“As my friend, Wilma Mankiller, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, explained to me, there is a Spirit of Laughter in Indian Country because laughter is the only free emotion. We can be made to hate, even to love if we’re isolated and dependent long enough — but nobody can force you to laugh, really laugh! That’s why it is a proof of freedom.
With friendship,
Gloria”. (from an email to me)

Over the years, I had a few email exchanges with Gloria, always about humor. I met her once at Caroline’s Comedy Club in NYC. She loved humor, and clearly understood its power. The night I met her was a benefit, and she opened the evening of women comedians by admitting that she had always wanted to be a stand-up comic. And she was indeed very funny.

Humor disarms and exposes cultural traditions that need to be changed.

In all the tributes today, and in the ensuing weeks, for Gloria Steinam, this side of her won’t come up. Not because it’s not important, but it was only part of who she was.

Gloria was probably the first person I saw when I was little who embodied women’s rights. When she co-founded Ms. Magazine, and the use of “Ms.” was introduced into our language, it was thrilling. I began to encorporate these ideas into who I am. Later, I dug deeper and studied the work of other feminist leaders and grappled with the complex history of the movement and its intersectionality. While not the academic theorist that Audrey Lorde, Judith Butler, bell hooks are and were, for many Americans, Gloria was the literal face of feminism. I’ve read all her books; her writing personalizes and humanizes the movement, give us context to understand the importance of feminism in all its forms.

In 1971, a powerhouse group of feminists — Ms. Friedan, Ms. Steinem, Representatives Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm, both Democrats from New York, and others, including Jill Ruckelshaus, a prominent Republican activist — founded the National Women’s Political Caucus to advance the Equal Rights Amendment and elect women to public office.

“I feel proud, and I feel mad as hell. We are still dealing with the same issues,” Gloria told The Times in 2022.

Below is a drawing I did on my iPhone while walking in NYC. It’s the moment when I heard about the 2018 verdict against Bill Cosby’s horrific abuse and rape of women. Ms. Magazine wrote me soon after I shared it online, and asked to publish it. It had been a dream of mine to be in that magazine.

We keep on keeping on. Thanks, Gloria, for helping us do that.

Thanks to you all for being here. See you tomorrow.

Scroll down for transcript of the video interview.

Recently, I was invited to sit down with well-known filmmaker Doug Block to talk about my documentary, Women Laughing, a film about the women cartoonists of The New Yorker. Doug is an accomplished award-winning documentarian, whose many films can be seen on HBO and other platforms. He writes a Substack called Getting Personal With Doug Block, and founded The D-Word, an online community of global documentarians. Doug was instrumental in generously helping me navigate the world of filmmaking.

Women Laughing premiered last fall, and is now screening across the country. Independent filmmaking is partly about creating a community around your film, so I am thrilled to share two important upcoming events.

First, the film opens on September 18th for a week-long run at New York City’s DCTV Firehouse Cinema in lower Manhattan. Many of the screenings will be followed by panel discussions with cartoonists and other special guests (Click here for more information and to purchase tickets).

We will also host a virtual screening event on Kinema on October 5th at 7pm EST. Immediately following the screening, there will be a live 40-minute Zoom conversation at 7:45pm with several of the cartoonists in the film. Viewers will be able to ask participants questions via a live chat. (If you aren’t able to attend the October 5th 7pm screening, you can watch the film anytime until October 6th at 7pm. A recording of the Zoom conversation will be sent out following the event.) Click here for details and tickets.

I hope you can join us at one of these events... we’ll have lots of laughs!

Here is our website, and we invite you to sign up to our email list so you can stay in touch and hear about screenings.

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We have provided a transcript of my conversation with Doug, below. But first, Doug told me there is something he wishes to say.

Liza Donnelly surely needs no introduction to her humongous fanbase as a brilliant cartoonist and wise commentator on current political shenanigans (to put it politely). I’m here, in large part, to introduce Liza as an exceptionally talented filmmaker, as well.

As an avid reader of her Substack, I know Liza hasn’t written much about the documentary short she’s slaved over for the past few years, Women Laughing. She’s a humble person, and lacks the shameless self-promotion gene that filmmakers are seemingly born with in this social media era. As someone who played a small advisory role on the film and been witness to the process, I’m glad I could convince her to chat with me on camera about the evolution of the film, and lessons learned along the way. For those too time-challenged to watch the video, we’ve provided a handy dandy transcript — lightly edited for length and clarity, as they say.

Liza has mentioned where the film can soon be seen, both online and off, and a particularly exciting announcement will be coming shortly. Happily, it will then be available far and wide. She would never tell you herself, so take it from me. Women Laughing is bitingly funny and hugely entertaining. Rest assured, you won’t want to miss it.

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INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Doug: We’re going.

Liza: We are.

Doug: Well, I suppose we should tell your legion of followers and friends and subscribers what we’re doing here.

Liza: Yeah. Who are you? (laughs). Start with… who are you?

Doug: (Laughs) Yeah, I suppose I should introduce myself to them. So, I’m Doug Block. I’m a filmmaker, a longtime documentary filmmaker. I’m also the founder and one of four co-hosts of a free online community of documentary professionals worldwide called The D-Word. We’ve grown through the years — 27 years now.

Among other things, every Friday since the pandemic began we’ve held what we call Face-to-Face zooms with our members. We alternate between bringing in special guest experts and having more informal networking sessions. And that’s where I met this woman named Liza Donnelly.

Liza: Yeah.

Doug: We were in a breakout room together, and — why don’t you take it from there.

Liza: Yes, it was during the pandemic, I think. I had it in my head that I wanted to make a documentary, and we can talk about the subject in a minute. I was searching online for ways to learn. I took classes at Sundance Collab, which was really good, where you can take classes in all kinds of filmmaking online.

And then I found The D-Word. I thought, “What is this?” So I joined. I found that you guys had a weekly gathering of documentarians, and it was like gold for me to listen to you guys talk.

I think you and I probably met in a breakout room, but then I missed one of the D-Words. And the great thing about you is you record every one with guests, so if you couldn’t make the session, you can watch it later.

So I wrote an email to you that said, “Well, how do I find this recording? I missed this session.” And you wrote back. You saw my signature —

Doug: Yeah, it said “40 years cartoonist for The New Yorker.” And I replied to you saying, “Are you actually making a documentary about being a cartoonist?” And you said, “Yes.” I was just really intrigued by that, by the idea of that. So I wanted to learn more. We met for coffee.

Liza: Mm-hmm.

Doug: You told me more about the project. And part of the reason why I wanted to do this interview with you is I love the film that you wound up making, Women Laughing.

Liza: Thank you. Thank you.

Doug: And there’s some exciting news about where it can be seen by your legion of fans. They’ve been clamoring for it for, like, two years now. You’re very modest about it. You rarely talk about it other than dropping something about, you know, “It’s going well.”

Liza: Right.

Doug: “We’re going to be at this city, maybe at some museum,” or whatever. So you’re giving people a taste of what they might see. But I want to talk about how this all evolved for you, because you were not an experienced filmmaker.

Liza: Mm-hmm.

Doug: And it’ll be really interesting, I think, for everybody to hear — not just your fans and subscribers, but mine as well. I have a Substack called Getting Personal with Doug Block, because I’ve done mostly personal documentaries.

Liza: And they’re really great, everybody. You should look Doug up and watch his films. They’re online, right? Most of them are online?

Doug: Yeah. DougBlock.com will get you there.

Liza: Mm-hmm.

Doug: The last four have been with HBO and seen around the world. But my Substack focuses on personal documentary filmmaking, first-person storytelling, and producing for film in general, which I do a lot of. Not just for myself, but for other filmmakers, as well.

My latest project, which I produced with first-time filmmaker Nick Beaulieu, is called My Omaha. It’s a remarkable personal doc about what happens when the political and racial divide in this country literally hits home for Nick, and it’s premiering nationally on PBS on October 5th, just in time for the mid-terms. I hope everyone will be on the lookout.

I also do a lot of consulting. I love consulting. It’s giving advice that filmmakers can take or leave, and I don’t have an ego stake in it. There’s a lot of coaching and stuff involved. I call it practicing therapy without a license..

Liza: (laughing) Yeah.

Doug: So, circling back to you, I really just wanted to see what you had in mind, because it sounded like you were going to be in it, and it was going to be some form of personal documentary, possibly. It was pretty unformed.

Liza: It was when we met.

Doug: So can we talk about the first idea you had for the film?

Liza: Well, the first idea came out of my book, Very Funny Ladies, which originally was Funny Ladies. First edition in 2005, second edition in 2022, with new information and whatnot. I thought I was done with that topic, all about women cartoonists of The New Yorker from 1925 to the present day. I thought, “Well, I’ve done that. That’s great.” I think people enjoy the book and they got a lot out of it, and I covered the women, and that was important to me.

But then I thought, “It should be a documentary,” because I want more people to know about these women, the past and the present creators. So that’s all I had. And I didn’t even know the categories of documentary—and I still don’t know them all. I’m still learning. Personal documentaries — I had no idea that there was such a thing. And I didn’t have any idea that I’d be in the movie at the start.

It was a combination of talking to you — and I have to thank you a lot for mentoring me. You were like a mentor to me, guiding me in the early stages. And you introduced me to key people who became part of the team, first and foremost Judith Mizrachy, who is our producer.

Doug: That was probably one of the first things. You said you wanted to work with an all-women team, that that was really important to you.

Liza: Yes, that was important.

Doug: When you said that I thought, “Well, I guess that rules me out.” (laughs) So I recommended one of the best producers I know. I thought Judith would be really intrigued by the subject matter.

Liza: Yeah. We had breakfast together in the Village, and I described to her what I wanted to do, and when she ultimately said yes I was so excited and surprised. She’s a very experienced filmmaker — she did The Martha Mitchell Effect, if you guys have seen that, and Uncropped and The Booksellers. So I had Judith. And then it was a matter of putting together a team, which Judith guided me on. You guided me.

At first, I kind of knew who I wanted to profile of the contemporary women. I had a general idea of who might be good and whose work I really liked. The history part, I didn’t know how much that would be in the film. I had to learn all this stuff, because there’s not any footage of the women from the ’20s and ’30s. There’s no moving image of these people. So that would then make it an archival documentary, which I learned about, as well.

It was going to be a feature, a full-length documentary, at first. And I also knew that I needed somebody to direct with, because I did know that I couldn’t do it myself. That’s a major step.

Doug: Right.

Liza: So I needed somebody who would be open to directing with me. One male documentarian who I had lunch with — very nice person — wanted to direct the thing by himself. And I thanked him very much and said I’m sorry, I need a woman. And I really want to work with somebody, because I have some strong ideas about this material. I figured I didn’t want to give it over. Maybe that’s arrogant, but—

Doug: No. Not at all.

Liza: I wanted to be in the mix, making choices.

Doug: So that’s when Kathleen came in. But how did you find her?

Liza: I live part-time near Rhinebeck, New York, and our neighbors across the street are from Brooklyn. They were having a birthday party for the man in the couple, and I’m at the birthday party and Donna says to me, “Oh, you need to meet my best friend from high school—or grade school. She’s a filmmaker.” So she took me over and introduced me to Kathleen Hughes. And that’s where we met, at a party near Rhinebeck.

We chatted very briefly at the party, but then we talked on the phone a couple of days later. I think there may have been two phone calls. But I realized just talking to her on the phone how much we thought alike, how collaborative she is, how incredibly experienced as a filmmaker she is, as a director.

She and her husband Tom worked with Bill Moyers for over 30 years, so she’s in that kind of documentary world, like POV and public television. But she’s also done major feature films, like with Abigail Disney, and she did a beautiful film about gun control. So I knew she had an interest in women’s issues, and she had an interest in cultural issues and political issues. That was all really important to me.

Doug: Yeah.

Liza: That she got it. She understood what I was wanting to do.

Doug: Part of what I loved about the film is you’ve always been, for anybody who reads your Substack they know that you have this strong political interest.

Liza: Yeah.

Doug: But they also know that you do live cartooning and drawing and stuff. And what I really loved about the film was that it touched kind of lightly on the history of the New Yorker women cartoonists. But so much of it was about their creative process. Your creative process and theirs.

And what was a brilliant idea was to sit them around a round table and have a camera overhead, as well as multiple cameras around the table, as they were discussing things over wine, and getting increasingly loosened up. But you see them drawing as they’re talking.

Liza: Mm-hmm.

Doug: And as the film progresses and you keep coming back to it, the drawings look like one big graffiti-filled table.

Liza: They do.

Doug: And it’s just a brilliant visual representation of the creativity involved. How did you come up with a concept like that?

Liza: Well, I knew I wanted the film to be — when we finally settled on a long short — I had this idea that it should be a sort of stylized film, not your typical documentary. One thing that was motivating me, Doug, was that I’d seen so many documentaries about cartoonists, and they were all about men. Of course, there are more men who’ve done it historically than women, so that kind of makes sense. But they were all pretty standard documentaries, which there’s nothing wrong with —

Doug: Well, other than Crumb.

Liza: Yeah.

Doug: Crumb was a kind of unique documentary on its own.

Liza: Oh, I saw it, but I don’t remember it. Anyway, I really wanted to get at women’s voices. I wanted to get at their creativity, the way they thought, the way they drew, because that’s what the film is about. It’s not just about cartoons in general and women happen to draw them. It’s about women’s ways of thinking about the world and experiencing the world and drawing about it and making jokes about it, or making humor about it.

That’s what I wanted to get at. And the other part of my interest in making this film was that I wanted to show that I think the best New Yorker cartoons are not always about the joke. They’re about somebody expressing what they’re experiencing in the world, and hopefully other people can then share it with them. They’ve had the same general experience.

So I wanted to make that point, that it’s not just a joke. It’s really an artist’s view of the world. These cartoonists are artists. I think they are. And the idea of drawing together came from — you know, I’m married to another New Yorker cartoonist. And my followers know that too. Michael Maslin, a cartoonist at The New Yorker. We met at The New Yorker, and we’ve been married almost 40 years now.

Anyway, when our girls were little — we have two daughters — we’d sit on the floor with a big piece of paper and we’d draw together. And we’d all draw maybe the same subject, and they would all look different. It was a way to share our uniqueness and share the topic and laugh together. So that was the seed of that idea, that I should draw with these people.

At some point early on, Kathy and Judith were encouraging me: “You need to be the person who guides us through this film. You need to be in the film.”

Doug: Well, you also conduct the — you’re kind of interviewing them as you’re drawing.

Liza: Yeah.

Doug: Which leads me to ask, what’s your creative process when you’re creating a cartoon? It’s one thing to just be doodling and drawing and stuff, but you do a lot of cartoons. Do you ever worry that you’re going to get cartoonist’s block? That an idea just won’t come? It won’t be funny enough? I mean, where does this all come from?

Liza: Oh yeah, sure. Sure. Well, you never know what’s funny, really. My process is sitting at the desk. I read a lot of the news, obviously, and culture. I’m better in the morning. I’m a morning person. So I sit at the desk, and I have a book I can show you. Where is it?

Doug: One of a hundred thousand books behind you.

Liza: Yeah. Here it is. This is like a sketchbook. I’ll write things and doodle things. So there are words and images, and whatever pops into my head goes there. And then you sit with it and you try to combine these things into a funny drawing, or a poignant — my stuff is less often funny. It’s more what they call slice-of-life cartoons, where you’re just commenting on something that’s happening. Sometimes I’ll put a weird word that’s being used in politics. Like years ago, the word “niche” was being bandied about. It’s a very common word, but I’ve used it in a cartoon in a completely different setting. So you could just plug it in. So that’s how I work.

Doug: Well, you know, it’s not unlike how filmmakers work.

Liza: I noticed that.

Doug: There’s a journal that I write in every morning — my thoughts, or whatever. And I keep a kind of lighter one with me all the time, because you never know when an idea’s going to pop into your head, or a connection between scenes that you’ve been working on, or suddenly the ending of the film pops up.

Liza: That’s what I did.

Doug: That’s what you did?

Liza: Well, I didn’t notice that at first. But it was during the filmmaking that I made that comparison you just made. I didn’t know how people made documentaries, really. I learned in the class I took, but it was only in practice where you don’t have a script, necessarily. You may have an idea of what you’re doing. You may have an outline or a general thought of how you’re going to do it. But it’s in the filming, and then the editing room, where it all sort of pieces together, and you make all these discoveries. And that’s not unlike a cartoon.

Doug: Yeah.

Liza: And I said to the team one time, our film, which is 37 minutes long, is like a New Yorker cartoon because it’s very tight and it’s very visual, but it’s also got content that expresses different ideas. Sometimes a good cartoon can do that. It can give you a couple of laughs from different angles, or a couple of insights into politics, or whatever.

Doug: Yeah. We talk about documentaries being written in the edit room. I always tell filmmakers I’m working with, whether I’m producing or consulting, don’t write it in advance of shooting it. Don’t get locked into some idea that you have. Because it often changes in the course of making the film, in the course of shooting. Somebody says something and it triggers a whole other path that you’re going to go down. Or, “Oh, I have to interview this person,” because some reference is made to them.

Liza: Yeah. Can I ask you a question?

Doug: Sure.

Liza: Now that I’ve done this, of course I want to do another one.

Doug: (laughs) Of course.

Liza: (laughs) I’m crazy. But I have a lot of ideas, maybe three or four seeds of ideas. How do you know which one to follow? How do you proceed? Do you sort of take them all a little bit of a way and then one catches on, or…?

Doug: Well, I think it’s an instinctual feeling of what thrills you the most, what moves you the most, what excites you the most out of all the ideas. You try not to think, “How will this go over with audiences?” It’s just kind of like, “What do I want?” It’s going to take another year or two — if you’re lucky just a year — but usually two or three years of your life.

I often would start with, like, who do I want to meet most in the world? What people will I possibly interview in doing this documentary?

Liza: Yeah, yeah.

Doug: Are they a group of scientists, maybe? Or a group of sanitation workers? It can be pretty unlikely ideas. I think that’s where journaling comes in. And maybe a little ayahuasca on a weekend, maybe.

A lot of filmmakers don’t like to talk about their projects. They want to keep it under wraps. They’re afraid somebody might steal the idea. Which is kind of preposterous to me. I’m a strong believer in talking about the film I’m making.

Liza: Mm-hmm.

Doug: Because language puts it out into the world, and it also forces you to commit to it. If you say you’re going to do something — “I’m making a film about…” — there’s kind of no going back, because you’ve put it out there. You’re giving your word.

Liza: Yeah. True.

Doug: It’s not necessarily about the reactions that you get, although that’s helpful. It’s helpful to see what lands when you talk to people about your ideas. But it’s also how excited do you get when you’re talking about it?

I’m a big believer in pitching. And that you have to be prepared to pitch all the time. You could be on line at a movie and you get into a conversation with the people behind you. You ask what they do, and they’re a lawyer, maybe, or a doctor, or whatever. And when I tell them I’m a documentary filmmaker they get so excited. “That’s so interesting,” they say. “Are you working on anything?” And there you are, suddenly pitching to somebody who makes a lot of money, maybe. Who knows? So, you never know when you’re going to be pitching.

By the way, did I mention to your legion of smart, sophisticated, incredibly good-looking readers I have a film I’m producing that’s premiering on PBS October 5th? It’s called My Omaha.

Liza: (laughs) Oh, yes. Right. You talked about that a little bit. Tell me more.

Doug: It came out of a consulting job I was hired for, which, like with you, also came out of a breakout room on The D-Word that I just happened to be in with the filmmaker Nick Beaulieu. He wanted help. It was a personal documentary, so knowing that I’d made a number of them, he hired me to look at this mountain of footage that he had. It was pretty messy and kind of unformed, and I worked with him several times, not just looking at cuts that he was making, but also producing consults where we talked about grants and deadlines and budgets, things like that. Anyway, Nick worked really hard, and the film got better and better over the years. So much so that I finally couldn’t not jump in and officially produce it with him.

Liza: Great.

Doug: And your pal Judith, we brought on as consulting producer.

Liza: Mm-hmm.

Doug: A small but mighty team. We premiered at Slamdance a little over a year ago, and then it made its way through some festivals, some bookings in theaters and community screenings. And ultimately it got picked up by Independent Lens for a national PBS broadcast on October 5th.

Liza: That’s great.

Doug: So these things actually do happen. But, I mean, it’s really grim out there for documentary producers these days.

Liza: That’s what I was going to ask you about, because many of the people who are watching don’t know how bad it is for documentary filmmakers right now.

Doug: We don’t want to depress them too much.

Liza: Well…

Doug: And we have such exciting news about Women Laughing.

Liza: Yeah, we do.

Doug: Because hopefully people will actually be able to see it soon. So after we talk about how grim it is, we’ll talk about how great it is that—

Liza: We were super lucky. When I first started making this film I was warned how the streamers have kind of ruined everything. It’s not so good for independent filmmakers in general, but documentarians—

Doug: Well, if you’re doing true crime, it’s great.

Liza: But some documentarians I spoke to were encouraged. They were saying, “It’s cyclical. It’ll come back.” So I took that in and I just kept plowing ahead, because I know how much people love cartoons. And I know that when I talk about the history of cartoons, people just love it. Doug, when people are finished watching our film, they come up to us afterwards and they’re so excited about it. They say, “There was so much in there. I felt it went so fast. I want more,” because it’s quite dense.

Doug: It was a smart decision to do it as a short.

Liza: Was it, you think?

Doug: I mean, so many feature documentaries suffer from being extended so that they’ll qualify as a feature film, and they can go out into the world as a feature. And you can feel it when you’re watching it, that it should’ve—ugh, that would’ve been great as an hour. Or maybe 30, 40 minutes.

Liza: Before I got into this, I didn’t really know the difference. I’d sort of been aware, because I watched the Oscars, that there are those two categories, shorts and features. But I didn’t really know more than that. The shorts have to be under 40 minutes.

Doug: Right.

Liza: And there’s a great community of people who make shorts, I think. I’ve come to love shorts because they’re very, like you said, they’re very tight. So I’m happy to be in that category.

Doug: There’s also something really interesting about shorts. In a way, because we’ve been forced to come up with new ways of distributing our films ourselves, shorts have potential. Distributors as well as streamers are wary of feature-length documentaries. It’s really hard to book them into theaters now. Ever since COVID, the audience for documentaries has kind of dried up, and they’re very wary of anything political or too social-issue-oriented. But with shorts, there’s all sorts of potential to show it online.

I know you have something in the works for doing a virtual screening. Your film is perfect at 37 minutes for that. And to bring on one or a couple of the cartoonists afterwards and have a conversation with you, or a Q&A with the thousands of people who will be watching this. I mean, you have, what, 150,000 subscribers?

Liza: Yeah, I do. I don’t know how that happened.

Doug: Honestly, if just a fraction come, you can retire from cartooning.

Liza: Yeah. So Doug is referring to a virtual screening event that we’re going to have on October 5th.

Doug: Yeah.

Liza: And I’ll probably announce the heck out of it here.

Doug: Yeah. But you’re also going to have a one-week theatrical run in New York City. Talk about when that’s happening and where.

Liza: That is happening at a theater called DCTV Firehouse, and it’s on Lafayette Street in downtown New York City starting September 18th, for six days. If you go to our website, WomenLaughingFilm.com, the information will be there, I’m not sure it’s there yet. On opening night, Roz Chast is going to be there with me and Kathleen Hughes for a Q&A, and our moderator, Bobby Ghosh, who’s a well-known journalist, is going to be our moderator. And then Saturday night, oh gosh, we have, like, four cartoonists who are going to be there. Sunday matinee, same thing, another four cartoonists with a moderator. Then Tuesday we have a screening, and it’s going to be myself, Kathleen Hughes, Emma Allen, who’s the cartoon editor at The New Yorker, and Katie Couric is going to be our moderator. Katie is one of our executive producers. And that’s going to be exciting.

Doug: And then for folks who do not live in the New York City area, and maybe don’t make that virtual screening that you’re hopefully having, there’s a site by this magazine that runs cartoons called The New Yorker that it sounds like you are going to be streaming from. If you want to talk about that…

Liza: Yeah. So The New Yorker has been well aware of this project of mine for years. David Remnick wrote the foreword along with Emma for my book, Very Funny Ladies. So he knows my obsession with women cartoonists, and with the history. I told him about the documentary early on, so he was aware of it verbally, and he was supportive verbally. We stayed in touch with their video department. The New Yorker — people may not even know this — has a section of their site, newyorker.com, of short films. Many of them have won Academy Awards, and they’re all really wonderful. The New Yorker doesn’t make them. The New Yorker brings — how do you say it? They acquire them, in a way. They don’t buy them outright. They license them, I guess.

Doug: Right.

Liza: So they were aware of our project for months, maybe over a couple of years. And then finally, after we were pretty much done with the film, we showed them a cut, and they said, “We’d like to acquire this.” So they came in late to the project. Our film was funded mostly by crowdsourcing, and all my wonderful subscribers chipped in, and a few wonderful executive producers gave us nice chunks of money. But it was mostly an effort of getting the money from people who wanted to see the film. So The New Yorker has acquired it, and they are going to have it on their site for anybody to stream, I believe for free, sometime in late October or early November.

Doug: That’s great. So everybody who’s been waiting all these years for the chance to see it, they’ll finally have that opportunity.

Liza: Yeah.

Doug: I’m really glad to have had this opportunity, because everybody knows you as a cartoonist. And in the process of making this film, you’ve now come around to thinking of yourself as a filmmaker, and you want to make more films. I want your subscribers and fans to know that you are a filmmaker.

Liza: Thank you.

Doug: And a really good one. A really good one.

Liza: Aw. Thank you. It’s hard. I feel like I have imposter syndrome with this world. But I have always thought that cartoons, which are little—even if they’re static—and, by the way, we animate the cartoons ever so slightly, some of them, in the film—but cartoons are like cousins to documentary films, or films in general. They have things in common. So I feel better when I tell myself that, because then it’s like, “Okay, I’m not too far out of my depth here,” because I’m a visual thinker.

Doug: You do a really good job, along with your editor, of holding on the cartoons just long enough so that we can read it and get the joke, and then move on to the next.

Liza: Thank you.

Doug: You have—

Liza: Some people don’t agree with you on that, but that’s okay.

Doug: Well, they’re wrong and I’m right. What can I tell you?

Liza: (smiles) I want to call out Andrew Fredericks, our amazing editor. And then—can I just say my team members?

Doug: Sure.

Liza: I won’t be able to mention them all. The cinematographers were Marika Hacking and Francesco Saviano. Kathleen Hughes directed with me — or I with her — and Judith Mizrachy produced along with Nathalie Seaver.

And did I mention the musician, the composer, Kathryn Bostick? I knew I wanted jazz, and I knew of Kathryn from high school—we went to the same high school. She’s an amazing jazz musician.

Doug: You’re practicing your Oscar speech really well. Ooh, I didn’t say that.

Liza: (laughs) But I love, love the collaborative nature of this. It was a lot of sleepless nights and heartburn, but—

Doug: As there always is.

Liza: Is that the case?

Doug: Yup. In my experience, sure. I mean, in any art that you do it comes with the territory.

Liza: That’s true.

Doug: And it is art.

Liza: Let me add one more thing. If anybody has an idea for an in-person screening, get in touch with me, because we are screening in libraries, museums, festivals, all over the place, all over the country. And we are open to scheduling other places, too.

Doug: And, at the risk of repeating myself, I’ll just do a wee bit of shameless self-promotion because I have a tiny fraction of your 150,000 subscribers, and I hope your peeps will come over and check out my Substack. It’s called Getting Personal with Doug Block. And become a subscriber, as opposed to a “follower,” which is a useless thing to be, don’t get me started. Subscribers can get my entire archive of posts for free, I’m not a fan of paywalling. Among other things, I write about several projects that I’m working on right now. Among them, I actually hope to use Substack as a platform for a film that I’m doing coming up.

Liza: Oh, good. Yeah.

Doug: I think it has all sorts of unrealized potential incorporating video into our posts.

Liza: Mm-hmm.

Doug: So you can follow the progress of that, as well. Anyway, it was a real pleasure talking with you.

Liza: It was.

Doug: And I hope everything goes well. You have a real exciting fall coming up.

Liza: Thank you. Yeah, very busy. Traveling a lot.

Doug: I hope everybody will check out all the information on your website and come see your film.

Liza: Thank you for all your help, Doug.

Doug: You’re welcome.

Liza: Okay. Bye.

Doug: Bye.

Above, and throughout this post, are some live-drawings I did when I was sent to the White House by CBS News in 2019 to cover a press conference. I ended up hanging out with camera people all day and then going to a presser in the WH with Trump and the Italian Prime Minister. It was fascinating to be there.

From NYTimes: A report detailed “grave concerns” that a new system being rushed into use by the U.S. Postal Service could imperil millions of mail ballots ahead of the midterm elections.

In a 5-4 ruling yesterday, the Supreme Court has let Trump continue building the (stupid, expensive) ballroom. The court said the preservationists who challenged the construction of the ballroom “did not have legal grounds to bring their lawsuit because they were not directly harmed by the project. Halting the project now would probably require a fresh lawsuit from an individual or group with standing, such as Congress.” That won’t happen while the GOP controls the House.

Chief Justice Roberts and the court’s three liberal justices said in their dissent that construction was “likely unlawful.” The White House is “an iconic American building whose symbolism and history are wrapped up in its architecture,” the chief justice wrote in a lengthy dissent that quoted from Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt. “All the more reason to ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People’s House.”

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Shall we tear down the ballroom as soon as possible, is that lawful?

Republican legislators are at fault for so much during these Trump Times.

Aaron Parnass reports that on the House floor yesterday, Rep Massie read some names from the Epstein Files out loud. He is seeking to collect the 218 signatures needed for a discharge petition forcing a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act II. It’s been a year since Trump signed the original EFTA, yet the government still withholds over three million files, hence the new bill.

The new bill is “meant to fix what advocates call the original law’s toothless enforcement. It would let state attorneys general, local DAs, survivors, and members of Congress sue the Justice Department directly if it fails to release required files, grant survivors full unredacted access to records concerning themselves (including FBI interview transcripts), and impose existing federal criminal penalties on DOJ and FBI officials who knowingly conceal, destroy, or falsify records. Legal experts like attorney Oleg Nekritin called the framework a potential “gamechanger” for state-level investigations, while others cautioned the bill still faces a steep climb, needing House passage, 60 votes in the Senate, and ultimately Trump’s signature.”

Thanks for being here! You all are the best. See you later.

Greetings from somewhere in Vermont on the train back to New York!

The first thing I see this morning is that Trump is saying he will “hit Iran hard.” We’ve heard this before, so it’s hard to know what he’ll do (so what’s new). But everything Trump does from now until November is to be viewed in terms of the midterms. Everything he does you can be sure is an effort to mess with the process, or the results, of those elections. Because he knows if the Dems win the House, he will be investigated and impeached to no end. Even more so if they win the Senate as well. His presidency will in essence be finished, and one might hope his freedom as well. So “hitting Iran hard” may be about the midterms.

According to Politico, MAGA is losing patience with this war. In May, half of Trump’s base thought the war was worth it. Now, just a little more than a third do. According to a new POLITICO Poll, it “reveals how the president’s most die-hard supporters are starting to agree with the majority of Americans who have long opposed the U.S.’ involvement in the war.”

It’s the economy, stupid.

Trump is threatening to report Meet The Press host Kristin Welker to the FCC for reporting that his political endorsments have mixed results. He said, “without question, the strongest Endorsement in the History of Politics. If it were not, I would be the first to admit it.” He continued in a statement, “The Press is a Disgrace to our Nation, and I hope that Chairman Brendan Carr, and the fine people of his Commission, will take this Threat to our Country very seriously.”

NBC stands behind Welker. Here is what she said that annoyed Trump: “He, of course, has endorsed a slate of candidates in the primaries. He’s had some mixed results, but most recently, his pick of Senator Darline Graham, of course, the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, was successful in her primary battle, so now she takes on Dr. Annie Andrews in South Carolina.”

Trump tends to go after journalists who are women. Among them New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and Fox News’ Shannon Bream and CNN Kristen Holmes.

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Over the weekend, I attended to represent our team of filmmakers at the Middlebury Film Festival, and I saw another documentary I can recommend. Called Gaslit, it’s about how oil companies are knowingly destroying communities and blatently polute our entire atmosphere with methane gas, going against regulations as they frack and export liquid gas abroad. Jane Fonda is in the film and guides the viewer through the devastated, mostly poor, communities affected in the Louisianna and Texas regions where these companies operate. I knew absolutely nothing about this, so am glad I watched the film. The website has info on where to watch and what we can do to help.

From the website: In GASLIT, Fonda travels across the oil fields of West Texas’ Permian Basin and through the Gulf Coast of Louisiana visiting the communities impacted by oil and gas production, bearing witness to the decades-long struggle between fossil fuel profiteering, environmental racism, and the lives of everyday people. Along the journey, Fonda sees firsthand how environmental degradation and climate devastation merge, burdening those on the frontlines of liquefied natural gas (LNG), plastics, and petrochemical production. GASLIT is a documentary about the individuals and communities fighting back against the oil and gas extraction boom that has positioned the United States as the world’s largest exporter of LNG.

Our documentary, Women Laughing recieved the audience award last night, we are thrilled and honored. The award is a Vermont Teddy Bear!

Thanks for being here, see you later! Have a good start to your week.

I’ve been in Vermont for the last few days. The countryside is gorgeous, I saw a stunning moon last night, and all day long, each day, have seen some amazing clouds. So I thought I would post this drawing above.

Have a great Sunday, and see you tomorrow with news. Thank you so much for being here, as always I am very grateful.

I have already seen some great films at this film festival, called Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival. Not all screenings are from new filmmakers, but most are, or at least a second film filmmakers. Here are some recommendations thus far:

Bucks Harbor, directed by Pete Muller

Dick Johnson Is Dead, directed by Kirsten Johnson

threeASFOUR: Full Circle. directed by Sean Lennon Ono

Women Laughing is screening in a few hours! I am so excited, I love to hear the laughter of the audience. At each screening, I witness how much people so enjoy watching my women colleagues draw, and of course their hillarious and poignant cartoons.

Thank for being here, see you this weekend with a cartoon. Hope your Friday is going well!

I felt like posting this drawing again. I did it during the 2024 hush money trial in Manhattan, which I attended to live-draw. Here is a collection of posts from during the trial, I did many. Here is the post with this drawing above: it was from my imagination, not a live-drawing (I wish his hair was that wild). NY Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who also covered the trial, wrote:

“Trump has taken his seat. His hair is uncharacteristically messy. LIke the wind hit it on the way into court.” -Maggie Haberman, NY Times that morning.

I loved attending that trial and drawing it. It was fascinating. I also live-drew the E Jean Carroll v Trump Trial, in which she accused him of rape. She won; he was found liable for sexual abuse. I should do more events again, I did a lot before the pandemic. Visual journalism is so important.

Some news.

There’s something about Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. His posture, his use of words somehow seems sloppy. He’s suggesting that we can impose economic sanctions on Iran; China will make sure they survive. This is how the Trump administration behaves: theatrical threats that carry little meaning. And create uncertainty and chaos.

From the NY Times: “The Treasury secretary is confronting the limits of his ability to reshape the economy ahead of midterm elections…. global anxiety about America’s heavy, sustained borrowing and the war in Iran has been impossible to obscure, and Mr. Bessent is starting to see the limits of his powers to bend the global economy to his will.”

The other day, there was breaking news that Supreme Court sided with Trump, yet again. After an audible expletive, then in a bit of a panic, I said to myself: here we go. Trump’s efforts to interfere with the midterms is ramping up. Since then, in an effort to understand what the ruling meant, I learned that it’s not something to panic about….yet. Nothing has changed. SOTUS simply said that Trump’s executive order to create “state citizenship lists” and directs the Postal Service to decide who gets a mail-in ballot can stand. The Department of Homeland Security will also create lists of U.S. citizens that the administration believes could be used to monitor voter rolls for noncitizens. Trump can move ahead with planning for restricting the use of mail ballots even as a lower court continues to weigh its legality.

All three liberal Justices dissented, saying this will create chaos. We can see the writing on the wall of what Trump is trying to do. Whether this ruling will impact the midterms is unclear, there are many legal battles going on about this sinister effort to control mail-in voting. Govenors are loudly pushing back. We must remember: constitutionally, elections are run by States.

“This ruling violates well-established precedents concerning this Court’s equitable discretion and needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a dissent.

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Last night, Lindsay Graham’s sister won the primary in South Carolina for his Senate seat. A political novice, Darlene Graham is not qualified to be a Senator (in a debate, she could not answer a question about Taiwan, and said foreign affars is not her thing), but she was backed by Trump. Sadly, I guess Trump still has a lot of sway in that state, even though his polling numbers nationwide keep plummeting. I was hoping it would be another defeat.

But this is hopeful! Chances for the Democrats winning back control of the Senate are improving.

I am training up to Vermont today to go to the Middlebury New Filmmaker’s Festival— Women Laughing is an offical selection! If you live near Middlebury, there are still tickets available. We are screening Friday, Aug 28th at 11:30am.

Would love to see you.

Thanks for being here. I will write from Vermont, and draw of course. Taking you all with me, as always!

In the second half of our conversation, I did a drawing while she talked about one of her publications which is about aging every step of the way—from your 30’s and beyond. None of us have aged before, each year is a new experience, no matter what age you are.

Oldster Magazine

Exploring what it means to travel through time in a human body, at every phase of life.

By Sari Botton

In anticipation of our live discussion together, I had thought of a drawing to do while we talked. Here it is, and below it are three captions—I wanted to hear Sari’s reaction to the captions, and get your input too.

1. “If I were younger, I would not be able to handle getting older.”

2. “Aging is not for the young.”

3. “The only people who can handle aging are older people.”

4. “Youth may be wasted on the young, but aging is best handled by the old.”

I thought a poll would be fun, vote for your favorite! And, in the comments below, send me any you thought of.

Thanks for being here, I hope you enjoyed our conversation! See you tomorrow.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with ! Join me for my next live video in the app.

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Good morning! A few things jumped out at me in the news last night. And a new cartoon.

Is this something to report about, is it something to spend any time thinking about? Maybe not, it’s more of the same. But it really gets to me. Trump put together another really annoying (and part of me thinks he does these things just to annoy us) event in DC over the weekend: “Freedom 250 Grand Prix” around the National Mall. “25 IndyCar drivers are covering 147 laps at speeds up to 150 mph around a 1.7-mile (2.7 km), 7-turn street circuit loop past the U.S. Capitol, the Washington Monument, the National Archives, and the National Gallery of Art. The race has required workers to weld down more than 200 manhole covers, move traffic lights, and put up barriers that have disrupted traffic, while the National Gallery of Art has had to protect its sculptures from vibrations and airlines have had to reroute flights.”

How much is this costing taxpayers? We have a war going on, people are suffering.

Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney suspended trade negotiations with the U.S. and said Canada will impose retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. beginning September 8. In a statement, Carney said: “We have recognised from the beginning that America has changed, and that we will not return to our old relationship.” Canada, he said, will be “focused on building our strength at home [and] diversifying our partnerships abroad.”

This is because Trump has slammed Canada with 50% tarriffs on different goods. Some of the things are a bit odd: Anoraks and suit jackets. National flags. Some Christmas ornaments. And 36 different kinds of plywood.

Is Trump doing this because he wants to take over Canada and show how tough he is? Another case of him pushing—or rather shoving— an important ally away.

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Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat Minority leader, potentially the next Speaker of the House, met privately with Jared Kushner over the weekend to discuss ways the two parites could compromise should the Dems take over the House. Who initiated this? Is the administration admitting that they might lose the House in the midterms? Kushner is not officially part of the administration, but he is a close advisor to Trump, and of course his son-in-law. Standing to lose his role, Speaker Johnson spoke to the press and said politely that Kushner doesn’t really have his thoughts centered on the House like he does (I am paraphrasing)…I guess Johnson still thinks the GOP will retain House control, or at least he has to appear to think so.

Many Democrats are criticizing Jeffries for taking the meeting. They say that Democrats should not be trying to make nice, should not compromise on anything. I agree we should play hardball, spend our time impeaching and investigating. But that doesn’t mean we can’t talk to the other side. My worry is the left in the Democrat party will hold it against Jeffries, whom they probably think is an establishment member. I don’t think he is; his job as Speaker requires him to have a certain level of friendliness. We’ve all seen him get angry, I believe he is really tough. In any case, compromise will be remote, the GOP has no interest in working together.

Take a look at this story:

Even Heffner, with whom I have many many issues, knew what Epstein was up to, and tried to do something about it. The coverup is astronomical. ,

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I am sharing below something that Heather Cox Richardson wrote over the weekend because I think its great, and gives us hope.

“On August 17, former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg recorded a video to assure those Americans who oppose the Trump administration that they are in the large majority. He noted that the strategy Republicans are pursuing shows how unpopular they are.

“Think about it,” he said. “They’re not out there showing that the economy is somehow better than it looks…. They’re not defending their cuts to healthcare, they’re not defending the tax cuts for the wealthy. They’re not defending the corruption that’s going on in Washington.”

“It’s too late for that,” he said, because “we’ve all seen that those policies have failed. They made us all pay tariffs and said the reason we got to do this is to bring back manufacturing jobs…. Well, we paid the tariffs, and then America lost manufacturing jobs. They cut taxes for the rich. They said we’ve got to do that in order to speed up economic growth. And what happened? Economic growth slowed down…. They said they were going to cut costs and prices. Inflation is actually higher now than the day Donald Trump took office. They said they were gonna drain the swamp. And then they expect us to be okay with the first family making a billion dollars or more in crypto deals while the president’s in office….

“A lot of people believed this president and Republicans when they said no new wars. Then, what do we get? A war with Iran in the Middle East right now, which means all of us here at home are paying higher gas prices.”

The Republican strategy is not to change their policies, Buttigieg said. “It’s changing the maps. Changing the rules. Because that’s the only way they could win. They know they’re on the wrong side of the American people….

“You’re already in the majority if you think that we need healthcare for all, not Medicaid cuts and cutting Obamacare…. Right now, if you think that the wealthiest people in the country need to be paying their fair share in taxes, which is more than they’re doing today, where they currently pay less than a lot of teachers and nurses and firefighters. You are definitely in the majority if you believe that the wealthiest nation in the world ought to do the best job of funding public education and making sure it works. Not this Republican approach, which is to literally eliminate the Department of Education. You’re not alone if you think that in any decent economy, one job ought to be enough. And you’re certainly not alone if you believe that a woman’s healthcare decisions ought to be up to her and no one else, that in a free country, you should get to be who you are, and love who you love, and live a life of your choosing. When you believe these things, you’re not just not alone. You’re part of a powerful majority. Really a supermajority of the American people.

“So, whether you’re a Democrat, an independent, or someone who has generally voted Republican in the past, most voters want the same things right now: to be led and represented by normal people who are good at getting things done. People want leaders who respect those who disagree or vote differently instead of calling them the enemy. People who know that God does not belong to a political party in the United States of America. Most voters want to elect leaders who are not simply trying to rebuild the past, but trying to create something new and better.”

Thanks for being here! Heading home from Maine today. I hope you had a nice weekend like I did and are starting your week with hope.

See you later.

I hope you are having a good Sunday. This was published in The New Yorker, and while it was fun to draw, I felt badly for the clueless little girl. But then again, maybe she is very savvy. She knows what’s coming and making the best of her fun time.

Which is what we all should be doing. It’s going to be a hectic fall, heading into the election season. Trump is going to do everything he can (and more) to mess with the midterms.

On that chipper note: thanks for being here! I really value your partnership here as we all cope. Keep the faith.

The very important concession station.

The door to backstage.

In the ladies room.

Gorgeous fixtures along the wall of the theater.

No caption needed for this!

Heather and I had some heavy, serious discussion of creativity and change… but I made her laugh, too!

And finally, a video of the theater and backstage.

Just as we wrapped up our 45 minute discussion, we took a selfie with the audience…many of whom were already heading out the door—it had gotten late!

Thanks for being here! I will do a more in-depth report of the evening when I have the video to share. Have a great Friday night!

See you this weekend with a cartoon.

For more info, and to sign up on our mailing list for screening announcements of Women Laughing, please visit our website:

https://www.womenlaughingfilm.com/

The NY Times Editorial Board published a piece today about how Trump is eroding our democracy, bit by bit. They track 12 categories he is operating in in order to take away our freedom. It’s an important read.

The Natalie Harp comment by Georgia Senator Jon Ossof struck a nerve.

"He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn't want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar."

If you are not aware of who Harp is, she is a 30-something woman who has attached herself to Trump as sort of his help-mate. No one is sure what she does, except her nickname is “human printer” because she makes printouts for Trump all the time, at a moments notice. He loves things in print. She follows him everywhere. She posts his dictated, sometimes incindiary, social media missives. Harp was one of the very few people Trump took with him on a secret, “safer plane” as they departed Turkey (he left the press and most of his staff in the decoy plane). It’s also reported that in another incident, she jumped in the trunk of his car when told there was no room for her in the actual car. Her estranged brother on CNN said she is obsessed with Trump, which he feels is an “unhealthy” obsession.

We all are aware of the phenomena of elderly men who love the attention of young, pretty women, whether physical or not. And we are aware of young women who take advantage (and yes the genders can be switched in both cases). Maybe it’s all just fine. What’s concerning is how much influence does she have? And should we care that Trump has a yes-woman constantly at his side? Trump has stated (I am paraphrasing) that all of his staff will leave him to earn money, he claims Natalie will never leave.

But here’s the thing: what is of note is how viral Ossoff’s comment became and how angry it made Trump. We need more politicians to go after Trump in very well-written, succinct ways, timed perfectly. Like Ossoff did.

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Angie Nixon won a decisive Democratic primary election on Tuesday in Florida. A union organizer, single mother of five, democratic socialist who joined the Democratic Socialist Party in June but was not endorsed by the DSA, Nixon doesn’t agree with much of their platform. She is campaigning on universal child care and Medicare-for-all, she knows how to harness the enthusiasm of grass-roots Democrats and volunteers, and deftly uses social media. Nixon is riding the socialist wave, but to my mind, she is really a normal left-leaning Democrat, one who is appealing to a certain branch of the left because she doesn’t “seem” traditional. We shall see if she can win, but it’s interesting to watch the scrambling of terms beginning to happen: she may claim the term “socialist” but is not a tried-and-true DSA politician.

We are witnessing the rebranding of the Democratic party before our own eyes.

Someone stop him! Trump keeps building his ballroom, despite it being tied up in court. According to the NY Times headline: Trump’s Ballroom Is Rising at Breakneck Speed: 20 Hours a Day, 7 Days a Week. Are we paying for this?? His appeal to the Supreme Court to let him complete his pet project: his ballroom is too far along to be stopped. I don’t buy it, we can stop it and will gladly take it down. I’ll help.

Finally, as a horse lover and former rider, this infurates me. Here is a New Yorker cartoon of mine, one I am so glad they bought and published.

Arrived in Maine last night, will share photos tomorrow. I hope your Thursday is going well. Thanks for being here! Keep your hope up, we can do this thing.

See you tomorrow.

Since I am heading into tree country, I thought I’d share a tree cartoon with you!

For the better part of today, I am on a road trip to Maine. We will be screening our documentary Women Laughing at a beautiful old theater, the Lincoln Theater, in the midcoastal city of Damarascotta.

After the film, Heather Cox Richardson and I will go onstage to talk about all kinds of things, including the movie; I really look forward to it. She is so fun, we will have a lot of laughs and I am sure we’ll get into serious stuff, as well. I will tape it, and will share with you when I can. Here is an article about the event.

Heather grew up in the area, and when she was young, used to go to the Lincoln theater on a regular basis. Tickets (sold out!) will go to support the theater on its 150th anniversary. I think audiences are hungry for laughter mixed with serious conversation; we will give them both, gladly.

Thanks for being here, I will write during the trip, and take photos, and keep you in the loop!

Good news: The Supreme Court for a second time has refused a request by Trump to review a $5 million civil judgment against him in the E Jean Carroll trial for sexual abuse and defamation! The announcement by the justices did not include their reasons, and no public dissents were noted. It was a stupid ask.

There appears to be no end in sight for Trump’s Iran War. The US and Iran missed their 60-day deadline to reach a deal after the cease-fire they agreed to in June. Trump has repeatedly promised a truce, an end, and, as usual, nothing is happening. He is thinking about ballrooms, giant arches, reflecting pools and whatever else he superglue gold plated stuff on. There have been no reported strikes since July, but both countries are manipulating each others’ economies, or trying to. Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz.

“The Islamic republic is trying to put the economic crunch on America, and America is trying to put the economic crunch on the Islamic republic,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert told the NY Times.

Trump is praising the leader of North Korea. Of course he is. He ordered the Pentagon to cut back on military excerises with South Korea, an important ally in the Asia-Pacific. This might be due to the fact the US is running low on critical weapons, sending everything to the Middle East for his endless war. Trump said he has a “very good relationship” with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful,” Trump said in a social media post.

I saw this on social media yesterday. While it’s funny, I am trying not to give in and accept it. Not buying it.

It’s a slow, slightly muggy overcast day. We are in the thick of August. I sense that people are tired of the news and tired of the roller coaster.

We know we need to read the news, but we don’t want to. I will keep my eye on the news so you don’t have to, that’s what I have been doing here and I hope it’s helpful. Things will pick up speed—as I believe our hope will— in September as we barrel down the path to the midterms; I’ll be right there.

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On a personal sad note, we just learned that we lost Ed Frascino, another great New Yorker cartoonist. Ed was a friend, and his wonderful work has been around as long as I’ve been a professional cartoonist. He had a 61 year run at the magazine, that’s remarkable. “Only six other New Yorker cartoonists (out of the nearly 800 who contributed in these past 101 years) had reached that mark. The others: William Steig, 73 years; Chon Day, 67 years; George Price, 62 years; Mischa Richter, 61 years; Edward Koren, 61 years; Mort Gerberg, 61 years, and counting,” writes New Yorker magazine historian Michael (my other half) Maslin. Michael posted his 2020 interview with Ed, on his Substack, Ink Spill, which includes some of Ed’s cartoons and photos.

I visited him in Los Angeles a few years ago, and was planning to do so again this fall to interview him on videotape. So many stories. He was a generous man.

A few months ago, Ed agreed to send me drawings for a New Yorker cartoon exhibit I curated for a Cartoon Festival in France that opens in September. Here they are below.

Thanks for being here, you guys are the best; I really appreciate you. Have a good start to your week.

One of my personal favorites from The New Yorker.

Have a great Sunday, see you tomorrow!

By now, I am sure you have heard about Trump’s elaborate deception.

Before he left Turkey after the NATO summit, Trump was put on a secret plane to divert what the secret service thought was a credible threat from an Iranian earth to air missle.

Trump was put on a decoy plane and we just learned from various sources how it was done. Trump walked up the steps into AF1 as usual, then when inside, someone took him to where he could secretly get on a catering truck just outside the plane, without anyone noticing. He was taken to another plane to fly back to DC.

BUT: he left White House staff members and journalists on the original plane as unknowing decoys and in potential danger.

This is not right.

Here is a report on the whole thing by White House NY Times reporter Maggie Haberman.

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Wisconsin had a high profile primary last night, and the results were unexpected. In the race for Govenor, a moderate-left Democrat, David Crowley, beat a democratic socialist, Francesca Hong. The NY Times reports that this is “the second consecuti

ve week in a Democratic primary, a democratic socialist was not winning by as big a margin as predicted.”

Are Americans tiring of the democratic socialist candidates? Hong campaigned extensively in the state, and showing up in person apparently made a difference, she was declared the clear front-runner. In the final stretch of the campaign, it was reported that Hong made some statements that were not well recieved, and caused some bad headlines.

In social media comments from 2020, Hong wrote about Thanksgiving, which she called “a colonizer holiday,” and said that the holiday should be canceled. Hong has since taken back that comment. Yes, candidates can change their minds and I believe most of us get that (under certain circumstances, of course). But Hong made statements about defunding the police, abolishing the Senate, abolishing Thanksgiving and Halloween.

What we may be witnessing is the limits of tolerance for far-left socialist movement candidates like Hong, perhaps a correction within the party (AOC and Sanders did not endorse her) and the voting population. Progressive Abdul El-Sahid narrowly won last week in Michigan’s Senate primary, and last night, progressive Peggy Flanagan won by 20 points in Minnesota’s Senate primary. These two don’t identify as democratic socialists.

We shall see!

I hope you are having a good Wednesday. I really value your support, it keeps me going in so many ways. Stay strong, we can do this! Thank you for being here.

I originally posted today with this drawing below. But I became aware that it may be too subtle! So I put the caption back on, and put it at the top of this post. I had taken it off thinking it was unecessary. What do you think, did you see the orange hair at first? Let me know.

Since it’s the dog days of summer, I thought I would share a dog (and cat) drawing for you all.

We got news that AOC is freezing her eggs. She announced this in a series of videos on social media hours before going on a Sunday news show, during which she said she is open to running for president. Are these two things related?

“There is very strangely a political risk, or a political tax, that comes with sharing this info,” she said of her decision to freeze her eggs. She added that she had shared the information “to show more depictions of women having full lives in every context and every choice.”

I love that she’s showing her life as a woman in this way, sharing things some of us have to think about.

She said she is also open to running for Chuck Schumer’s Senate seat. That makes perfect sense to me; AOC running for president in 2028 worries me. Sadly, simply because she is a woman. If we cannot elect HRC or Kamala, we won’t elect AOC for sure.

A progressive House Democrat, AOC is a member of the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, not the national one. She doesn’t endorse every candidate the DSA does; from what I’ve read, the DSA has some very radical thinkers. This is unhelpful for the Dems. Asked if she believed the DSA’s agenda would “doom” Democrats, AOC said, “The idea that there’s a diversity of thought in America among everyday voting people is a fundamental fact of our country. I don’t think that we should be worried about what somebody somewhere believes.”

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I listened to this episode below of The New Yorker Radio Hour yesterday, and I invite you to listen because it’s eye-opening about the Democratic Socialist Party. David Remnick, Russia scholar and editor in chief of The New Yorker, interviewed Megan Romer, co-chair of the DSA. This interview followed one Ms. Romer did on FOX news where she embraced abolishing the Senate, the Supreme Court, border control, defunding the police and defund the Pentagon and more. In the talk with Remnick, when asked her about the Ukraine War, she said the US should not have sent troops to help Ukraine, rather we should have sent lots of diplomats. LOTS of diplomats; she thinks the world didn’t do enough diplomacy to stop Putin.

When asked to explain DSA positions in depth, she qualifies most of them; for example, saying the DSA doesn’t want to defund the police— contrary to what the party says—we should just give the force less money. She believes communities that have good schools, trees, etc. will have less crime. The DSA doesn’t really believe in open borders, rather immigration control that works better. I believe this reflects the vagueness of this far-left faction.

The DSA numbers around 120,000 members, not a lot of people. But it appears it has a lot influence, particularly with young voters. I agree that the Democrats need an infusion of new voices. Ms. Romer claims the Dems are not working to make our government work for the people. I strongly disagree; but do agree the Dems have problems. To quote Remnick, her attitude is “breezy;” she comes across as uninformed. It appears what the DSA wants to do is put out slogans to stir things up, slogans they have no plans for. Several times, she said, “That wouldn’t look good for us.”

Democrats are not the enemy, Trump and Maga are.

We know the GOP will use Romer’s words against the Dems in upcoming elections. Let’s hope it falls on deaf ears.

Thanks for being here! Hope your week is off to a good start. It’s gorgeous weather where I am, hope it is where you are.

I hope you are having a good weekend and a quiet Sunday. The above drawing is a personal favorite because I like drawing people with instruments.

Below is a photo of a performance of Yo-Yo Ma and myself; he played his cello and I drew him on my iPad in front of an audience of about 100 people. It was magical. I wrote about it here, and I also paste it below. That was an amazing experience, a highlight of my career. As you see below, Yo-Yo loves to laugh.

Thank you for being here!! See you tomorrow.

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Here is the article from Seeing Things:

Last Wednesday, I was given the privilege to be onstage and draw and improvise with master cellist Yo-Yo Ma. It was an incredible honor.

I drew, he played. I watched him, and the audience; he watched me and my drawing as it appeared onscreen. It was a multiple collaboration. I responded to what he was playing, he responded to what I was drawing. In between the playing and drawing, we discussed many things, moderated by Stage Director Guy Ben-Aharon.

Some drawings were of the audience, some of Yo-Yo, and one was pure imagination in response to his playing.

Two arts interacting.

The final collaboration was about hope. Yo-Yo played a medley of songs of hope, I drew the audience. Why the audience? Because it was a diverse gathering, with people of all ages, races, colors and different communities. The Jar, where this was held, strives to bring together such gatherings through an intentional Convener Model. It’s a wonderful non-profit that you can read about, here. It was founded by stage director, Guy Ben-Aharon, who also beautifully moderated the evening.

The evening really felt like a community.

I learned so much. We talked and created about passion, fear, hate, anger, hope, laughter, joy. Art is about connection. The two of us connected as we created, but we also connected with those observing.

Art is interactive.

I hope we touched others. Through our expression, I believe we were able to provide a bridge between us all in our shared humanity.

After the event, we did a shoot in front of a large drawing I did earlier. These photos were taken by the amazing photographer and my friend, Eric Korenman

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Additional photos by Anna Olivella.

Maine’s Senator Susan Collins said she will vote against Blanche. Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy is leaning that way. If those three vote against Blanche, his nomination is dead. If Mitch McConnell, who has been in the hospital for weeks (months?) is well enough to get to the chamber to vote for Blanche, it goes through. The GOP is doing everything they can to make McConnell seem healthy—we’ve seen the AI photo— so that he can be in the chamber to vote. They will wheel McConnell in and prop him up.

Murkowski put it brilliantly:

“I am also keenly aware that the department’s nearly $2-billion dollar slush fund — which likely would have rewarded January 6 protesters — is only off the table because this nomination is pending and the Senate has leverage. Once we vote, that will end, and there is no telling what the future holds. The politicization — even weaponization — of the department did not start with this administration but has accelerated during it,” Murkowski said in a statement.

“I take issue with the handling of the release of the Epstein files; the sweeping immunity protections granted to the president, his family, and their businesses; the statements that have been made to anti-abortion groups; and the repeated targeting of individuals ranging from former administration staff to sitting U.S. senators. No telling what the future will hold.”

Blanche as Attorney General is perhaps the worst thing for our democracy yet. He can remain acting AG, sadly, for as long as Trump wants. But I am hoping this is a moment.

On to the cartoon!

In my live session the other day, I talked about creating a drawing based on an unformed idea inspired by the small surge of primarily youth-supported progressive/socialists winning primaries lately. I showed how it could be done in various scenes of different kinds, with different people. I mused that you could even do animals saying something on the topic! The one below was what I came up with after several attempts, then I changed it again to the above. Which works better for you?

On an upbeat note, take a look at what France is trying to do! Brava.

Send me your thoughts on the drawing above, which The New Yorker rejected yesterday, btw!

Have a great Friday. I am so very grateful for you guys!