Liza Donnelly: Political Cartoons, Connection, Hope | Turn the Lens #05

>> Jeff: See movie, right, showtime.  >> Liza: Things have changed.

>> Yes. Well, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here in the home office. I'm really excited to have someone that I met a few years back at the Women in Data Science conference with really a really interesting art form that I'd never seen kind of before in practice. And it turns out she's been doing this for decades and decades and decades. She's published in all kinds of publications. She spoke to the UN and we're really happy to have her. Coming from her home studio in New York, Liza Donnelly. Liza, great to see you.

>> Great to see you Jeff. How are you doing?

>> Terrific. So you are a phenomenal artist. So we first met at the WiDS conference and you were doing this thing I'd never seen before which was live drawing the conference speakers. And I was so kind of touched at the way that you were able to capture them and they're kind of the spirit of their talk and what they were trying to say and what I would describe as relatively simple style of cartooning. And I'm just curious to jump in, we'll just talk about Wits, when you're looking at somebody on stage and trying to grasp kind of that energy and have it come through your hand and back into under the page, what are you looking at? What are you taking in?

>> Well, it's all of it but to try to analyze it, the person walks on stage, I notice what their features, I notice what they're wearing and also their body posture. And I try to capture that quickly. What I'm also doing simultaneously is listening to what they're saying. So particularly for this conference you're referring to, I would try to listen to and pull out key sentences or keywords sometimes in that particular conference about data science, I had no idea what they're talking about. But you could always pull out something that is relatable to everybody.

>> Right. Well, let's back up a step 'cause your journey started I think you said to one of your TED talks at seven when your mom gave you some drawing materials and some paper and you learned to draw and you've been a professional animator, cartoonist artist, illustrator graphic. I don't know which of those you prefer. You're kind of all of the above. We talked a little bit before at the WiDS off camera about kind of the role of cartoons and the role of of graphics and illustrations in the modern world and in communicating really hard ideas and complex ideas and difficult ideas. You've got a super special talent. You've been doing it for the New Yorker for decades. When you think back on the role of artists. And obviously there was the stuff that happened in France, when you started out, is that kind of where you thought this would go or how did it kind of evolve into something that was kind of more fun and an expression into something that's much more powerful, much more meaningful, much more important to a broader audience?

>> Oh, well, you know, I began, as you said, decades ago and it was all just about print and I wanted to be in the New Yorker. I grew up during the civil rights era, the Watergate time and assassinations and everything. And so as a young child, I was in Washington DC, as a young child, I wanted to be a political cartoonist. So that was already in my system I think that that's what I wanted to do. It's just a matter of finding how to merge the availability of outlets then with my sensibility which I'm a quiet person and at the time I should put it this way, at the time I thought, well, I don't think I can be a political cartoonist because I don't have strong enough opinions because what I saw at the time, people I really admired like Herblock and the Washington post and Gary Trudeau doing Doonesbury but they're really hard hitting cartoons.

And I didn't know how to do that. I was such a shy, quiet person but the New Yorker has always had political cartoons. And so I saw the New Yorkers as a teenager and I thought, well, maybe I could be there. And luckily they bought my work right after college. So and my first political cartoon with them was published in 1984. So the political side of it was always there and always tried to do... The New Yorker political cartoons are more, they're less about my opinion about something as a cartoonist and more about my observations of the culture or the political situation. Like I did something about Tiger Woods. I'd drawn about Walter Mondale things that and gender diversity, things like that. So, but that was just print not just but at the time it was print and there were no other outlets except for other publications.

>> Did you intend on this? Did you intend on the path when you started drawing? Did you see this as an avenue to express concerns about really deep topics versus or did that just kind of evolve over time?

>> I did no, I did 'cause like I said, when I started out the world seemed to be falling apart in the 70s. So I wanted to help and I felt that was how I could help is by drawing political cartoons. And it's evolved of course over time that I'm more political. After 9/11 I was just perking along at the New Yorker for a couple of decades and doing illustration for other people. And I really didn't have an outlet for a lot of political stuff but after 9/11 and also internet it sort of take it off by that time, I began to do more and more political cartoons and I vowed to be more political and particularly to focus more on women's rights which is something that I'm passionate about.

If the New Yorker didn't want it then I could put it online. There were several new emerging web scenes they called them and I could put them online. Like this one I think you're showing right now was a drawing I did, can't remember exactly who that was for not the New Yorker but it's something that I would put online and get reaction to it. Get people see it, you know if the New Yorker didn't want it or if another publication didn't want it then I certainly could use it somewhere.

>> Right, so you had an interesting comment in one of your Ted talks and you've done a ton of Ted talks. I think watched four of them this morning but one of them you talked about.

>> I'm so sorry.

>> No, no, I love it. But I talked about when you were young you drew for your mom, right? When you first got started. And then you said then you drew to try to understand as you said, growing up in turbulent times in DC in the 60s and 70s but then you talked about this thing in your 40s when 9/11 happened and it sounded like it was a real epiphany in terms of now I'm just drawing for me. Like it almost sounded like that was a step function in terms of just, you know, I am going to draw in kind of a different way of thinking about, you know, how you would draw and what you would draw and it sounded like a real epiphany moment.

>> It was, it really was. 'Cause I think like a lot of people, 9/11 sort of shocked us into all reexamining our lives and our purpose for being here. And I think I'd lost that for a bit while, I had it when I was younger and then the 80s and 90s I sort of lost it. I was just enjoying drawing cartoons. Of course I raised my family. So that takes time. But 9/11 I was going to stop cartooning. I thought, well, I don't see the point of what I'm doing. I really was shocked and maybe I'd go into teaching or something. But then I drew that particular cartoon and then I sent that to you and it's about 9/11, the aftermath of 9/11.

>> The when can I stop being scared I think or not.

>> Yeah, when can I stop being worried now, little girl's asking her father. So the New Yorker bought it and ran it a couple of months like a month or two after 9/11. And I thought, okay, I'm back on track. But I decided then and there to do more political cartoons and I felt that's my purpose. And also the feminist cartoons started to be more a part of my life.

>> You got so much stuff. I don't even know if I want to ask how many cartoons you have in your--

>> I have no idea.

>> In your portfolio.

>> I have no idea. There was a time Jeff, when I could get somebody to say, Oh, do you have a cartoon on this subject? And I go, yeah, I have one. But now I'm like, I don't know, maybe. I just don't, yeah. It's a lot of content and I'm not alone. So many of us cartoonists, we produce New Yorker cartoons anyway, we produce eight to 10 cartoons a week. Most of them don't see the light of day.

>> But now they can though, right? Hopefully now you've got different publishing opportunities. So shifting gears a little bit, you know, in terms of you being kind of, you're quiet and again, I think your art is quiet. It's impactful but it's in a very kind of a soft voice. This has really opened up opportunities. You've now spoke at the United Nations. As we've mentioned, you've done a ton of Ted talks. I saw you were getting your doctoral degree, putting your robe on for the first time at the University of Connecticut and working in some basketball. But I'm curious, you know, kind of your perception of how this career path has opened up these opportunities that are far different than that young woman walking into the office, dropping off some cartoons and hoping something gets picked for next week. And if you can reflect on being involved and meeting with Kofi Annan in the UN and taking on these really big kind of challenges.

>> Yeah, I feel incredibly fortunate not just sort of... As you're talking, made me think where this all comes from, where did it start? And I think I can, first of all, being quiet I don't know why people are quiet. I don't know why people are shy. I don't really know why I was shy and quiet but I think it was partly trying to figure out how to fit in. And my art has helped me fit in, my art drawing has helped me figure out a place for myself which I didn't really understand when I was young and also my art spoke for me, I didn't have to use my mouth. I could speak with my drawings. But in the late 1990s I started to think more seriously about why there weren't more women cartoonists practicing because there just weren't.

And I started and I was on a panel at the editorial cartoon association about women cartoonists. I was one of maybe four or five women on the panel and there was a sea of people in the audience and they were all men. They were all male cartoonists and it just was a visual like shock. Like, Whoa, there really aren't many of us and what is this all about? So I started investigating particularly the New Yorker why that was true at the New Yorker. And I ended up writing a book about it, Funny Ladies and it came out 15 years ago. And just before I forget to tell you, I have a new edition coming out this fall. So I'm really excited about that. But anyway, Funny Ladies was about the women cartoons of the New Yorker and they began, actually the New Yorker was always pretty welcoming to women. So there were women there in 1925 and the magazine was founded. But when I wrote that book I decided to create myself a little speaking torques, the publisher was small, they wouldn't do for me.

So I created it. And I went around to various places in the country and talked about these women and because I was talking about something I was passionate about, feminism and cartoons and women artists, it was easy to talk about the subject. It was easy to share this. Like I want to share this with you. This is something that interests me. So that's where my speaking abilities began was talking about my passion for some other people, amazing women. And from there that just morphed into, I convinced Pat Mitchell to hire me to do a Ted talk. The first women, the first Ted women, which was in Washington DC 10 years ago and I'll always be grateful to Pat. And that was a frightening experience but it was really rewarding to hear people laugh 'cause I would show my cartoons behind me.

I'm not talking about the cartoon I'm talking about some other subject and the cartoon is like an exclamation point to whatever I'm saying or a lightning rod and it lends lightness to whatever I'm talking about. And then from there I was asked to do more speaking for more TEDS, TEDXs and I just think people love cartoons for one thing. And they're fascinated with those of us who do them. So the combination of seeing the cartoons and seeing me who creates them and then also cartoons can really soften the subject not soften the subject but soften the person so they enter the subject, the difficult subject, like you know, 15 years ago, feminism was not as much of a accepted concept as it is now.

So the way to talk about stuff. And I've done a lot of hard hitting cartoons now about harassment and abuse and rape and stuff like that, which is not funny but it's a way to bring people into a subject. And then the UN was connected with, that was just such a thrill to meet Kofi Annan. That was in connection with a wonderful group called Cartooning for Peace. And that was started right after the Danish cartoon controversy, if you recall, that was in 2005 and actually that was before my Ted talk but so I got a little speaking in there but not a whole lot. I just got to meet Kofi Annan and be... Cartooning for peace is a international organization started by Kofi Annan and John Plantu to help bring cartoons to different people around the world and to have them be facilitators for conversation and discussion about global issues.

So it's about 160 people cartoonist in the organization. I've met cartoonists from all over the globe. It's just wonderful. We sometimes get together in different parts of the world and get to talk about cartoons. And unfortunately Kofi Annan just died but he... You look him up online, you see his, I think if you go to cartooning for peace you could see his speech. It's probably on my website too, his speech about cartoons. And he realized how important cartoons were for our world. So I'm always grateful to him.

>> You've got a ton of books on Amazon. I guess I hadn't really ever thought of you as in terms of putting all these things together in a book but when I pulled up your author page on Amazon you got all kinds of great books in here.

>> Yeah, well, yeah. After funny ladies, I did a bunch of before Funny Ladies like collections and a bunch of dinosaur books for kids since then I did a couple more that were about women and cartooning and women and feminist writing. So yeah.

>> Love it. Love it. One of the things you talked about and you kind of mentioned it briefly here in one of your talks is creativity is about connection. It's funny that you define creativity around the actual subject that's connection and you talk a lot about really the importance of listening and not only listening to the topic like when we opened up this conversation but just listening and understanding and really being observant.

I find it really refreshing, right? 'Cause I think so many people in this crazy world that we live in, that's going so, so fast, you know, don't necessarily take a minute just to sit back, open their eyes and pay attention and see the world around them. And those are, some of your probably less powerful cartoons but still really intimate ones are just like a person in the subway station or a person out on the streets obviously not doing as much of that in New York anymore as I know you wish you would but just this kind of appreciation of the communication of the moment of just the beauty of small moments I think is a whole another class of ones that you kick out that I think are just as beautiful and just as touching. So really, really good stuff.

>> I love life. And it's all about appreciating what's around you. You're making me think about recent documentary I watched some of it about Andrew Wyeth and that's the time I sort of grew up into the art world, watching the art world and Jackson Pollock was still around doing his thing. So the contrast between Jackson and Andrew Wyeth and then Norman Rockwell too, there's interesting differences in how they approach art. Like Jackson Pollock was all internal, like expressing oneself. Whereas Wyeth and Rockwell were more observers, more looking at the world around them. And I know that Wyeth, both Wyeth and at the time, Wyeth and Rockwell were not appreciated by the critics so much because that's a whole another story.

But I think Wyeth, in this documentary Wyeth talks about how he would spend weeks on end with his subjects, you know, he'd go and live with them. He'd spend time with these people. So he not only could see them and draw them, he didn't take photographs, you can draw them but he knew who they were. He got to know these people, he got to feel who they were and it certainly is reflected in his portraits that he did.

>> Right, well, that's funny you segued that just perfectly. I had it teed up and everything with this guy. So what a great honor that you had earlier, I guess last year now, we've turned the calendar to have your your one-woman show at the Norman Rockwell museum. And I was fortunate that they had a nice live stream as you kind of walked around, actually, it was the genesis of this conversation and talked about a bunch of the pieces that they had on display. Norman Rockwell I mean, it doesn't get much more iconic and kind of across everyone at least here in the United States as to his art. I wonder if you can kind of share what that meant to you, what was it like to actually be there and you spent time working there too as well, if I believe, correct?

>> Yeah. Oh my God, what a thrill, what a shock to get that email from Stephanie, who's the curator to invite me to have a show there this summer, this last summer, one in the fall.

>> It's funny because a lot of kids watching this right they don't know the Saturday Evening Post. They don't understand a time when even like the Brady Bunch, just to pick some more poppy went when everybody watched the same thing or consume the same thing. It's so different than today's hyper personalization. I don't even know if they can kind of gronk (indistinct)

>> Rockwell was, and of course I was aware of him when I was growing up but my family were New Yorker readers. And there was probably a distinct difference between New Yorker readers and The Saturday Evening post readers which were more middle America, right? And he had a cover, although he was a New Yorker but he wanted to be a great illustrator and he ended up being one but he ended up doing covers for The Saturday Evening Post every month, I guess almost every month. And that's why he became so famous not to belittle the fact that he was an incredible illustrator, artist but yeah he was extremely well known and he went to the White House and he was a humble man, funny and I was aware of him growing up. And so when Stephanie wrote me and said, would you like to have a one woman show?

I was blown away. And of course I'm going to do this. And I spent the next couple of months going through my archives to figure out what to give her. And I did a lot of back and forth with her on that, what the point of the exhibit was. It was a one woman show but it was also, she wanted to express it was called comic relief. So she wanted to get at the heart of what I try to do, which is talk about serious subjects but yet make people feel better, feel good, feel optimistic or think about something seriously. So, yeah and it opened in July and we had an online virtual opening, which you can see online, I think and they're actually making the exhibit now, it's closed but they're making it into an online exhibit, so you can see.

And you can go there now and see a lot of what was in the show then. But it was a great honor. And so during that time period, I read his autobiography. I'm not reading the biography that was written about him but I read a lot about him. And I watched a lot of videos, there are some videos online about Rockwell. And I began to see a connection between the two of us, even though our work is really almost polar opposite in look. But he was an observer of life, of American life. And people have criticized him for just observing a certain class of people, a certain demographic and he did, because it was for The Saturday Evening Post, he had his restrictions by working for them. They didn't want to have black people on the cover in any kind of prominent way.

If they were on the cover, they were in subservient roles. He wasn't allowed to make people smoking but some other things too but it was his living and it was his work. And he did the best and he made, I think when he was with the post he did sneak in some commentary in there a little bit if you look closely at the work but it wasn't until he left The Saturday Post he began to do paintings that were much harder hitting and for himself really, although they were for the look magazine at the time and they were other civil rights era and the like the killing of the Mississippi murders, Schwerner and those guys who were murdered down in Mississippi, he did a painting about that.

So he began to be much more expressive and use his skills to talk about important social issues with his painting. So, and with me, I think there's something similar there in that I spent a lot of my decades just drawing cartoons for the New Yorker, which I really enjoyed but then it wasn't until 9/11 hit that I really began to do some soul searching and think that I got to do something more with what I have available, my skill. And so you learn to work within the confines of your employer or the the magazine that you work for. And for him, The Post was the pinnacle for him, for his illustration, the New Yorker is the pinnacle for me and I'm still working there. But there are gatekeepers there. And there's people that have their opinions and you have to work within the controls. So it's a trade off.

>> So that's again, another great segue of something I want to get into and how that's changed. And, you know, kind of generally distribution was in control. Why does William Randolph first build a beautiful house down at San Simeon? It's because the newspapers had control, distribution had control back in the old days. You work in a digital art form. Now you've got there's tons and tons of channels of distribution. I've got this little laptop pulled up and I've got all of Liza's stuff. You got your beautiful WordPress site. You've got Twitter, you've got media and you've got Instagram, you got this new thing Happs, I've never heard of Happs, I don't even know what Happs is, I need to find out what Happs is all about. You got these beautiful profiles on the New Yorker. You're an accomplished author in Amazon.

So there's so many channels now. So I was, you know, like most things in life, right? The same side of the coin can be good or bad. How are you kind of adapting to the new kind of digital distribution world? What's kind of your approach? Is it super exciting? Is it super confusing? Is it overwhelming? You're clearly embracing a lot of these kind of new tools and new opportunities. How has that kind of changed your relationship with your primary employer or the way you think about your art or and you know, kind of your relationship with people that you would have never, ever met because you just dropped off the art and then read it in the paper.

>> That's a good question. I think it started to... I love technology. I'm not educated in it but I like to adopt anything that new, pretty much any new technology that comes along but I began doing live drawing like you described at the top of this interview on my iPad. I began doing that. I should get a date and have a date ready but now it must be five years ago by drawing what I saw on the television set. Like the first thing I drew, I think was the state of the union address that year, which I always watch because I think it's kind of fascinating. It can be very boring but it's also fascinating. And I was drawing it and Twitter was relatively new. Well, no it wasn't. Anyway, I was on Twitter but the app I was using was new and you could draw something and then send it out to me on Twitter.

And I started doing that, I was drawing just the people Speaking Obama, I think it was. And I saw the reaction. I saw people loving it 'cause my drawings can be bold and bright and often without words. So at the time it was quite different for Twitter to see a flash of color going by like that that wasn't a photograph. And so people started following me because of that. And I started doing the Oscars, the Grammys, you know anything that I sensed was a national or global event. I would live draw it and put it out on social media also now Instagram. And I began to notice that that was something that I could do and now people hire me to do it. So that's nice. And I get to go to the Oscars. We can talk about that, I guess. But the whole point when we saying that was, I began to say, well, maybe I don't need the big media.

I mean, I do have the New Yorker name attached to my work and that people associate me with that wonderful magazine. So I have that and I'm very grateful for that but getting my work out there and communicating with an audience is something that I do. And I do it now on all these different platforms. And it's confusing sometimes but I think and I'm not the only one that's doing this, so many people are doing this now, we were talking about that earlier and I have a Patrion now. So I'm trying to tap into the audiences in a thoughtful manner that I have out there. I have a lot of people that say they like my work. And so I try to communicate with them. I try to answer all tweets coming at me that are asking a question or commenting positively on me or Instagram. Patrion is new to me but I'm trying to, I have a few sponsors, so I'm trying to figure out how to give back to them. And yeah, so I know I'm not the only one doing this but it's I think it's the way of the future because I think the big media companies everybody's kind of tired of having to work through a gatekeeper.

>> Well, the other thing that strikes me about right is its advertising and right now the way the money flows say to you on a picture that's in the New Yorker is somebody has to advertise coffee or water or whatever and they get their piece. And a piece of it goes to you where if you're directly getting paid by somebody on Patrion or Happs and they give you a couple bucks or they sponsor you for the year or something, you've kind of taken this advertising piece out of the middle of the equation which I think is fascinating. The other thing is that the advertising model is built on broadcasting. It's built on really big numbers. And I think this whole kind of bifurcation that we see in the internet age where you have big, massive things like the Academy awards which is probably fading a little bit where everybody participates, Superbowl, that type of thing.

And then you have you can kind of hyper specialization at the complete opposite in and it's that ugly middle, which is a pretty dangerous place to be from a distribution point of view. But it allows you to have micro audiences of people that really, really like what you do, the way that you do it, who you are and to have this direct connection but has it been rewarding? Are you getting... I imagine it's got to be a ton of cartoons. So you said you did eight to 10 a week that never saw the light of day that suddenly now you've got a vehicle to bring those things to life because maybe they were too edgy for the New Yorker or they just didn't like them or maybe it was a bad day or maybe one of your competitors just had better for whatever reason because now all this stuff comes out and gets to see the light of day.

>> Yeah, I mean, usually now I do new stuff for my audiences on those platforms. Sometimes I'll bring out an old Kurt, you know rejecting her cartoon but it's very rewarding. I spent my early part of my career not knowing that people like my work and you just depend on the editor if they like it, they'll buy it and then they run it and then that's it. You don't hear anything back. I mean, you have to be careful. I know a lot of people probably do pay attention to the metrics and the feedback and then draw accordingly. I try not to do that, although I'm sure it's influencing me what people say and think and feel about what I'm drawing. So I'm not going to be naive and say it doesn't but I try not to draw for the metrics. I try not to draw for the trends, although I try to draw what people are talking about.

>> Right. Right. So let's just shift gears about kind of where we are today. So you've obviously embraced technology in a major, major way. You can describe, I mean you do live drawings every weekday that people can tune in. And I mean obviously this has been a very busy week, the least. So it's a much more kind of visceral and direct experience with what you're doing every day. And so how's it evolved? What's kind of your thoughts having done that?

>> You know, I think one thing that about the live drawings that I deal with every day now, I think it's a human connection that people are enjoying. That's I think one thing that that they like about the live drawing is that it's a connection with another human being about an issue or about feeling. (indistinct) I think it was about women and the burden that COVID was placing on women. So that was one of my daily life drawings.

>> I love this, again, super powerful, kind of light and whimsical and your style but a very, very serious message without any words.

>> Yeah, Jeff you know the old adage if you whisper, people will lean in and listen. So my drawings in some ways are whispering. And I think people appreciate, some people anyway, appreciate a quieter take on things. I'm not trying to hit people over the head with my opinion. I'm just showing them something I'm observing. That was done early on in the Trump administration when he was attacking the press. I used the statue of Liberty a lot, but anyway the live drawing thing, so I'm really kind of excited about it even though it's very difficult. When the pandemic hit and we all had to stay home I was in my studio a lot more than I usually am 'cause I love to travel and I'm invited to travel. And when I travel, I use my drawings to communicate with my audience by live drawing. Couldn't do that. So I'd done this before. I'd drawn on paper with my phone over my hand.

And I have noticed, years ago I noticed that that was of interest to people. They liked seeing people draw, they like the hand, watch the hand create something. And so I started doing that in March and I was not creating a particular cartoon idea it was more like I was just drawing what I was hearing on the news about the pandemic, about COVID. And I would draw the healthcare workers. I would draw the people that are delivering groceries. I would draw people in hospitals, families losing loved ones. Whatever was on our minds, I would draw it and talk to the people, talk to my audience as I drew it. And people told me it was first of all, calming. They found it calming to watch me draw. And I think they liked the connection with another human being.

And some of these people got to know each other on the stream. And then so there's a whole community. This is Instagram I'm talking about. And so now I have this regular group of people that show up every time I do it, I do it five o'clock on Instagram. And it had it morphed from COVID to Black Lives Matter and all the sad parts of that, you know, that George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery and the people that were killed and difficult subjects for me 'cause I don't usually draw about race. So I should but I haven't but that taught me some things. And now the election and now whatever the heck's going on right now. Sometimes I don't have an idea like yesterday I had no particular idea. I just wanted to draw Trump in handcuffs. So that's what I did.

And I drew Trump in handcuffs. So it doesn't always rise to a specific idea but I think people don't mind they just like to see you draw and talk about what's going on. And people are so generous and very kind. So do, sorry, let me just say I do that at five every weekday on Instagram. And then there's this new startup. You mentioned it before, Happs TV. They approached me in March. A group of young men have created and some of them are not young, some of them came from regular. What did they call it? This is a term for the established media. I can't remember what it is.

>> Probably been a very complimentary these days.

>> No, it's not. It's not a bad word but it's something. Anyway some of them have been in regular media and they started this thing called Happs TV, which is a platform you can download it on your phone and it's for live streaming and they wanted me to want to be one of their verified journalists. And they have verified journals all over the world that stream about things that are going on wherever they are. And this is just as the pandemic was beginning. So I said, yes, I'd love to because they got it. I think they got what you've been talking about. What I've been trying to talk about is, we don't necessarily need to have the CBSs and the New Yorkers. I mean, it's good to have those in your bio which I do and I'm not putting that down, I'm just saying it's hard to move forward sometimes with these large, large monolithic media with an innovative idea.

>> Right, well, I was curious what happens, is it like Patrion? I couldn't decide whether it was like Patrion or like Twitch or like Periscope. It seemed like a combination of the three.

>> I don't actually, I don't know what Twitch is, believe it or not. That's funny that I--

>> So Twitch is the gamer live streaming platform and there's a whole genre of people watching other people playing games in this community. And it's all the same stuff that you're talking about. It's just that the focus of the attention at the moment is a game but it allows you to give money and do all those types of things right. Then you have Periscope, which is about ready to die that the Twitter live streaming platform. And then you've got, as you said, Patrion which you said you also have a patrion account which is the one I think of first when I think of just again, kind of direct financial support to creators, whether it's on a per unit or, you know, Jack Conti has done some really interesting stuff there, so, well, good for you and--

>> Let me just say Happs is a combination of Patrion and probably Twitch that they have. And when the announcement of Periscope came down that it was going to stop, a rush of content providers went over to two Happs apparently. It was just like this huge. I heard about it from the guys who run Happs 'cause they they're in touch with creators. And so you can be my sponsor, you can give me $5, $10 a month or more but you can also give me money with little awards. I think that's what Twitch is. Like, you know, they give me money per episode like a clapping award or give me a beer or give me a coffee or whatever.

>> Just for other young creators out there not as lies of the the long-term professional published worker but as as kind of a content creator kind of navigating all these channels and distributions and direct contacts, is it overwhelming? Is it exciting? What would you tell people when they're trying to figure out they've got a creative urge and not really sure how to get that distribution?

>> Yeah I've actually talked to the daughter of a college friend of mine 'cause she's wanted to be a a chef and I turned her on to Happs 'cause she's got excitement, she wants to create content and wanted to do a book. And I'm like, well, books are a whole nother thing and they're really hard to get published now. I turned her towards Happs just thinking that because she apparently does do online speaking. So it's exciting but it is overwhelming. But if you like being coming a cartoonist, if you really want to do it, you'll find a way to do it. And you know, reach out to other people. I reached out to a guy who his day job is in the government but he has a travel Patrion page for New Orleans.

I never been to new Orleans. I don't know the man but he's very successful on Patrion. I know now. And I just reached out to him like, can you tell me how to navigate Patrion? So yeah, reach out to people. Hopefully they'll be helpful. I get people coming to me all the time asking for assistance and advice on things.

>> Well, I was going to say as we kind of come towards the end here, you shared some secrets with those Yukon grads and I wrote them down 'cause I always liked to grab secrets from commencement speeches. Always have an eraser. I like it. You might make a mistake.

>> Did I say that?

>> You will make mistakes. And then your next line was, mistakes are sometimes the best part of the output which I thought was so powerful. And then know a little about a lot of things, which clearly is something that you do and you touched on such a broad kind of slate of topics but I just give you the kind of final word, thankfully, hopefully things will be a little bit less chaotic here in 14 days. You won't quite have the fodder of the orange that you've had for years for never-ending things to write about. That's for sure. I wonder if you can just kind of share your thoughts as you look forward, you know, you're managing all these social media platforms. You're riding on tons of really important topics which the good news is at least a lot of them seem to finally be having some traction.

At least it feels like we've turned some corners on a few of these topics including the Black Lives Matter. As you look into 2021, just counting the events of this week, what are you excited about? What are you looking forward to?

>> Well, one thing I said also in that speech that you mentioned, which carries over into the new year and sort of trying to get us past where we've been for the past four years is I told the graduates to listen. That was my thread that went through the talk because that's what I have to do, I have to really listen to people. I watch too. I'm always watching people but I'm listening to what's going on, I'm listening. And I think if we listen to each other, we'll really listen. It's so easy to just say it and that's what I try to do with my cartoons. Yes, I've been harsh on the president over the years but I try not to be unnecessarily mean because it'll divide us even further.

You know, this cartoon was done recently about hope 'cause I'm an optimistic person. And I think if we embrace hope, it's going to be more positive. Yeah. I mean, if you get caught up in the craziness of social media and not listen but you can also listen very carefully on social media. You can listen, I have a great group of people that I connect with on every morning on Twitter, I say good morning. And it helps me get going but also helps, I'm told help other people get going with their day in a positive manner. There's been some mornings in the past four years where I didn't have an exclamation point on my good morning but I would say this morning (mumbles)

>> Well, actually I have your quote from that commencement speak right here. And you said, learn through other people's experience, which I thought was so powerful, laugh a lot, laugh at yourself, laugh with others not at others and listen deeply to yourself and others. You'll be surprised at what you'll hear and what you can do with what you hear. Very powerful messages for the graduates. So Liza I'm so thankful you were able to take a few minutes out of your day to sit down. I wanted to talk to you at that Wit's event but Lisa was doing all the interviews and that was the right thing to do. I was very jealous 'cause I wanted to sit down with you. So thanks for taking time and hopefully quite the madness of fodder for your--

>> No, I hope not. It'll be interesting to see how another cartoon is to handle the new administration. It's going to be a lot different.

>> Saturday Night Live can do, you can do.

>> I wanted to draw it for you guys but I don't really know what to draw, let me think. Shall I draw for you?

>> I would love for you to draw. Did something pop into your head?

>> No.

>> No?

>> No.

>> So while you're drawing, talk a little bit about kind of how your techniques have changed over the years.

>> That's a good idea. I'm going to try to think as I show you. So ever since I started, I don't know what you can see here. These are some of my pens and brushes. Ever since I began as a cartoonist... Some light on this situation, light's not working. I have used something called a Crow Quill pen, which is a dip pen, you know, the old fashioned and a bottle of ink. And this is what I started using when I was starting out. My first New Yorker cartoon was drawn like this. Make sure you can see.

>> What year was your first New Yorker cartoon published?

>> 1982.

>> 82.

>> They bought one in 1979 and then didn't run and they bought another one and then they didn't run it until 1982. It was excruciating.

>> And if they buy it, you no longer have rights to it anymore even if they don't run it.

>> I have some rights. We share the rights.

>> Okay.

>> And I started drawing for my mother as you pointed out but she gave me copy of James Thurbers cartoons, a book of his cartoons. If any of your viewers viewers know that, know Thurber you'll see the connection. The very loose sort of simple shapes, very minimal. And so that's the tool that I use most of the time when I'm drawing on paper, when I'm not using a digital stylist. But this is a new pen that I've discovered. It's a pen brush, it's called a Pentel pen brush. And it gives you a sort of the same feel. It's a little more brushy and let's see, shall I finish with this? Maybe I will. I like drawing people in motion for some reason happy and you know, moving.

>> Well, one of the interesting things you said in one of the Ted talks is probably not doing it here but the amount of kind of thought that goes into the process beyond the obvious. And you talked about having a backstory and really kind of thinking through the scene and being really like a cinematographer and you know what are they wearing, furniture and what is the background and really interesting as to the thoughtfulness and the intentfullness of what goes on the page and what does not go on the page.

>> Well, that's true for New Yorker cartoon is you have to sort of pay attention to, it's like I've said that being a cartoonist is like you're like creating a little stage, a set of... Oopsie, it's bleeding. I didn't wait long enough, I think it's still wet but this is the watercolor I use. So you're the set designer. You're the choreographer, you're the script writer, You're the casting director because you have to create this little scene of everything that's going on and the words, if there are words in it. And then it's a story, a single panel cartoon is a story but it's got a beginning and a middle and an end. So the middle is the cartoon itself.

So the people that you have in the cartoon you have to make sense that they would be saying what they're saying. And like setting has to make sense. This is a great tool that the Spanish cartoonists turned me on to. It's a pencil but it's really thick and really fun. What else can I show you?

>> And then when you're thinking it through, is it all in your head at the same time and you're just putting it down or does the picture come first and then the words to the words--

>> I also have a book I can show you. Let me get quickly it's just over here.

>> I think the process is so fascinating.

>> Each week I try to, when I come up with ideas and you sit with a blank piece of paper or in this case a blank sketchbook and a doodle. And sometimes I'll look down. I hope I don't show you anything that I don't want you to see. But so this is, can you see that?

>> Yeah, so these are kind of--

>> Doodles. Doodles with words, construction site. That popped in my head, I wrote it down. You never know it might come in the cartoon and never turn it into anything but it's a situation that might be helpful in some kind of situation. Here I just drew it, you know, coffee machine and a blender over here and the blender is saying, I love you no matter the distance. And that was a cartoon that I drew up and sent to the New Yorker but they didn't buy it. And that was a pandemic cartoon. You know, just doodles.

>> I'm trying to find that one you did when you say construction, I only got whistled at 18 times today.

>> Oh yeah, I couldn't find that to give you but that was a more serious cartoon about feminism, you know desert island drawing. So it's a lot of just sitting with words and images and sometimes something will come, like here's a woman picking some fruit from a stand, a piece of apple saying why me. That didn't come into anything that didn't become anything but this is a woman walking up some steps. And over here, I see the word cage steps. And that actually turned into a cartoon that I drew it. It's not here but I drew it into a cartoon of... I do a lot of caveman drawings for the New Yorker. And a woman is saying it's at the bottom of the stone steps go up to nowhere. And its's a man at the top and I forget what I had her saying to him but they bought it and they took off my caption and they ran it in the back page of the caption contest. So you never know.

>> Oh, they run it (mumbles) the caption contest, okay. But in your own mind though, does it all happened together and forgetting like maybe wordsmithing but is it the picture that drives the caption or the other way around or both?

>> Both. It depends on sometimes you'll come up with a caption just sitting there and they'll go that's it. Sometimes you'll have to rewrite, reword the caption 'cause it's the order of the words is important.

>> And talk a little bit about Mother Liberty. 'Cause you use the statue of Liberty a lot. It's a very powerful, very powerful person, metaphor, symbol I mean so many things going on there.

>> Well, historically-- (indistinct)

>> Huh what?

>> I was going to say one of your latest ones, you've got the--

>> Oh yeah, there she's getting the COVID. Now that one was done a couple of weeks ago during the live draw. And it was because not only was there hope in there because they just got the vaccine but there was hope because of the election, I think yeah. I think Biden had just won. So there was a mixed message there you know, historically cartoonists have used Uncle Sam as the symbol for America. I'll just take the moment to draw.

>> And here's another recent one. I think this is the one you're selling T-shirts and mugs. (indistinct)

>> Thank you. Yeah, it's in the mail. Kamela during her debate with Mike Pence if you watched it, I'm sure you did. She said a couple of times Mr.Vice president, I'm speaking, I'm speaking. And she got that great look on her face and I was live drawing the debate. So I had other drawings of her and Pence but that one I made put onto t-shirts and hats and mugs and people are buying them a lot. And they're still there. If anybody wants one, they can just go to my website.

>> And how long, it kind of goes back to this kind of multi-channel multi-country, how long have you been selling merchandise?

>> This is new. I sell prints all the time for people, prints of drawings that they like that they see of mine but this is my statue of Liberty. She doesn't really look like that of course. But so yeah so this is new, the merchandise is new and my daughter's helping me with the store 'cause I don't know how to do spreadsheets and she does. So she's really organized and I'm not, actually you don't see her physique at all. And then last week I did a drawing of her holding the Capitol building I won't draw it here because this is my feeling about the statue of Liberty. She represents the best of America, I think and she represents what we're supposed to be. And this is a beacon of hope to people to come here and join us in democracy people from around the country. And last week I drew her holding the Capitol building because it looked like--

>> I have that right here.

>> You have that? Yeah 'cause it would look like the Democrats were winning and I'm in Georgia. Sorry. I'll come back on.

>> This was the fateful Tuesday before the fateful Wednesday 'cause then you also then lied--

>> Oh God no. But I feel like the Democrats at least since the last four years, the Democrats are our beacon of hope and they're more respectful to our democracy. And that's why I did that Capitol building in replacing it with the light that she holds. So she's a great symbol--

>> You know the foreshadowing for the next day. I mean, Oh my goodness.

>> And I'm stuck today. I don't know what I'm going to draw. I really want to draw about the racist nature and the white privilege of the--

>> It's got to be something about that. It's got to be something with that picture from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I mean, that's the one that everyone is using as the juxtaposition to Buffalo head and the treatment that they got. There's a lot of juxtaposition of that photo floating around.

>> Which photo, on the Capitol steps?

>> Is the one from... No, it's well, I'm not sure which one they're using of what happened Wednesday but the one they're using from the Black Lives events protest there was a really scary looking group of military guys on the steps of, I think it was the Lincoln Memorial. It was a very, very good photograph, very effective photograph, you know, really tight on this guy in the foreground and you know, very ominous.

>> It's a complicated situation to draw a simple cartoon about. It's white privilege, it's racism. And how do you depict that? That's my problem.

>> You're good. It's so many layers of kind of the double entendre into your work and I know that's probably a big piece of really what makes people's work is to have, you know kind of these second order, third order layers of impact and thoughtfulness. And what's really happening beyond just kind of the surface level.

>> It's helpful to sit back and or step back and look often my political cartoons are more poignant if they are, if I've taken a day to think about it.

>> Well, Liza, well thank you. Good luck with your writer's block or your drawer's block for this afternoon. I'm sure you'll come up with something great. It's really great to catch up. I look forward to running into in the hallways of a convention or something once we're--

>> Yeah, definitely. Where are you based--

>> Of our groups. I'm in the Palo Alto. I'm in California.

>> Oh, okay, right. Well, when I get out to California again, I'll see you.

>> Yes, Liza, thanks again. And congratulations on all your success. And I do enjoy my good morning every morning that I get from you. I try to be quick and get back to you before it's been like six hours.

>> That's okay. It doesn't matter. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

>> Thank you very much as well.

>> Okay.

>> All right. Thanks a lot. Bye bye.

>> Bye.