopefully finding metaphors and similes,
14:13
SPEAKER_00: as you described,
14:14
SPEAKER_00: that are going to be understandable by lots of different places.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: So, for example, you won't use a cricket metaphor in The Economist.
14:22
It would be great in England and Australia and India,
14:25
but not in the U.S.,
14:26
right?
14:26
SPEAKER_00: So you have to find things that have some global communication.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
14:32
SPEAKER_01: I guess that's also the consideration is that any esoteric,
14:35
SPEAKER_01: any local references wouldn't really cross the Pacific.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: I got a note, Andrea Staffeld here, Tom Toll is one of my favorites.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: I think you and I, did you know Paul Rigby?
14:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I never met him.
14:55
He's the Australian chap who then came to New York a little bit
14:57
like yourself,
14:58
right?
14:59
SPEAKER_01: He did, yeah.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
14:59
SPEAKER_01: he started out in...
15:01
SPEAKER_01: He's born in Melbourne,
15:02
SPEAKER_01: but he started out in Perth,
15:03
SPEAKER_01: in my hometown.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: And I studied his work pretty comprehensively when I was coming up.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: That was kind of how I learned editorial cartooning.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: Bill Mitchell, Paul Rigby, Pat Oliphant, of course, all Aussies.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: And they had, like you, they had this capacity to sort of build out...
15:23
SPEAKER_01: Sort of direct the eye around an image,
15:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
15:25
SPEAKER_01: using composition and solids and negative space,
15:29
SPEAKER_01: but also just telling a story,
15:31
SPEAKER_01: drawing the eye around,
15:32
SPEAKER_01: telling a story.
15:34
SPEAKER_01: And Paul, eventually Paul Rigby came to New York.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: He was working at the Daily News and then the Post.
15:39
His son at one point,
15:41
Bay Rigby,
15:42
was working at the Post while he was living with Paul.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: I remember.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: That was like, how long the period was that?
15:49
SPEAKER_00: They were both competing with each other.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: A decade, maybe?
15:52
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't that long.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: It was maybe like... A couple years.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: Eight, I don't know, six, seven years, something like that.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't long enough for it to be like a crazy, you know, rivalry.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: But Bay was living with them, with Marlene and Paul.
16:05
And there was a story of Bay was working at the kitchen on the
16:08
counter and doing
16:09
SPEAKER_01: his cartoon for the New York Daily News.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: And then Paul was in his studio doing his cartoon for The Post.
16:15
And he'd wander out to have his,
16:17
you know,
16:17
morning vodka and orange juice.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: And I kind of lean over at Bay and go, eh, okay.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: I just kind of mess with his head.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's so funny.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: It's so funny.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: And now for the people that don't know these two characters,
16:32
SPEAKER_00: what that's so interesting,
16:33
SPEAKER_00: when you and I discussed the word cartoon,
16:36
SPEAKER_00: the listeners have a whole range of ideas of what that could mean,
16:39
SPEAKER_00: right?
16:39
SPEAKER_00: They could be really simple ones.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: They could be, you know, complicated.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: It could be comic strips, all this type of thing.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Well,
16:46
I'll just describe quickly these two guys and you can help me
16:48
out a little bit to
16:49
SPEAKER_00: fill the void,
16:50
SPEAKER_00: right?
16:50
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, they were given a half a page on the tabloid, right?
16:55
SPEAKER_00: So they're given an enormous space, probably three times.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: On the editor,
16:59
SPEAKER_00: probably,
17:00
SPEAKER_00: you know,
17:00
SPEAKER_00: three times the size of my cartoon appears in The Economist book,
17:03
SPEAKER_00: you know,
17:03
SPEAKER_00: it's really big.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: But they didn't,
17:06
SPEAKER_00: they,
17:07
it looks like they probably hired 10 people to draw with them
17:11
because they had so
17:12
SPEAKER_00: much stuff they poured in there.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: The cartoons were full of energy.
17:16
I think that's one of the best ways to describe when I looked
17:19
at their work.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: The line had energy, but also the formations.
17:22
And so when you couldn't wait to look at them because it was
17:25
just like entering
17:26
SPEAKER_00: into,
17:27
SPEAKER_00: well,
17:28
SPEAKER_00: a fun house,
17:28
SPEAKER_00: like you described before as a spectacle.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: All this stuff going on.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: And so it was terrifically exciting,
17:35
SPEAKER_00: but a very distinctive Australian look that Pat Oliphant,
17:39
SPEAKER_00: of course,
17:39
SPEAKER_00: introduced to the U.S.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: A few cartoonists in the U.K.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: also did it as well.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: But I always was so impressed.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's still today after being in this profession for decades.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: I look at some of those artwork and they said,
17:55
SPEAKER_00: how did they complete that in six or seven hours?
17:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how they could have done that.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: So they were deeply impressive and I would have loved to have met them.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, they were extraordinary people.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: It's one of those things that once...
18:10
I guess it's the 10,000 hours or it's just muscle memory after
18:13
a certain amount of
18:14
SPEAKER_01: time.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: But watching them work, they were using brush and ink.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: You know, everything was by hand.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: And duo shade board, which... Oh, yeah.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: All kinds of chemical cast engines in their veins.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: But they... I think they just had this very, very loose pencils.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think... I've seen Pat's pencils.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: They're loose.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: But knowing...
18:34
what's in their head and just kind of throwing it on the page
18:37
just very loosely um
18:39
is really fascinating to to see it go from that to the as you
18:42
say the energetic the
18:44
line with with this you know extraordinary detail and paul used
18:48
to hide a little
18:49
urchin boy and his dog in all of his cartoons as well a little
18:52
hidden thing like
18:52
like um elephant with his little pig um but uh yeah i i think
18:57
you know the thing
18:58
that i'm enjoying about your Substack and anyone who hasn't
19:00
subscribed to cal
19:01
SPEAKER_01: Substack uh if you if you're tuning in please please
19:04
SPEAKER_01: Click the subscribe button up at the top left here.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: Subscribe to Cal's Substance.
19:09
SPEAKER_01: He's doing some fantastic work.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: One of the most fascinating things I'm finding is seeing your process.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: Sort of you're sharing your process of how you make your cartoons,
19:18
SPEAKER_01: which is really generous of you to do.
19:19
SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of people are very embarrassed to show.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: It's opening the...
19:25
SPEAKER_01: opening the dressing gown here.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: It's very intimate, you know, seeing your pencils.
19:29
I mean,
19:30
I would never show anyone my pencils unless I was kind of proud
19:33
of them,
19:33
you know.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to talk about that for a while?
19:36
SPEAKER_01: Because your Substack is fantastic.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: How are you finding it all?
19:40
How are you finding Substack in all this,
19:42
you know,
19:42
this new era of
19:46
Well,
19:46
I'm absolutely loving Substack for lots of different reasons.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: One of the first things is that when you ask for subscribers,
19:56
SPEAKER_00: everyone who's listening to this and watching this know,
20:01
SPEAKER_00: that you're asking for them to give you their email address.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Who wants more email?
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants more email, right?
20:10
SPEAKER_00: So if they're going to gift you with their email,
20:14
then it's incumbent upon you as a provider to provide content
20:19
that'll be worthy of
20:20
SPEAKER_00: their click.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: And so that every time you email them,
20:25
SPEAKER_00: they see your name,
20:25
SPEAKER_00: they see the title of your thing there,
20:27
SPEAKER_00: they're going to be inclined to click.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: And when they do open it up, they have to feel rewarded in some ways.
20:33
So you create this interesting bond and connection with those
20:38
who have decided to
20:40
SPEAKER_00: team up with you.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: So for me, it feels like it's Team Cal.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: These people have made a commitment to join me.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: I want to...
20:47
SPEAKER_00: embrace them.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: And then it's also because it can make it long form.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: So suddenly you can actually give some more room around the
21:00
SPEAKER_00: this thing that you've been working on all day,
21:02
SPEAKER_00: but your whole career,
21:03
SPEAKER_00: and be able to share that.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: You know,
21:06
SPEAKER_00: because I'm an older chap,
21:09
SPEAKER_00: I've accumulated,
21:10
SPEAKER_00: I like to think,
21:11
SPEAKER_00: a lot of cartooning wisdom,
21:13
SPEAKER_00: you know,
21:13
SPEAKER_00: stuff that I've learned,
21:14
SPEAKER_00: you know.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, you know, this is the place to share it.
21:18
I'm not going to write an autobiography,
21:21
but then I can just do it piecemeal this way.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: And I think,
21:26
SPEAKER_00: as you said in the opening statement,
21:28
SPEAKER_00: I realized I had lots of stories in this game.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: And they're fun stories.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: I want to share them.
21:35
And,
21:36
of course,
21:36
if anything,
21:37
if I should stop drawing tomorrow,
21:40
those stories go.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: So this is a great opportunity to do things like that.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, you're teaching people is what I feel.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: It's sort of, you've had, as you say, decades of experience.
21:51
And when you're working alone in the studio,
21:54
you're hearing,
21:54
it's your own head.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: You're not necessarily speaking out loud to yourself.
21:57
You have all these ruminations and you have these thoughts and
21:59
ideas that you're
22:00
SPEAKER_01: sort of developing in your head or you're writing them down.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: And you don't really, no one else is really seeing that stuff.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: But that's such valuable information for people who want to learn more.
22:08
how you even do any of this,
22:10
because I think cartooning is such a valuable skill.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: And I think,
22:15
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:15
SPEAKER_01: in this kind of climate where,
22:17
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:17
SPEAKER_01: we're losing a generation of artists to the apathy,
22:23
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:23
SPEAKER_01: of sort of,
22:24
SPEAKER_01: well,
22:24
SPEAKER_01: why would I learn to draw?
22:25
SPEAKER_01: AI is just going to be... I can just churn out an AI.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: Or why would I learn to draw?
22:29
SPEAKER_01: There's no opportunities for artists anymore.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: Why would I bother...
22:31
SPEAKER_01: pouring my time and energy into learning the skill.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: But I think that the value in it isn't just the artistry,
22:37
SPEAKER_01: although that's a big part of it,
22:38
SPEAKER_01: it's the
22:40
SPEAKER_01: It's the medium.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: It's what it can do.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: And it's very unique in that way.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: As you say,
22:44
your cartoons in particular can translate across multiple sort
22:50
of cultures and
22:51
SPEAKER_01: continents.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes when there's a captionless cartoon,
22:54
SPEAKER_01: which I think is like the gold standard of,
22:55
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:56
SPEAKER_01: international cartoons.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: Gold standard.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think my favorite...
23:02
as far as editorial cartoons with captionless,
23:07
you're extraordinary at that.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: But also Sergio Aragones,
23:10
SPEAKER_01: I know he's not a political cartoonist,
23:12
SPEAKER_01: but his ability to do pantomime,
23:16
SPEAKER_01: to tell a story,
23:17
SPEAKER_01: to sell a joke,
23:18
SPEAKER_01: to share an idea,
23:20
SPEAKER_01: it transcends language.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: It's just, it's extraordinary.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: And as I say,
23:25
SPEAKER_01: it's a valuable skill to have,
23:26
SPEAKER_01: especially in a time where ideas are being sort of stomped on.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: You know,
23:32
SPEAKER_01: there's an ideology that,
23:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:36
SPEAKER_01: if it's not in favor,
23:41
SPEAKER_01: then it kind of gets crushed.
23:42
But there are ways to use our medium to sort of circumvent that
23:46
kind of censorship.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: Are you finding in this,
23:49
SPEAKER_01: and I don't want to be too doom and gloom about this,
23:53
SPEAKER_01: but in an era where we have these tiers of
23:59
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to say threat, anxiety, really.
24:03
We have this very authoritarian-style administration starting
24:08
wars on a whim.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: We have AI,
24:11
unregulated AI from companies being developed by people with
24:15
absolutely no moral
24:16
SPEAKER_01: compass.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: And then that's affecting our work,
24:19
SPEAKER_01: that's affecting our industry,
24:20
SPEAKER_01: it's affecting everyone's industry and economies.
24:23
And then you have this other thing here,
24:25
which is kind of just the overarching...
24:28
Social media sort of has exacerbated this sort of extremist
24:34
online disinhibition effect.
24:36
The ability for people to just kind of spew the worst thoughts
24:39
and ideas at each
24:40
SPEAKER_01: other just because they're behind a black screen.
24:45
They would never say the kinds of things they say to each other
24:47
online in person.
24:49
You would never speak to someone like that,
24:51
really,
24:52
unless you're a complete nutbag.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: But there are these three things in concert that are happening,
24:58
and it's really hard to get a handle on sort of just like grip
25:02
onto something
25:02
SPEAKER_01: saying something.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: How are you finding it?
25:05
SPEAKER_01: I'm having a difficult time sort of navigating it.
25:08
SPEAKER_01: How are you finding it?
25:10
SPEAKER_00: Well,
25:10
SPEAKER_00: I guess part of it for me is that,
25:12
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:12
SPEAKER_00: I do have to swim in the swamp of current events,
25:15
SPEAKER_00: right?
25:15
SPEAKER_00: That's the nature of what you do.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: And so I do have at least an outlet when I do my cartoons to,
25:21
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:21
SPEAKER_00: express myself and yell at the paper,
25:24
SPEAKER_00: if you like.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: That is one way.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: But also I think I try to narrowly focus
25:29
SPEAKER_00: my area of consumption.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
25:31
SPEAKER_00: when you're on the web,
25:32
you can easily drift in a thousand directions and also really
25:38
kind of see,
25:39
it explores the darker parts of your brain and you see the
25:42
darker sides of
25:42
SPEAKER_00: humankind.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: And so trying to find those areas where there's more sanity,
25:48
SPEAKER_00: where you understand that there's good stuff going on.
25:51
Now,
25:52
for me,
25:52
it might be because I love fly fishing,
25:53
so I watch fly fishing videos.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: So that's a good way, right?
25:57
but i think that um um it goes back to i think what we're
26:00
discussing before about
26:02
trying to keep some sort of perspective from 30 000 feet
26:05
looking down and um
26:08
drifting and pulling yourself up and sort of said part of the
26:11
vision well we've
26:11
been kind of here before you know what's the big picture now
26:15
i'm still thinking the
26:16
SPEAKER_00: big picture a lot of it relies on what goes on in november
26:20
Because it's hard to say that there's an underlying deep shift
26:25
away from the MAGA
26:27
SPEAKER_00: movement,
26:27
SPEAKER_00: but there probably is.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
26:29
SPEAKER_00: if you see the numbers where they are,
26:31
SPEAKER_00: I don't think they're going to recover very quickly from this war.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the wars like to go on for at least another month or not longer.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: And so people are angry and pissed,
26:40
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:41
and so at least the stop sign and they'll be stopped in the mud
26:46
by November.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: What happens next is a whole other thing.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: But it does give me,
26:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm a half,
26:52
SPEAKER_00: glass,
26:52
SPEAKER_00: half full kind of guy,
26:54
SPEAKER_00: gives me some hope that there will be change.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: Second thing is meeting other people who give you hope.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: You know,
27:03
SPEAKER_00: maybe it's not just colleagues,
27:04
SPEAKER_00: but,
27:05
SPEAKER_00: you know,
27:05
SPEAKER_00: young people who are still hopeful in this environment.
27:08
I love chatting with,
27:10
a week or so ago,
27:12
Substack Live that I had.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: with Catherine Woodman Maynard,
27:19
SPEAKER_00: who is a cartoonist in Minneapolis,
27:23
SPEAKER_00: who actually was a graphic novelist,
27:26
SPEAKER_00: non-political character.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: Things started happening in Minneapolis.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: Renee Goode was shot a mile or two from her house.
27:35
And of course,
27:36
when you live in Minneapolis,
27:37
it's all on everybody's night.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: So G organized this thing,
27:41
SPEAKER_00: I think it's called Comics for Change or something,
27:44
where they got a whole bunch of comic artists starting in
27:48
Minneapolis to do a
27:50
SPEAKER_00: four-panel commentary in a comic form about what they're seeing there.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: And we then expanded.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: I think they got a thousand entries from around the world.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: And so it was like, it was, you know, shh.
28:04
Just showing,
28:05
to me,
28:06
gives me hope when folks see something happening,
28:10
act.
28:10
The whole scenario would happen in Minneapolis gave me hope for
28:13
the possibility of
28:15
SPEAKER_00: what can change here.
28:16
So I guess those sort of things help me come to grips with some
28:21
of the absolute
28:22
SPEAKER_00: craziness that's going on.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
28:24
So that was called Comics for Change,
28:27
and her name...
28:28
It was Catherine Woodward-Maynard.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Right.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: Some people in the...
28:37
SPEAKER_01: Sorry,
28:37
in the chat we're asking about some of these names and if we're
28:40
going to list them
28:40
SPEAKER_01: at the end.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: Yes,
28:43
I always listen back to these episodes and then I write up a
28:46
recap of everything we
28:47
spoke about and I list the people we spoke about just in case
28:50
you want to go and
28:51
SPEAKER_01: look at their work.
28:51
So that usually comes out about a day after because it takes me
28:55
a minute to do this.
28:57
SPEAKER_01: Yes,
28:57
SPEAKER_01: anyone watching who wants to look up these people,
28:59
SPEAKER_01: Paul Rigby Bay,
28:59
SPEAKER_01: Rigby,
29:00
SPEAKER_01: Catherine Woodman Maynard.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: I want to flip the camera in a second.
29:07
SPEAKER_01: I also want to just address,
29:11
SPEAKER_01: someone just said,
29:13
SPEAKER_01: Kevin,
29:14
can you comment on the extent in which the right wing has been
29:17
running a meme war
29:18
SPEAKER_01: and how cartoons like yours fit in?
29:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that's a really interesting question.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: Partly the success of any meme war, if you like, is who they're going to.
29:32
In other words,
29:33
memes are often a way to feed your own forces and get them
29:38
riled up and excited.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: But it's about trying to change people's minds and trying to
29:43
affect the way people see things that's a whole nother game one
29:45
of the things
29:46
that's interesting you know the question was saying well how
29:48
does it affect you
29:49
know what i do is that i i think that there's a fundamental
29:54
difference between a
29:55
meme and a political cartoon um particularly when the political
29:59
cartoons are done
30:00
SPEAKER_00: well and that is the political cartoon is signed
30:04
SPEAKER_00: And so it's a human being.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: You know it's a human being.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: So many memes just look.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: Who knows who did them, right?
30:11
SPEAKER_00: They're constructed by something or somebody or AI or whatever.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: And so while they're eye candy and they're really good in that way,
30:19
SPEAKER_00: but if you want to make a connection,
30:20
SPEAKER_00: people look at a cartoon.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: They may not like it, but they know there's a human.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: And in this time of increasing
30:26
SPEAKER_00: detachment and a digital takeover of our eyes,
30:32
SPEAKER_00: that when people see something that is hand-drawn,
30:35
SPEAKER_00: it stands out completely.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: And part of the reason why,
30:38
SPEAKER_00: this is my theory,
30:40
SPEAKER_00: Jason,
30:40
SPEAKER_00: is why I love your work and why your work to me is so successful.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: It is drawn by somebody's hand.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: It's so distinctive.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: It cannot be
30:50
SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't smell at all of any computers involved.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: And it's got life.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: Your line has got life.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: It's got energy.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: It's got smarts.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: It's also got cheeky.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
31:03
SPEAKER_00: you just got a lot of these that seem just so human,
31:05
just feels human while everybody else or everywhere else seems
31:10
to be taken over by
31:12
SPEAKER_00: the bots.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Digital, right.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I'm finding... Thank you, by the way.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: That's very kind of you to say.
31:16
SPEAKER_01: I work very hard at trying to...
31:20
SPEAKER_01: sort of show as much of myself through my work as I can,
31:23
SPEAKER_01: be as vulnerable,
31:24
SPEAKER_01: but as human,
31:26
SPEAKER_01: sort of keeping in the imperfections,
31:27
SPEAKER_01: keeping in the wobbly line,
31:28
SPEAKER_01: keeping in the idea...
31:33
SPEAKER_01: that this is something we make,
31:37
SPEAKER_01: that we are practiced at,
31:39
SPEAKER_01: that it's a skill that we developed,
31:40
SPEAKER_01: but it's something very,
31:41
SPEAKER_01: very,
31:42
SPEAKER_01: as you said,
31:42
SPEAKER_01: it's very human.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: And there was a comment on,
31:45
SPEAKER_01: you know,
31:45
SPEAKER_01: Alex,
31:45
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know Alex Hallett,
31:47
SPEAKER_01: British cartoonist.
31:48
SPEAKER_01: She's in the UK now, was living in New Zealand, in Melbourne.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: We met in Australia.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: We were talking about...
31:55
SPEAKER_01: this idea of,
31:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
31:57
SPEAKER_01: because we're not Luddites,
31:59
we realize that there are tools and software and AI and all
32:03
these things that can
32:03
SPEAKER_01: make our life easier.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: You know,
32:04
SPEAKER_01: there's Photoshop for coloring,
32:06
SPEAKER_01: there's,
32:07
SPEAKER_01: and,
32:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:08
SPEAKER_01: and fixing up,
32:09
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:09
SPEAKER_01: bad scans and things like that,
32:11
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:11
SPEAKER_01: just cleaning up work or using,
32:13
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:14
the Adobe Firefly to kind of fix a background or remove a
32:18
background or just little
32:20
SPEAKER_01: bits and pieces that make life a bit easier.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: But ultimately,
32:24
SPEAKER_01: the work itself should feel like it's coming from a human.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: It should have its own voice, really.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: And there was a comment
32:33
SPEAKER_01: on one of our reels on Instagram of us discussing this,
32:36
SPEAKER_01: where someone said,
32:37
SPEAKER_01: and I'll be interested to get your take on this.
32:39
Someone said,
32:40
I have all these ideas for cartoons and I've written them all,
32:43
but I can't draw.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: So I've used AI to draw the cartoons.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: And he said, well, I would love to collaborate with a cartoonist.
32:50
I just,
32:51
you know,
32:51
I think it's quicker for me to just use these AI generated.
32:55
SPEAKER_01: And as Paul Nez just says in the comments here,
32:59
SPEAKER_01: AI is to creativity as human centipede is to find cuisine.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: Let's not have the human centipede references here.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Paul.
33:08
SPEAKER_01: But I sort of, she said, listen, everyone can draw.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of people stop is the truth.
33:18
A lot of people stop as a kid if they see the other kids in the
33:20
class drawing better than them.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: They sort of go, oh, I can't draw because that kid draws better than me.
33:26
Or they just think,
33:27
oh,
33:28
I can't get the idea from my head to my hand on the page.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: It's a very difficult thing to do.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: But it's worth learning.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: It's worth,
33:35
SPEAKER_01: for the human element of getting an idea onto a page using your voice,
33:39
SPEAKER_01: your style,
33:40
SPEAKER_01: your creativity,
33:41
SPEAKER_01: rather than just plugging it into some bot,
33:43
SPEAKER_01: some AI platform.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: To create,
33:46
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:46
SPEAKER_01: let's be honest,
33:47
probably a pretty generic image that's not really going to
33:50
connect regardless of
33:51
SPEAKER_01: how good the writing is.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: And,
33:54
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:54
SPEAKER_01: he said,
33:55
SPEAKER_01: by that measure,
33:57
you should just start asking film producers to learn how to
34:00
direct an act.
34:04
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, that analogy doesn't really work.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: But I don't know, what's your take on this?
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, it is kind of the direction things have gone, as we know.
34:13
I like what I like,
34:16
and I completely agree,
34:18
your notice about how everybody can draw.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: It's like, I think it's etched in our DNA.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: It's like a language that we've all let atrophy.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: And it's around six, I think, that you've got to write.
34:31
Everybody can draw at age six,
34:33
and then they sort of stop for a variety of reasons.
34:35
So – and we're all – all those who aren't doing it are missing
34:40
out on this great opportunity.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: And as you say, it's just easier to kind of press a button.
34:45
And I think that's going to be a challenge for the entire
34:48
society that when
34:49
SPEAKER_00: everything can be made better by pressing a button,
34:52
when understanding that the value of life is built into
34:55
experience and doing
34:56
SPEAKER_00: things.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: And so that's – there's that bigger picture that kind of happens.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, I –
35:03
SPEAKER_00: I think,
35:03
SPEAKER_00: and I think you know,
35:05
SPEAKER_00: Jason,
35:05
that there's a lot of cartoonists who've been in our field over
35:08
the decades who
35:10
SPEAKER_00: could be,
35:11
SPEAKER_00: their work is,
35:13
SPEAKER_00: because it's average,
35:14
SPEAKER_00: it's easily replaceable,
35:16
SPEAKER_00: right?
35:16
SPEAKER_00: It's not distinctive.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: It's very formulaic or whatever.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: And so you can understand how,
35:23
SPEAKER_00: you know,
35:24
SPEAKER_00: if something comes in,
35:25
SPEAKER_00: you know,
35:25
SPEAKER_00: like the Photoshop,
35:26
SPEAKER_00: like when photocopies came in and things,
35:28
SPEAKER_00: it's easy for people to copy these.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: It's all about the creative idea,
35:33
SPEAKER_00: as you point out,
35:34
SPEAKER_00: but also giving that a drawing that's got personality.
35:38
So if this person wants to put out something that not just has
35:41
got their head in
35:42
SPEAKER_00: it,
35:42
SPEAKER_00: but it's got their voice.
35:43
fingerprints in it's got their handwriting in it that gives it
35:47
a much more value to
35:48
them and it also makes it a much more appealing to other people
35:52
but that's a little
35:53
more work and maybe we're in a world where people don't want to
35:57
do as much work
35:58
well speaking of working by hand why don't what do you say we
36:01
flip this camera and
36:03
uh and start scribbling away what do you say let's do let's
36:05
scribble man let's
36:06
SPEAKER_00: scribble let me get my camera my my shut up here
36:10
SPEAKER_01: We had, Hugh Walker said, if you can make a K or a G, you can draw.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
36:15
SPEAKER_01: That's good.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
36:21
SPEAKER_01: I should say that if you have any requests,
36:23
SPEAKER_01: by the way,
36:23
SPEAKER_01: of things that you might like to see drawn,
36:25
SPEAKER_01: by all means,
36:26
SPEAKER_01: put them in the comments.
36:28
SPEAKER_01: James made a comment earlier.
36:31
SPEAKER_01: It's a little off topic, James.
36:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: You're going to have to forgive us not getting into the weeds of the
36:35
SPEAKER_01: Israel-Palestine-Iran conflict and all of the nuances therein.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: That's really not what we're talking about right now.
36:41
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about drawing by hand.
36:43
SPEAKER_01: I hope that's okay that we don't dive into that.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to talk to you about,
36:48
SPEAKER_01: and if you will indulge me,
36:50
SPEAKER_01: you are,
36:51
SPEAKER_01: in my mind,
36:51
SPEAKER_01: one of the best craftsmen and artists.
36:57
SPEAKER_01: who knows how and when to use crosshatching.
37:01
I know it's a very popular and very often used feature of a lot
37:08
of cartooning,
37:08
a lot of drawing.
37:10
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes it can be overused.
37:11
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it gets used to just fill a space for the sake of it.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: It's one of those things that...
37:20
SPEAKER_01: It should be doing something, really.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: But you seem to have a really extraordinary handle on that skill.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: That's a perfect example to flag right here.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to talk a little bit about this?
37:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, crosshashing is something I absolutely love.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: It's also talking about therapy, just doing crosshashing.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: I spend three hours inking my cartoons, sometimes longer.
37:43
And a lot of—because it involves,
37:44
you know,
37:45
a lot of,
37:45
you know,
37:46
this cross-hatching and so on.
37:48
And I wanted to—I started on this American flag only to kind of
37:53
give folks a little
37:56
SPEAKER_00: idea of the different things that cross-hatching can do.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: I suppose we should maybe—
38:04
tell folks why crosshatching even started and how we got to a
38:09
point where people
38:09
were using black lines on paper to evoke images in the way that
38:14
we do yeah and i i
38:16
guess it started back in probably 17 1800s you know when lines
38:23
were being used to
38:24
try to um elicit drawings and they they discovered that if you
38:29
you know you could
38:30
SPEAKER_00: get gray areas by crossing lines over.
38:33
And it's partly because doing half tones or doing color was
38:36
prohibitively expensive
38:38
SPEAKER_00: or not even capable,
38:39
SPEAKER_00: particularly on the printed page.
38:41
And over time,
38:42
particularly when you think about the American newspaper in the
38:45
20th century,
38:47
is that they were being printed on terrible newsprint,
38:49
right,
38:50
where everything would bleed.
38:51
And,
38:51
you know,
38:52
when they put the type down,
38:53
everything would kind of be a little bit furry.
38:55
So the only way that a drawing could be done would have to be
38:59
done in line.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: But if you wanted to get any sort of kind of special effects,
39:03
SPEAKER_00: you would need to do,
39:04
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:05
SPEAKER_00: this crosshatching,
39:06
SPEAKER_00: which is,
39:06
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:06
SPEAKER_00: fine lines juxtaposed in such a way to evoke different kinds of pieces.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: So what I loved about
39:14
This was this notion of how cross action can,
39:19
in a black and white drawing,
39:20
denote
39:21
color so that you have a blue that's darker than they say the
39:25
red of the stripes it
39:27
can denote shape um which is usually shoot through shape i mean
39:33
sorry through
39:33
shading so you might say yes so here we got to get right here
39:37
in this part of the
39:38
flag this could be a little bit of shading um and on that bit
39:42
there maybe a little
39:44
SPEAKER_00: bit of shading here and that helps give shape
39:48
SPEAKER_00: Another thing that crosshatching can do is give you texture, right?
39:53
SPEAKER_00: And so you might,
39:54
SPEAKER_00: the way you crosshatch,
39:55
let's say a leather jacket would be different than you do with
39:58
a wool sweater,
40:00
SPEAKER_00: you know,
40:00
SPEAKER_00: the way that you kind of use the pen tip.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: So for me, it's fun playing around and experimenting with it, right?
40:08
But in addition,
40:09
doing flags like that is how do you crosshatch a sky,
40:12
right?
40:12
SPEAKER_00: A sky behind it, because skies are airy.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: They don't have
40:16
SPEAKER_00: And,
40:16
SPEAKER_00: you know,
40:17
SPEAKER_00: clouds don't have shapes,
40:19
but you have to give them sort of shapes and edges in order to
40:23
kind of make them
40:24
SPEAKER_00: work and then give it a nice feeling to the drawing.
40:27
I guess what I loved about crosshatching is that when I saw a
40:32
drawing where it was
40:33
SPEAKER_00: beautifully done,
40:35
SPEAKER_00: it felt so peaceful.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: There's something sort of nice,
40:39
the way the lines kind of go together and they can give a nice
40:44
feeling like this.
40:46
And I remember playing around in my scrapbooks just drawing
40:53
things over and over
40:54
SPEAKER_00: again to try to get a different feel.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: I also discovered that
41:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's different types of cross-hatching.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: I found,
41:03
SPEAKER_00: for example,
41:03
SPEAKER_00: if you did cross-hatching that was all very same line weight,
41:09
SPEAKER_00: and it was all done at right angles like this,
41:11
SPEAKER_00: it would always give a kind of a very boring shade to anything.
41:17
But the minute that you add some movement to the line and a
41:22
little bit of an angle,
41:23
SPEAKER_00: well,
41:25
suddenly the cross-hatching kind of gets a little more
41:27
energetic and more fun.
41:29
anyways yeah i'm it's just been fun playing with i've been
41:33
playing with it for you know
41:35
SPEAKER_00: Over 50 years.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: Only 50 years.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: Only 50 years.
41:40
SPEAKER_01: But it always fascinates me because I see how you use it.
41:45
I often watch,
41:45
I often look at your work and sort of wonder because it's so
41:48
deliberate.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: You don't overuse it.
41:49
SPEAKER_01: You don't do it just for the sake of it.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: And it feels like it's another part of the voice.
41:56
Someone in the chat,
41:57
I think it was Andy Panna,
41:59
was talking about the fact that voice in drawing
42:03
SPEAKER_01: It's like voice in writing, you know?
42:05
SPEAKER_01: It's the individual writer's human voice coming through on the page.
42:08
SPEAKER_01: And how,
42:08
SPEAKER_01: even if you do crosshatching with AI,
42:10
SPEAKER_01: like,
42:10
SPEAKER_01: it just lacks that voice,
42:12
SPEAKER_01: that ineffable quality of the pen connected to the human behind it,
42:16
SPEAKER_00: you know?
42:17
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
42:18
I also think,
42:20
and I know this happens for you,
42:21
Jason,
42:22
because you use pen nibs.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: They're flexible.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: They got personality, right?
42:27
SPEAKER_00: They do, yeah.
42:28
SPEAKER_00: You know the more technical pens that you can get, right?
42:32
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people draw with those.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: If you try cross-hatching drawing with just technical pens,
42:38
SPEAKER_00: it will give you the ability to do this cross-hatching as we describe.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: But the overall look at the end of the day will look,
42:47
Bye.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: a little dry.
42:49
It will lack a little personality because all the lines are the
42:53
exact same weight.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: But when you've got this kind of natural variation in the line,
43:00
SPEAKER_00: which happens just because you're,
43:02
SPEAKER_00: you know,
43:02
SPEAKER_00: the weight that you put on it or the way that you choose to draw it,
43:06
SPEAKER_00: Jason,
43:07
SPEAKER_00: particularly I've seen.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: Look at your lines.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: They're going all over the place.
43:11
SPEAKER_00: They're going all over the place.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: But the idea is that that's as you're
43:17
questioner,
43:21
Andy,
43:21
infers is that,
43:23
yeah,
43:23
that's where the personality comes,
43:25
right?
43:25
SPEAKER_00: Is that you can,
43:26
if your tools can also take some of the personality away if
43:30
they're not as
43:31
SPEAKER_00: interesting.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things about these,
43:33
SPEAKER_00: the nibs is that they give you this capacity is that you press harder,
43:37
SPEAKER_00: they get thicker.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: lighter, they get lighter.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: And then you can get in the same line, you can get a variety of lines.
43:44
And then over time,
43:45
if you do a whole drawing with those,
43:47
they just look interesting.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: They look compelling.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: The eye loves to see all that variety and energy.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: That's to me that I've always aspired to give your artwork energy.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: I think your work in particular has a lot of energy.
44:05
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if you've been already going through your 50 plus...
44:08
SPEAKER_01: Well,
44:09
SPEAKER_01: coming up on the 50 years to put together this retrospective.
44:13
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't know how you're going to pick...
44:15
there's so many to choose from but if you're noticing an
44:17
evolution in your work
44:18
where there is that energy there is that sort of variation and
44:23
all those things did
44:23
SPEAKER_01: you notice an evolution in your work looking at all that work
44:27
SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: You know,
44:28
SPEAKER_00: one of the things that happened with me,
44:29
SPEAKER_00: Jason,
44:30
SPEAKER_00: when I first started,
44:31
SPEAKER_00: I was working with a very fine brush.
44:35
SPEAKER_00: And when you do with brush, try to do all the cross-etching stuff.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, I didn't have a teacher.
44:40
I was just watching other artists,
44:42
and I saw these people doing this really fine work.
44:45
SPEAKER_00: And so I thought, well, maybe, you know, I need to try this.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: And I had a brush, and so I was trying to draw these.
44:52
And the drawings that had the result had to be huge because in
44:54
order to get the
44:55
SPEAKER_00: fine lines that I wanted.
44:56
Uh-huh.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: And then an art director at The Economist said to me,
45:02
SPEAKER_00: you know what,
45:03
SPEAKER_00: you should try using a pen.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: And there's this pen shop.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: Did I ever tell you about this pen shop in London?
45:09
Oh,
45:10
is this the one in that little alleyway where people go and get
45:13
their little nibs?
45:14
There was this guy,
45:15
this angry little cantankerous guy who worked in there.
45:20
SPEAKER_01: Tell everyone about this.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: I love this story.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: I love this.
45:22
SPEAKER_00: It's a great story.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: I just love even thinking about it.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: So what happened was I was told to go visit Philip Poole in London.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: I think he was on Charing Cross Road, I think.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: But they said it was like 35, Charing Cross Road.
45:38
And I got to the area and I saw 37 and 33,
45:41
and both of them were noticeable.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: But between them was this tiny door.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: With no sign on it, which was clearly my destination.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: I opened the door and it was like I was disappearing into Harry Potter.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: It was this dark place with,
46:01
SPEAKER_00: you know,
46:01
SPEAKER_00: heavily wooded walls with these little tiny drawers inbuilt.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: And it was all full of nibs, pen nibs.
46:09
SPEAKER_00: And in the back,
46:10
SPEAKER_00: I called out a guy shuffled out,
46:12
SPEAKER_00: looked like something from out of Frankenstein.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: You've got a white trench coat,
46:16
SPEAKER_00: you know,
46:17
SPEAKER_00: hunched over guy,
46:18
SPEAKER_00: shuffles out and says,
46:19
SPEAKER_00: what do you want?
46:20
SPEAKER_00: And I said, well, I'm looking for nibs.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: And so he then would give me a bunch of nibs to go away and try.
46:26
SPEAKER_00: And I came back and he would give me a few more.
46:30
SPEAKER_00: And finally, I settled on one that I really liked.
46:34
And I started going back to him every few weeks,
46:37
buying a dozen nibs or something like that.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: And it was an old nib.
46:42
And so when I ran out,
46:43
which was just about a year before I left the UK to come here,
46:48
SPEAKER_00: I said, oh, I'd really love to get a few more of these Hunt Hughes 1319.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: And he said, no, no, I don't have any more.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: And I said, well, when might you get some in?
47:00
SPEAKER_00: He says, they haven't been made for 150 years.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: I don't have no idea when they might be coming in.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: So I'll put your name down in case anything comes up.
47:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm in the U.S.
47:13
SPEAKER_00: and I get a call.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, no, it's George W. Sorry.
47:16
I'm just I'm thinking and talking at the same time,
47:18
which is a little slow.
47:20
SPEAKER_00: So he sends me a box of 144 of these nibs.
47:26
and i'm drawing with one right now what's fantastic and so
47:31
these are these are
47:32
great nibs i love them although they're not so great with um
47:36
for inking so it's
47:37
george w hughes so if anybody knows the george w hughes 1319
47:45
that's what that's
47:46
SPEAKER_00: what i'm looking you let me know i'll pay big bucks
47:52
SPEAKER_01: I think you're not the first, maybe you're the third cartoonist.
47:56
SPEAKER_01: You told me about this first.
47:58
SPEAKER_01: And then I asked around some other cartoonists in the UK and the US.
48:01
SPEAKER_01: They also told me about this.
48:02
SPEAKER_01: They were like, oh, yeah, yeah.
48:03
SPEAKER_01: There was this little shop, angry old man.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: And I think, unfortunately, he's since passed.
48:10
SPEAKER_01: And it's not there anymore.
48:11
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
48:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it did feel very, you know, what's the Harry Potter, you know.
48:18
SPEAKER_01: Daragon Valley.
48:20
SPEAKER_01: Diagon Alley, yeah.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: Daragon Alley, that's the one.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: Like we're getting a wand or something.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
48:26
SPEAKER_01: I think,
48:27
SPEAKER_01: you know,
48:27
SPEAKER_01: that era of,
48:28
SPEAKER_01: as you say,
48:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
48:29
SPEAKER_01: they haven't made these nibs in 150 years or whatever it is.
48:33
SPEAKER_01: It's just, it speaks to the fact that there is this kind of lost...
48:38
artisanship is this lost craftsmanship about building these
48:41
tools and I know that
48:42
the Japanese started making some like steel nibs and some they
48:46
tried replicating
48:47
some of the old Victorian nibs and stuff I mean you can't
48:50
really get any of the
48:50
weeds on this stuff but there are blogs all about it but yeah I
48:55
think I mean I use
48:57
the Hunt 101 Imperial this is my weapon of choice and they're
49:02
not totally always
49:04
SPEAKER_01: available when they're out they're out
49:07
SPEAKER_01: But I'm lucky so far that they have been available.
49:12
SPEAKER_01: I do have a few comments from people saying that,
49:18
SPEAKER_01: and I thought this too,
49:19
SPEAKER_01: when you were talking about crosshatching,
49:21
SPEAKER_01: Cal,
49:22
SPEAKER_01: is,
49:22
SPEAKER_01: although it looks very much like Regan,
49:27
SPEAKER_01: David Levine,
49:29
SPEAKER_01: his crosshatching was absolutely beautiful.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: His work was beautiful, his crosshatching.
49:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:35
SPEAKER_01: And did you study his work at all when you were sort of starting out?
49:40
SPEAKER_00: I did.
49:40
SPEAKER_00: I did.
49:40
SPEAKER_00: I studied his work a lot.
49:43
SPEAKER_00: You know,
49:43
SPEAKER_00: I was coming around in the 70s and 80s,
49:46
SPEAKER_00: and the way that you'd learn is that you'd have to buy books.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: But people didn't come out with a lot of books.
49:51
SPEAKER_00: And so a book may come out,
49:54
SPEAKER_00: you know,
49:54
SPEAKER_00: every other year from an artist,
49:55
SPEAKER_00: or sometimes,
49:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
49:57
SPEAKER_00: you'd have in your library a total of,
50:00
SPEAKER_00: you know,
50:00
SPEAKER_00: five or six books,
50:01
SPEAKER_00: and you'd studied them,
50:03
SPEAKER_00: They would be very well-thumbed.
50:06
SPEAKER_00: And I looked through so many of the great books of David Levine.
50:13
But I also learned in due course something I had learned as a
50:18
basketball player.
50:20
SPEAKER_00: many years before,
50:21
SPEAKER_00: is that you could try as much as you can to,
50:25
SPEAKER_00: you know,
50:27
SPEAKER_00: imitate,
50:27
SPEAKER_00: not just emulate,
50:28
SPEAKER_00: but imitate your heroes and what they do.
50:32
But what happens is that you're,
50:33
in the end,
50:34
restricted by your own personal limitations.
50:37
SPEAKER_00: So in basketball,
50:39
I learned at some point that I was never going to be able to
50:41
dunk a basketball.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, I was just...
50:44
SPEAKER_00: too short,
50:45
SPEAKER_00: not jump bouncy enough,
50:48
and I was going to have to live with my own limitations and
50:51
then play basketball to
50:53
SPEAKER_00: all the strengths that I had given to me in other ways.
50:56
SPEAKER_00: Well,
50:56
SPEAKER_00: with doing crosshatching and so on,
50:58
SPEAKER_00: I came to a point where I realized that David Levine was magical,
51:02
SPEAKER_00: that I was never going to be David Levine,
51:04
SPEAKER_00: but I could learn from him and all his crosshatching
51:07
SPEAKER_00: lessons and the experiments that he,
51:09
SPEAKER_00: in fact,
51:10
SPEAKER_00: had learned from studying those who had done cross-hatching before him.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: And then turn it into my own.
51:18
SPEAKER_00: And that's, I think, he's been a valuable teacher to me over the years.
51:21
SPEAKER_00: I love looking at his work still.
51:24
SPEAKER_00: And I can see the influence that he had on me.
51:27
But I think that I'm also really delighted to see how I found
51:31
my way on my own since.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it's like a family tree, isn't it?
51:36
SPEAKER_01: You look at the work of the people you admire,
51:38
SPEAKER_01: and then you sort of dig into,
51:40
SPEAKER_01: well,
51:41
SPEAKER_01: who were they admiring when they were starting out?
51:44
SPEAKER_01: Who were they studying?
51:45
SPEAKER_01: Whose work did they love?
51:46
And then you dive into that,
51:47
and you go,
51:47
oh,
51:47
wow,
51:48
I didn't even know about this guy.
51:49
SPEAKER_01: And then you find them, and you go, who were they studying?
51:51
SPEAKER_01: And then it goes all the way back to a caveman, probably.
51:54
SPEAKER_01: It does have this very interesting sort of...
51:59
SPEAKER_01: almost like an ancestry to it.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: You know, like I was looking at the work of, and people can look this up.
52:06
SPEAKER_01: I may repost it on my Substack,
52:08
but the work of Ronald Searle and how many people were
52:12
influenced by Searle.
52:14
SPEAKER_01: Scarf,
52:15
SPEAKER_01: Steadman,
52:17
SPEAKER_01: everyone from,
52:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
52:18
SPEAKER_01: Mort Drucker to,
52:19
SPEAKER_01: you know,
52:20
SPEAKER_01: Ed Steed and everyone in between.
52:22
SPEAKER_01: He's had such a, his fingerprints are all over everybody's work.
52:28
SPEAKER_01: Because they all studied his stuff.
52:30
SPEAKER_01: And then when you look at what he studied,
52:32
SPEAKER_01: the work of the people he was trying to emulate when he came up,
52:37
SPEAKER_01: you can go down an entirely new rabbit hole of like,
52:40
SPEAKER_01: oh,
52:40
SPEAKER_00: wow,
52:40
SPEAKER_01: I have no idea who this person was.
52:43
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, exactly right.
52:44
SPEAKER_00: Who are your biggest influences?
52:47
SPEAKER_01: I think when I was starting out,
52:49
it was very much like Paul Rigby and these editorial
52:52
cartoonists because I wanted
52:52
SPEAKER_01: to be a political cartoonist.
52:54
I really loved the work of Peter Brolman,
52:56
who's a South Australian cartoonist.
52:58
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
52:58
SPEAKER_00: And did he retire recently?
53:01
SPEAKER_01: Is he still going?
53:02
SPEAKER_01: He's still going.
53:03
SPEAKER_01: He lost a lot of newspapers, unfortunately.
53:05
SPEAKER_01: He was very widely syndicated and then they consolidated.
53:07
SPEAKER_01: So he didn't retire.
53:09
SPEAKER_01: He just condensed his...
53:12
SPEAKER_01: Syndication.
53:13
SPEAKER_01: The one that I was thinking of earlier was Bill Mitchell.
53:17
SPEAKER_01: He's an Australian cartoonist.
53:19
SPEAKER_01: I'll list him in the recap.
53:22
But I really liked his ability to,
53:25
in just a few lines,
53:27
he had great line economy.
53:28
He would be able to sketch out an entire scene and give you all
53:32
of the information
53:32
SPEAKER_01: you needed to make up the rest in your head.
53:35
SPEAKER_01: And that's such a difficult thing to do, to know what to leave out.
53:39
SPEAKER_01: He was excellent at that.
53:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
53:42
SPEAKER_01: And then,
53:42
SPEAKER_01: of course,
53:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
53:42
SPEAKER_01: Richard Thompson and later on,
53:45
SPEAKER_01: you know,
53:45
SPEAKER_01: a lot of comic strip cartoonists and other editorial cartoonists.
53:49
SPEAKER_01: I really loved Jim Borgman.
53:51
SPEAKER_01: I loved the work of,
53:54
SPEAKER_01: God,
53:54
SPEAKER_01: so many people,
53:55
SPEAKER_01: Tom Richmond,
53:56
SPEAKER_01: extraordinary caricaturist and,
53:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
53:59
SPEAKER_01: draftsman.
53:59
SPEAKER_01: And his line is incredible.
54:01
SPEAKER_01: He uses these.
54:03
SPEAKER_01: I think the Crowquills.
54:04
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah?
54:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, nice flex nibs.
54:08
SPEAKER_01: And very, very precise.
54:10
Anyone who hasn't subscribed to Tom Richman's,
54:14
I think it's called the Ink Stained Wretch.
54:17
He does a weekly,
54:18
and his premium-tier subscribers get a video of him drawing.
54:22
SPEAKER_01: You learn a lot watching him draw, too.
54:24
SPEAKER_01: each week.
54:25
SPEAKER_01: So,
54:26
SPEAKER_01: like I said,
54:27
you learn more watching your fellow artists draw than any book
54:29
you read or course
54:30
SPEAKER_01: you take,
54:31
SPEAKER_01: you know.
54:32
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
54:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:33
SPEAKER_01: How about you?
54:33
Apart from Levine,
54:34
who were some of your sort of,
54:36
you know,
54:36
when you were coming up?
54:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a good question.
54:40
SPEAKER_00: Coming up is maybe a little different than my big influences.
54:43
Much of it happened when I was in the UK still because they had
54:46
a grander tradition
54:47
SPEAKER_00: of kind of cross-hatching and all that sort of stuff.
54:50
SPEAKER_00: And so James Tennille, now that's a blast from the past.
54:56
SPEAKER_00: And people who may have seen Alice in Wonderland original films,
55:01
SPEAKER_00: drawings done back in the day were done by James Tennille.
55:06
SPEAKER_00: And you'd recognize them because they're very distinctive.
55:08
SPEAKER_00: And they also, I think he influenced David Levine.
55:12
SPEAKER_00: But there was a cartoonist named David Lowe.
55:16
SPEAKER_00: L-O-W, operated in the... And he's from Australia.
55:20
SPEAKER_00: No, he's New Zealand.
55:21
SPEAKER_00: He's New Zealand.
55:22
SPEAKER_01: He's from Wellington, New Zealand, I believe.
55:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's a New Zealand chap.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: But he, like you, you know, left the country.
55:29
SPEAKER_00: I think he worked in Australia for a short time.
55:31
SPEAKER_00: He did, from Sydney.
55:32
SPEAKER_00: And then he...
55:35
SPEAKER_00: came to the UK.
55:36
SPEAKER_00: And,
55:36
SPEAKER_00: you know,
55:37
SPEAKER_00: he was also had that gift,
55:39
SPEAKER_00: as we described earlier,
55:41
of being able to come in and operate with a slightly detached
55:46
view of what was
55:48
SPEAKER_00: going on in the world.
55:49
And so he became a prominent British cartoonist from the 1930s
55:56
to the 1950s.
55:57
He was on Hitler's,
55:58
you know,
55:59
kill list,
56:00
you know,
56:02
to take care of when they,
56:05
SPEAKER_00: When they first invaded, that was on the plan.
56:08
SPEAKER_00: And there's some great David Lowe stories,
56:10
SPEAKER_00: but he was a gifted caricaturist,
56:12
SPEAKER_00: although he did very simple lines,
56:14
SPEAKER_00: just as we were talking about before,
56:16
SPEAKER_00: how hard it is to do simple lines.
56:19
Now,
56:19
people look at my cross hatching and they say,
56:22
this is amazing how you do it.
56:23
i will look at the people who do the very simple stuff and say
56:26
oh my god how do
56:26
they do it right and there's this great cartoon story and you
56:31
have to tell me first
56:32
if you've heard the story before a second if you if i've got
56:36
the cartoonist right
56:38
okay because i i think it was been attributed to a cartoonist
56:41
by the name of phil
56:42
may is he australian he might be new zealand right but you know
56:46
phil may i think is
56:47
SPEAKER_01: australian
56:48
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so he comes to London, right?
56:50
SPEAKER_00: He comes to London.
56:51
SPEAKER_00: And here's the story as I understand it.
56:53
SPEAKER_00: So Phil is working on Fleet Street.
56:58
SPEAKER_00: He goes into the pub one day after work.
57:01
SPEAKER_00: And two editors sidle up next to him.
57:05
And they say,
57:06
Phil,
57:09
you know,
57:09
you get paid an awful lot of money for your cartoons.
57:12
SPEAKER_00: And the last cartoon you did had only seven lines in it.
57:17
SPEAKER_00: And he paused for a second and he said,
57:19
SPEAKER_00: if I could have done it in five lines,
57:21
SPEAKER_00: I would have charged twice as much.
57:24
SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was it.
57:25
SPEAKER_00: Now,
57:25
SPEAKER_00: I would like to think that that was it,
57:27
SPEAKER_00: but I mean,
57:27
SPEAKER_00: some cartoonists said it,
57:29
SPEAKER_00: or maybe they didn't.
57:29
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's just some great story,
57:31
SPEAKER_00: but it's a great line that I,
57:34
it's at least a philosophy that I take when it comes to doing
57:37
simple cartoons.
57:38
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
57:40
I believe it's been attributed to many different artists and
57:43
graphic designers.
57:44
SPEAKER_01: Do you know Rob Blackman?
57:46
SPEAKER_01: Bob Blackman?
57:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
57:48
SPEAKER_01: He was a great graphic artist and illustrator.
57:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
57:52
SPEAKER_01: And I think the first time I heard that story, it was R.O.
57:57
SPEAKER_01: Blackman was how he is known.
57:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
58:01
SPEAKER_01: I heard the story that it was from Fleckman and it was a graphic design.
58:04
It was a logo or something like that where they said,
58:06
wow,
58:07
you just did it in two lines.
58:08
SPEAKER_01: You're going to charge us 20 grand for this.
58:11
SPEAKER_01: And he said,
58:12
SPEAKER_01: if I could have done it in one,
58:14
SPEAKER_01: I would have charged you 40 grand or something along those lines.
58:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
58:17
SPEAKER_00: Same line, yeah.
58:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
58:19
SPEAKER_01: and I think,
58:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
58:20
SPEAKER_01: the crux of it,
58:21
SPEAKER_01: it's the old,
58:24
SPEAKER_01: again,
58:24
SPEAKER_01: I think attributed to Voltaire,
58:28
SPEAKER_01: but it's not Voltaire.
58:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, I couldn't make this letter shorter.
58:34
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have time.
58:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
58:36
SPEAKER_01: It's that kind of thing.
58:37
It does take time and discipline to have that ability to really
58:44
sit and edit and know what
58:47
What is the essential element to make this thing work without
58:52
the temptation of overworking it?
58:54
SPEAKER_01: I find it really difficult not to overwork a drawing or,
59:00
SPEAKER_01: you know,
59:00
SPEAKER_01: just add one more line here just to see if,
59:03
SPEAKER_01: you know,
59:03
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
59:04
SPEAKER_01: How do you stop yourself from adding anything?
59:07
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I've made a million mistakes.
59:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Jason, I published 11,000 cartoons, right?
59:12
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
59:14
And every single cartoon I tell folks is a practice for your
59:17
next cartoon.
59:18
Because just like you described,
59:21
you're looking and say,
59:22
oh,
59:22
what about if I just add this?
59:23
SPEAKER_00: Or let me just add this.
59:25
SPEAKER_00: But over a period of time, you get this kind of...
59:30
knowledge that you say okay i tried that once before by adding
59:34
a line like that and
59:35
it didn't work or maybe it was over egging the pudding or
59:38
whatever and so it takes
59:40
a long time to you get that that muscle that or at least that
59:45
stop sign you grow
59:46
SPEAKER_00: that stop sign that says hold on jason come on yeah
59:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, one too many.
59:51
SPEAKER_00: But I think there's, you know, I can tell you like to draw.
59:54
SPEAKER_00: I love to draw.
59:56
SPEAKER_00: Not all cartoonists love to draw.
59:58
SPEAKER_00: It's just, you know, because some people find it easier.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_00: And so when you want, you love to draw, then you want to experiment.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_00: Ooh,
1:00:05
SPEAKER_00: how about if I,
1:00:05
SPEAKER_00: how about ooh,
1:00:06
SPEAKER_00: ooh,
1:00:06
SPEAKER_00: ooh,
1:00:07
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:00:07
SPEAKER_00: because it can give you a little bit,
1:00:09
SPEAKER_00: that little bit of a rush if you get it right.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_01: And I'm a bit of boffin as well with it.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you're like this,
1:00:15
SPEAKER_01: but even though we've kind of landed on the tools that we use,
1:00:18
SPEAKER_01: and that Reagan's amazing,
1:00:18
SPEAKER_01: by the way,
1:00:21
I still like to experiment sometimes and try different
1:00:24
techniques and tools.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_01: Before we go,
1:00:27
SPEAKER_01: because we're coming up on 1 o'clock,
1:00:28
SPEAKER_01: so I've already kept you for an hour,
1:00:30
SPEAKER_01: which is very,
1:00:30
SPEAKER_01: very different for you.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_00: Oh, great.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_00: It's been so much time, my man.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_00: It's been a pleasure.
1:00:34
SPEAKER_01: No, of course.
1:00:35
I did want to just acknowledge that a lot of the people in the
1:00:40
comments are
1:00:41
absolutely loving your work and also saying that they're
1:00:48
wondering if we have any
1:00:50
SPEAKER_01: thoughts on HerBlock and
1:00:51
SPEAKER_01: or James Gilray, you know, and these other artists.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:00:56
SPEAKER_01: they all kind of are part of this pantheon of demigods in my head,
1:00:59
SPEAKER_01: as far as illustration goes.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to flip my camera back over.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, me too.
1:01:03
Of these cartoonists who paved the way for an entire new
1:01:07
generation of cartoonists
1:01:08
SPEAKER_01: to come in and innovate upon what they were doing and then,
1:01:11
SPEAKER_01: as you say,
1:01:12
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:01:12
SPEAKER_01: just sort of push forth into the next era.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, is that how you feel about it?
1:01:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_00: James Gilray,
1:01:21
SPEAKER_00: to me,
1:01:21
is the first editorial cartoonist who used caricature and built
1:01:28
great images.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_00: And it was during the time when there was a lot of tumult in the British
1:01:33
SPEAKER_00: aristocracy and politics,
1:01:34
SPEAKER_00: and he was able to comment on it.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_00: And so a little small story about James Gilray.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_00: So he...
1:01:41
SPEAKER_00: He, during his life, had three different print shops.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_00: And he produced,
1:01:44
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:01:45
SPEAKER_00: these etchings and prints that he sometimes painted others,
1:01:49
SPEAKER_00: painted the form sometimes.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes they're just black and white things.
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SPEAKER_00: And he might produce one a week or something like that.
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SPEAKER_00: But when they came out, it would be like a mob outside the print shop.
1:01:59
SPEAKER_00: demanding to get in there and wanting to break the windows.
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And as there was some piece that he was doing about a royal
1:02:05
that was going to be
1:02:06
SPEAKER_00: deemed to be a little unfriendly,
1:02:08
they would sometimes send somebody down and buy the whole
1:02:11
entire print run so
1:02:12
SPEAKER_00: nobody could see them.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_00: But anyways,
1:02:15
SPEAKER_00: his print shop,
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SPEAKER_00: his third and last and best-known print shop,
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SPEAKER_00: was actually located on the same corner where the Economist building was.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_00: So when I would go to work,
1:02:27
SPEAKER_00: I would just breathe in the air,
1:02:30
SPEAKER_00: get my feet on the ground,
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SPEAKER_00: collect that Gilray electricity and get to work.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_00: And so I feel very connected to him.
1:02:39
SPEAKER_00: And when I look at his work,
1:02:41
SPEAKER_00: it brings me back because I can understand when I look at his work,
1:02:44
SPEAKER_00: what he was trying to do,
1:02:45
SPEAKER_00: the approaches he was trying to say and the things he was trying to do.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_00: But he was great.
1:02:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:02:50
SPEAKER_01: No, that's fantastic.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_01: I love that you're sort of standing on the same ground,
1:02:54
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:02:54
SPEAKER_01: you're sort of in that same foundation.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_01: Well,
1:02:58
SPEAKER_01: Cal,
1:02:58
SPEAKER_01: I am so grateful to you for your time and for your,
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: as we said,
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: we could talk for hours and hours.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_01: I am absolutely loving your work on your Substack.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_01: This is an amazing conversation when we were at dinner just talking,
1:03:11
just sort of gushing about you and your work and how great it
1:03:13
is and how nice it is
1:03:15
SPEAKER_01: of you to share so much of your process with people and
1:03:18
SPEAKER_01: If people haven't already,
1:03:19
please click on the subscribe button up here to subscribe to
1:03:22
Cal's sub stack.
1:03:23
SPEAKER_01: Please support artists.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_01: If you want to upgrade to paid, please do so.
1:03:28
I'm going to be posting the replay of this tomorrow with a
1:03:31
recap and all the lists
1:03:32
SPEAKER_01: of the people we spoke about and some of the tools and tips.
1:03:35
SPEAKER_01: And that will be for paid subscribers.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_01: So please, please subscribe and support artists.
1:03:44
SPEAKER_01: We need it now more than ever.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_01: More than ever.
1:03:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I'm very, very grateful to you, Cal.
1:03:50
Next time I'm in Baltimore,
1:03:51
I'm going to hit you up again and have a nice long lunch.
1:03:55
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, man.
1:03:55
SPEAKER_00: It's so much fun.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_00: You're great.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_00: I love what you're doing.
1:03:58
SPEAKER_00: And you got my complete support.
1:04:01
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:04:01
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Cal.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you.
1:04:03
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:04:03
SPEAKER_01: Thanks a lot, everyone.
1:04:04
SPEAKER_00: Take care, everyone.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_01: We'll see you next time.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_02: Bye.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_02: Next time.