Armed with watercolors and a “passive-aggressive” sense of humor, the illustrator finds the funny, even in ugly times.
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00:00I don't think any of this is annoying at all.
00:06Um, Barry, why don't you start by looking into the camera and introducing yourself.
00:13My name is Barry Blitt.
00:14I'm a cartoonist and illustrator.
00:18There's really nothing else to say about me.
00:20I hate to do this to you, but I think we're going to have to change your shirt.
00:23The white is not looking great on our camera.
00:34I got this stripe number.
00:36No, stripes is no good.
00:37Oh, is that right?
00:38Yeah.
00:39This is always a winner.
00:40Oh, that's nice.
00:41I got a red corduroy.
00:42Oh, I love the red.
00:43You want to go red?
00:44I don't really.
00:45Okay, let's go blue.
00:46Let's go blue.
00:47Can I at least have some privacy?
00:48Yeah, we can give you privacy.
00:49Is that okay?
00:50Yeah, give us a little, uh...
00:51Jesus.
00:53I really don't like the direction this is going in.
00:55I've never been so humiliated in my life.
00:58I don't even know where to begin.
01:00Well, you can imagine how lost I am.
01:03All right, well, let's start from the beginning.
01:06I drew as a kid, as most kids do, and I kept drawing as I got older, and went to art school,
01:12and then...
01:13Oh, God, this is so boring.
01:15I was in Toronto, where I went to school, and I would bring my portfolio around, and
01:20then I moved to New York City and started to do cartoons, mostly for Entertainment Weekly.
01:24I was drawing a lot of celebrities and portraits and caricatures of celebrities, but then there
01:30was a Bill Clinton, Monica Gate thing, and suddenly it seemed like the political became
01:35the pop cultural.
01:37Before I knew it, I was doing a lot more political stuff.
01:40I think the first job I did for The New Yorker was a page cartoon.
01:44It was presidential allergies through the ages.
01:47I mean, it didn't mean anything, and this would become a theme, I think, in my work.
01:50Sometimes I'd do drawings that I have no idea what they mean.
01:54They just strike me as funny.
01:56Francoise and I have had a couple of instances where I send her an idea, said, don't self-edit.
02:02You don't worry about that.
02:03Just send me your ideas, and so that's what I do.
02:06There's probably certain things I should keep to myself.
02:09Often send things that have no chance of ever being published by any sane publication.
02:14Here's something no one wanted.
02:16This is Putin as some kind of aquatic life.
02:20Nor were they interested in Alex Jones being forced to liquidate.
02:24Here's a drawing of Biden triumphant with his ice cream.
02:27Henry Kissinger being, looks like he's being denied entrance into heaven.
02:32This is mercifully free from any drawings.
02:37My first cover for The New Yorker was smokers standing on window ledges having their cigarette
02:41outside because that was the year when people could not smoke inside offices anymore.
02:46And it became a cover.
02:47You must have felt like a hot shot.
02:49No, I didn't feel like a hot shot.
02:51I can never find the one I'm looking for.
02:55This has been accepted.
02:56Yeah, the sketch was, they told me to go ahead with.
02:59And it'll run on the magazine's site, a drawing of Kamala and Trump.
03:06He's spouting off about dogs being eaten, and she's sort of looking at him pathetically.
03:15On a base level, I'm making fun of characters.
03:18The work I feel I'm doing, it's not coming from any great knowledge about policy or about
03:23history.
03:24I mean, the thing about Trump, as much as I dislike him, when a bully walks into a room
03:29and insults everybody, then everyone's insulting everybody after that.
03:34It makes the job easier.
03:36It's really an ugly time, but it keeps cartoonists busy.
03:40Can I ask you a really annoying question?
03:43I would expect nothing less.
03:45Favorite cover and least favorite cover you've ever done?
03:47I did a drawing of another smoker's cover.
03:51I think it was during SARS, early 2000s.
03:54The drawing was particularly clumsy, and the colors were particularly faded, and it confirmed
04:00all my worst fears about my visual talents.
04:04One of my favorites was Hurricane Katrina.
04:07I had a sketch I sent to Francoise and Bush's inner circle, and they're all like, you know,
04:13planning and fretting over what's going on, and they're all up to their nipples in brown
04:17water.
04:18What would you say is your most well-known?
04:21You know what you're asking.
04:22Well, there's the fist-bump cover of Barack and Michelle Obama.
04:26It was an ambitious attempt at satire.
04:30A lot of people didn't find it funny, but, you know, like the other covers, it came and
04:35went.
04:36Do you feel like your sense of humor is hard for a lot of people to understand?
04:39I don't think it's everyone's sense of humor.
04:41I mean, there are things that make me laugh a lot that other people don't seem to laugh at.
04:46It's passive-aggressive.
04:47I guess that's what I would explain my style as sort of passive-aggressive.
04:51I often don't have the guts to come right out and say something in bright, harsh colors,
04:57but I'm sort of whispering it or saying it in brackets or, you know, I'm desperately
05:02looking for laughs.
05:03It's pathetic.
05:04If I have work in front of me, if I have a drawing in front of me to do or a problem
05:09to solve work-wise, I'll be thinking about that.
05:12I'm not good at the future or the past.
05:15How many hours a day are you in this room?
05:17I'm in this room a lot.
05:18Do you have any hobbies outside of drawing?
05:21No.
05:22You've got to do everything yourself around here.
05:28It's a thrill every time that you get a cover approved for The New Yorker.
05:41The last one, I fretted over how I handled the drawing.
05:44I drew Trump and Vance going down on a roller coaster and Kamala and Waltz going up.
05:51It's come and gone, and it's on to the next.
05:54How many covers have you done at this point?
05:56I've done a lot.
05:58You know, I don't know how many there are.
06:00I don't know the number.
06:01Over a hundred?
06:02I think there are over a hundred.
06:11What do you want to do for the rest of your career?
06:14I'd like to lie down.
06:25I should have practiced before.
06:26I think we've got what we need.
06:27Good.
06:28Yeah.
06:29I'm taking us up to Arthur Miller's cabin.
06:33He made himself a pot of coffee and wrote the first act of Death of a Salesman.
06:37Or that's what the real estate agents said when they sold us the house.
06:40You still with me?
06:43Don't be afraid.
06:44Come on.
06:45And how would you assess the smell in here?
06:47What does it remind you of?
06:48Is it just must?
06:49It's a little musty.
06:51I like it though.
06:52You like it?
06:53Yeah.
06:55Smells like I'm in a cabin in the woods.
06:57Right.
06:58Well, that's definitely where you are.