[ Posted Monday, June 24, 2002 ]

the mediabistro Q&A:
Roz Chast, cartoonist

Hometown: Brooklyn, New York.
Age: 47.
First job: Coloring in needlepoint canvases for two women on the Upper East Side, who sold the canvases to local shops. ("Giraffes. Raggedy Ann and Andy. It was pretty horrible.")
Career highlights: Regular cartoons for Redbook, Scientific American, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review. ("I've never had a full-time job. My first cartoon for The New Yorker was when I was 23. I was very fortunate.")
First Sunday Times section she reads: Crossword puzzle.

BY ADAM WASSERMAN | It's pretty much a known fact that only two things were funny after September 11: The Onion and Roz Chast. During these troubled times, who else but the popular New Yorker cartoonist could have come up with the "AfghaniGap," offering cargo-pocketed and slim-fit Lycra burqas? For over 20 years, Chast, who works from her home in suburban Connecticut, has distilled her social observations about modern life into cartoons laden with equal parts Jewish guilt, motherly self-deprecation, and Xanax-addled anxiety. Her work has never felt more timely than now.

The people in your cartoons seem to be very nervous.

If it's somebody else's anxiety, it can really be funny. I really admire people that aren't anxious. There's strength of character, maybe they experience it, but they don't give in to it.

Who are some of your influences?

I grew up loving Charles Addams. I've always just adored him. But influences are like handwriting. You consciously or unconsciously copy what you like, and eventually it becomes your own. I like [cartoonists] Sam Gross and Gahan Wilson. I loved The Twilight Zone when I was growing up. I went through a big UFO phase. I think my parents were probably my biggest influence.

What is an average day like for you?

My kids get up and I'll get up with them. They go to school, and I go to my studio in my house. Then I work, fool around, or kill time staring at Bill Woodman's New Yorker cartoon called "Blazing Island of White" (it's just [blank] paper). I'll try to come up with ideas or finishes or some other non–New Yorker job. I do a cartoon for Scientific American. Around 2:30 or 3, the kids start coming home. Tuesday late afternoon, around 6, is my New Yorker deadline. So I usually get back to work a little bit at that point.

What was your first published cartoon about?

It was in Christopher Street [the now-defunct gay literary journal], although I can't remember what it was about. I was paid 10 bucks. It was a turning point for me. I always loved drawing cartoons. Still life didn't do it for me. I majored in painting at school, but when I got out, I fell back into drawing. I missed it, I guess. I was living in Brooklyn, and I started taking around an illustration portfolio. I'd occasionally have a little bit of luck with it, but it was pretty horrible, because it was not what I wanted to do. The portfolio really didn't have cartoons — it was sort of a pastiche, a dog's breakfast of whatever styles were out there.

In April of '78, I submitted a batch to The New Yorker. I didn't even know what I was doing. I just knew that they used cartoons. I had been reading The New Yorker my whole life and looking at the cartoons, but I didn't even know who the editor was. I was pretty naive. I found out what their drop-off day was and put 100 cartoons in a brown paper envelope, the kind you can get at a stationery store for 79 cents that gets tied with cheesy shoestring. They took one out of the batch, and I started doing stuff for them.

What was that like?

I was flabbergasted! It was a combination of feeling like they'd made a mistake and thinking, "Why didn't they take more?" I draw what I think is funny, and I'm completely thrilled when anybody else thinks it is, too. I always feel at any minute somebody might say, "This is terrible!" and I'll never sell another cartoon again.

How much inspiration do you draw from your own family?

My life definitely filters into my cartoons, but it's a blend of a lot of things. I don't think of myself as just a family cartoonist, like Erma Bombeck. No offense to her but that would kill me.

Have you ever had the desire to take on things more serious than the foibles of a household and family?

I have occasionally. When Ralph Nader decided that he was going stay in the presidential race, that annoyed me. I did a cartoon that was "Thank You Notes" to him as the spoiler. Yes, he has had some valid points to make, but at what price?

Did that surprise people?

I got a number of letters about that, and I got some weird responses to a "Written Test on Gun Control" that ran on The New Yorker's back page — multiple-choice questions and essay questions, like, "When I have a gun in my hand, I feel..."

There were a few people who filled it out for real with some pretty horrible things, like [in a heavy Southern drawl], "I feel like blowing the head off of every cocksucker I see!" [Laughs.] It was just unbelievable. People were crawling out of the woodwork and you think, "Why are they reading The New Yorker?"

What is the process for a cartoon getting approved for publication?

The New Yorker has a weekly art meeting on Wednesday. The deadline is late Tuesday. I used to go in in person with the original [artwork], but I haven't done that in years, as I live outside of the city now. It took too much time; it cut my week down by an entire day. I fax now. I work on The New Yorker mainly on Mondays and Tuesdays, because I like the pressure of a deadline; then I work on the other stuff the rest of the week.

For the New Yorker meeting, basically, everybody gets their "batch" in — rough sketches from five to 15 drawings. I love being able to do a lot of different ideas and try a lot of different things. That keeps it from being boring. I can't imagine doing a weekly comic strip, where you're dealing with the same rhythm, the same format, and the same characters week after week. After a while, you just want to cut your throat. I can basically do anything I want on any subject in any format.

I find out any given week if I've sold a cartoon. There is no guarantee. Sometimes you go weeks and you haven't sold anything, and it's horrible. It's a terrible feeling. You feel like, "Oh my God, I'm never going to have another good idea!" I like to tell myself that it's part of the cycle; of course, you never know whether you're now in a new cycle of never selling. Sometimes they take one, occasionally they'll take two. Then you just feel like everything is really wonderful, until the next week when you have to do it again and you're back to square one.

Have you ever written?

I feel like I do a lot of writing in my cartoons. I've written occasional short pieces, like the introduction to The New Yorker Book of Kids Cartoons. I have to say I have the same problem I had when I was a painting major: When I was a painting major, I missed the words. When I'm just writing, I miss the pictures.

How has your humor changed post-9/11, after a supposed "death of irony"? Were you at an impasse trying to come up with funny stuff?

On September 11, I was at home in Connecticut, watching the news in horror. It knocked everybody who does funny things for a living off their feet. Few people were able to remain standing. David Letterman was pretty good. Everything seemed so trivial after that, but I think time has a way of enabling you to get back and get life going.

Do you remember the first cartoon that you drew after it happened?

I actually did a cartoon inspired by my parents. They live in Brooklyn still, in the neighborhood I grew up in, and for the last 20 years or so, it's had waves of different immigrant groups. There's been a Haitian wave down on Coney Island Avenue; there's been a Russian wave; and now there are tons of people from the Middle East. There are Pakistani and Afghan restaurants about a block away from their apartment, and mosques, too. It's always made my parents a little bit edgy. The occasional weird thing has happened: A couple of years ago, they caught one of the guys in on the '93 [World Trade Center] bombing in the neighborhood. My parents can get very worked up between the pull of their liberal instincts and this paranoia of "Who's the spy?"

I did this cartoon where there's this Afghan restaurant in the neighborhood — and my parents actually started having this argument, the same day, about whether or not they were going to go to this restaurant to prove how they didn't think all people from Afghanistan were mad bombers. They just had this hilarious, absurd discussion, and they wound up compromising by saying that they would walk there but one of them would go inside and get the take-out menu.

What do you think is funniest today about the current state of politics?

Bush saying we have to look around and remain alert. It fuels anxiety, I know what he is talking about, but as if this could prevent anything! There is this feeling of real despair. All of my looking around, and seeing whether somebody looks suspicious is unlikely [to make a difference]. We were at the airport a couple of months ago, and I got pulled out of line, much to my kids' amusement. I was wearing these Dansko clogs, and this lady had to wave her wand over my clogs. There I am with shoulder bags and my kids snickering in the background. I guess you just can't do nothing!

Do you ever read The Onion?

Of course.

The Onion was great [after 9/11]. They were the only funny stuff I read after it happened. There was an article about a woman not knowing what to do, so she bakes a cake. "Women Bakes American-Flag Cake" — that is just brilliant. It was so touching; it was hysterical; and it was heartbreaking, because there are people like that, and is it any less pointless than just looking around and seeing whether somebody looks suspicious?

What is your favorite cartoon that never got published?

I've got a few that I have submitted over and over again. I don't know if I have one favorite. I have one that is basically a mixed marriage one. It's about a bathing suit. A wife is showing the husband this bathing suit, and he makes a comment about it being gaudy and not liking it. They've never published it, but I hope that someday they will. Some I've submitted four or five times. I know they have seen it before. I just hope that they will just suddenly see it in this brand new hilarious way or they will buy it and it will never be seen again. [At least] to pay me off. Some hush money.

What kind of stuff do you read regularly?

The Merck Manual. I'm reading Little Dorrit right now. I read The [New York] Times. I like Tom Friedman very much. After September 11, I read From Beirut to Jerusalem. I just thought that his explanation of what is going on in the Mideast and some of the back story, even though the book was published in '89, was wonderful.

What's your favorite art supply?

These wonderful disposable Rapidographs. I tend to hoard them, but if you hoard them for too long they tend to turn on you.

Will you ever use different mediums?

I do, very slowly. I think one of the things about being a deadline artist is that you don't always get enormous amounts of time to experiment. Especially the way my life is right now, with two kids, it's like a jigsaw puzzle. I feel like I have enough time to do my best work and to do mom/parent things as well as I can. As far as blocks of time to learn how to use egg tempera, it doesn't exist right now.

How would you describe your style?

Personal.

Are there any books in the works?

Yeah, I am probably going to put together another collection.

Aesthetically, what catches your eye?

I love looking at cartoons. I don't like comic books at all. They are very boring to me. That is such a personal thing. I know people who love them, who can go into rapture at the foreshortening of the Green Lantern's arm. [Laughs.] I'm not saying that's not something to be admired, but my eyeballs roll back in my head, like looking at an annual report. I like looking at paintings. There is a lot of fine artists' work whose I really like a lot.

What can we expect from you in the future?

I might be baking some banana bread tonight.

Adam Wasserman is on the editorial staff of mediabistro.com.