Barry Blitt: If you're asking me what I love, it's that point where I'...

I do a lot of pivoting. There was one cover I did of Donald Trump, after he won Iowa, it seemed like it was over for him at the beginning of the primary process. I was given the go-ahead on it right away. I drew it and he won the next primary, and suddenly, the cover didn't make any sense. And then, after the Democratic National Convention, it seemed like he was finished, Hillary Clinton seemed to be gaining strength, so the cover ran then. So it seemed like you can come up with an idea and it can be rendered useless two days later and then all of a sudden it's relevant again.

Barry Blitt

democratic clinton like-you

The magazine business is dying. It's a hard time for publishing. It does seem that everyone is much more opinionated now. I think there's probably more room for making opinionated illustrations. There was a time when Time magazine and Newsweek would have a realistic painted cover. A friend of mine used to do a lot of those paintings and he was told by the art director at one point, we are switching to photography. It seems that if someone saw a painting on a cover, it took a while to do, it must be old news. Photography became more immediate.

Barry Blitt

hard-times photography art

I don't really know what makes someone want to be a cartoonist, but part of it is trying to get in trouble. You're looking where the line is and seeing how much you can step over it, and I mean, I do that in my personal life, too. I try to anger and piss people off a little bit to try to see what I can get away with. I got in trouble with more than one cartoon.

Barry Blitt

cartoon mean people

A cartoonist's style is created by weaknesses and personal restrictions as much as strengths.

Barry Blitt

style weakness

I don't have a philosophy of caricature. I'm not even sure I am a caricaturist, in the strictest sense of the word - I don't really exaggerate much. For a while, recently, I was thinking of attempting a reverse-caricature of Donald Trump; he certainly already appears to be a caricature of himself. I wondered about de-caricaturizing him, scaling back his whole face and hair and visual excess, and attempting to shed light on him that way.

Barry Blitt

shed philosophy thinking

I'm, like, not overly into labels. I've been referred to that way, but I tend to think of political cartoonists as constantly at it, producing more work than I do. I do, what, six or eight covers a year, maybe, and a bunch of illustrations as well, but how many do you create a year? I'm in awe of that, and I think the term implies being at it every day or at least weekly.

Barry Blitt

term political thinking

Luckily, my limited attention span is well suited to the velocity of the news cycles. There's an assault of stories coming at you on even a slow-ish news day, but certain things just tend to stick out. Certain stories just seem to have an odd sort of electricity. It does get tricky when you're pitching an image that won't hit the newsstands for another week. Not only can other, bigger stories break in the mean time, but other daily cartoonists, can also come up with the same idea - this is the most depressing thing - and put it out there so yours looks old by the time it's published.

Barry Blitt

depressing attention mean

I don't know what I was thinking when I was starting out. I was hoping I'd get paid to draw realistic pictures of hockey players. I still hold that hope alive.

Barry Blitt

hockey player thinking

I like to make myself laugh. When I'm just sitting with a sketchbook and trying to make myself laugh or trying to come up with ideas, I try not to worry about aim right away. I'm just sort of shooting in all directions.

Barry Blitt

worry laughing ideas

If you can learn to convey what you express in the first rough sketch, you're really saying what you need to say in that.

Barry Blitt

rough needs firsts

I felt it was more fun to knock people down than to build them up. I seemed to get a better reaction from my peers and from my friends when I was mocking stuff - which isn't necessarily anything to be too proud of.

Barry Blitt

peers fun people

I'm not a good businessman and I don't promote myself particularly well. It's best I don't talk to anybody lest I alienate myself.

Barry Blitt

good-business wells businessman

I'm an adequatist! I would be happy with something adequate. Perfection's out of the question.

Barry Blitt

adequate perfection would-be

When I'm online and I see a picture I want to draw of anybody or anything, a unique angle of them or just something that looks very drawable, I slide it to my desktop and put it in a folder. It just seems like every picture of Trump is a revelation. Any angle. I didn't know a person could look like that. His facial expressions - he really is a cartoon. He's like an instruction manual of how to caricature someone.

Barry Blitt

cartoon unique expression

The back of Donald Trump's head is fantastic and his eyebrows are amazing. His overbite and his series of chins and the color of him and the texture. It's amazing! He's like an artifact. It's an amazing head to draw and I have to think it's got to be part of his success. It's ready-made for public consumption.

Barry Blitt

eyebrows color thinking

Just look at the back of Donald Trump's head, any angle. There's some angles that his chin is just, what do I mean? I mean he's sculpted out of some kind of pudding, I think. It looks like his face is sort of melting slowly. I should talk because my face is melting quickly. He's some kind of bizarre sculpture. There's no one really who looks like that.

Barry Blitt

pudding mean thinking

The dread was built into the 2016 election - a little spoonful of dread.

Barry Blitt

dread election littles

I've been thinking of trying to de-caricaturize Donald Trump. I thought it would be fun to try and, since he's already a caricature, to make him normal looking.

Barry Blitt

fun trying thinking

All my drawings always sort of looked funny even if I was trying to do serious stuff and express myself about grim situations. It was always cartoony.

Barry Blitt

drawing stuff trying

I wanted to address President Trump’s stormy relationship with the press.

Barry Blitt

entertainment

If you're asking me what I love, it's that point where I'm just scribbling and trying to make myself laugh and trying to outrage myself. Getting in that frame of mind where the more you laugh the more you laugh - I think that's what I'm attempting to do.