Writing Jokes with Trevor Spaulding (The New Yorker)
By “write” I mean that I drink coffee and go for a walk and think.
[Prints available here]
What first got you into cartoons?
Calvin and Hobbes. I read it every day in my local newspaper as a kid growing up in the ’90s. It was so good. It made me want to be a cartoonist and that feeling never went away.
Can you walk me through your general creation process?
I try to write every morning. By ‘write’ I mean that I drink coffee and go for a walk and think. Some days I generate lots of cartoon ideas this way. Other days I generate zero cartoon ideas this way. About one percent of my ideas just pop into my head when I’m in the shower. At the end of each week, I choose the better ideas and draw them.
What elements make for a good workspace?
Solitude.
What advice would you give an aspiring single-panel cartoonist?
Read a lot. Write and draw every day. That’s the secret formula to becoming a better cartoonist.
What was the first piece you sold to The New Yorker?
The first cartoon I sold to The New Yorker featured two women sitting at a café looking over their menus. One says to the other, “I’ve only been gluten-free for a week, but I’m already really annoying.”
My editor got a lot of angry emails about it.
How does your visual effects work differ from your illustration work?
The visual effects field, by its very nature, is high tech. It requires a lot of advanced software and powerful computers. My illustration work, however, is extremely low tech. I draw everything by hand, with materials that would have been available to artists hundreds of years ago. I guess I’m a techie by day and a luddite by night.
Do you have any particular themes or motifs that you enjoy most?
I’ve been obsessively trying to write a Hemingway themed cartoon for years now with no luck. Also, animals are always more fun to draw than people.
What makes you laugh?
Live TV news blooper shows.
Why do you think cartoonists become cartoonists?
Big egos mixed with social anxiety disorder.
Check out Trevor’s work at http://www.trevorspaulding.com/ and in Conde Nast store here: https://condenaststore.com/art/trevor-spaulding
