The Pen That Skewers Power: A Conversation with Steve Brodner

Disclaimer : Unedited AI Transcript

Larry (00:07):

You are listening to specifically for Seniors, a podcast designed for a vibrant and diverse senior community. I'm your host, Dr. Larry Barsh. Join me in a lineup of experts as we discuss a wide variety of topics that will empower, inform, entertain, and inspire as we celebrate the richness and wisdom of this incredible stage of life.

Larry (00:40):

Editorial cartoons distill political complexity into a single striking image by exaggerating flaws, contradictions, or absurdities. They make power visible, often more effectively than prose. And today to explain how editorial cartoons can expose hypocrisy, amplify public sentiment, and create memorable metaphors, we are honored to have as our guest, the legendary Steve Brodner illustrator, editorial cartoonist, and fearless chronicler of the American Political Theater from the halls of the Library of Congress to the pages of the nation, the Washington Post in the LA Times broadened his pen has skewed hypocrisy, exposed corruption, and elevated satire to an art of resistance as the first artist inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame and recipient of the 2024 Herb Block Prize. Broaden continues herb block's legacy of confronting power with which and visual metaphor. Today we're going to explore how editorial cartooning can illuminate civic decay, provoke dialogue, and inspire action. And I'd like to encourage our listeners to view this podcast on YouTube since we're going to be showing and talking about some of Steve's illustrations. Welcome to specifically for seniors, Steve.

Steve Brodner (02:33):

Thank you, Larry. I'm honored to be here. It's a great pleasure to be with you. And I'm I'm thrilled to be discussing what what is sometimes an overlooked means of communication. Political cartooning has had its heyday in the days of print, when print was king. And since print has undergone severe decline, say the least, near extinction experience what we do is harder to come by and, and harder to find, but has found other forms. And I'm, I'm happy to say we have not gone extinct. We are we are thriving. We have many young practitioners and some old timers like me, and we're making our voices heard. I, I, I, I hasten to add that we are just one group of artists and expressive people who are making our voices heard on social media and in platforms like Substack Stack, where you have writers, poets musicians, all combining to tell the truth in a time when the truth is under siege and ferocious attack by the regime and their organized mob.

Steve Brodner (04:24):

This is not a small thing. This is a, this is the big issue right now of encroaching authoritarianism. And in many areas, fascism and Nazism which is a word you're not supposed to say. We could get probably blocked if you use that word. So I'll be careful with it. <Laugh>, I did, I did lay the n bomb on you already. But if you wanna know an important component of the MAGA culture. Read the words of Nick Fuentes. Read the Words of the Sainted, Charlie Kirk. Yeah. That'll tell you what you need to know, but I suspect our listeners already know this. And it's but it's good to hear other people express feelings that let them know they're not alone. And I think that's a lot of what I do, is I tell people they're not alone. I'm not interested in converting anyone. I've never had the experience of converting anyone either in a, an argument, a conversation, or with a cartoon. Somebody said, we're here to entertain the troops. <Laugh>.

Larry (05:48):

How, how did you get into editorial cartooning?

Steve Brodner (05:52):

God only knows it was 60 years ago. <Laugh>, seriously, I'm a child of the fif late fifties, early sixties when there was an explosion of political activism, particularly after the death of JFK and the coming Vietnam War and Civil Rights Movement, and all the other liberation movements in the country. And it was a great time of kind of explosive creativity. And I was a little boy, a teenager, and I just felt that this was a part of life. And I admired an awful lot of artists who were comedians and cartoonists and musicians and politicians and spiritual leaders. And I, and they were, you know, Martin Luther King was an artist. He was, you know, a lot of the civil rights leaders, if you listen to them, they were artists. Malcolm X was an artist. He, they, they, they were doing rap. They were doing brilliant poetry performances. And and, and JFK also, and RFKI admired RFK, senior

Larry (07:17):

Senior

Steve Brodner (07:18):

Senior. Now, we have to put the senior on to make sure we don't confuse people. I think a lot of young people may not have even heard of senior and, and unfortunately, his demented son will in some way sully the name. But we have to, we have to take care of that best we can.

Larry (07:39):

Getting back to that era I mentioned, you're the winner of the Herb Block Prize. For those who are unfamiliar with Herb Block, who was he?

Steve Brodner (07:51):

Herb Block was a long time editorial cartoonist for the Washington Post, the editorial cartoonist for the Washington Post. Arguably the most important political cartoonist in the history of the United States. Thomas Nast was our founding father, and very important in his time, but he had a very short career, relatively speaking. He helped destroy Boss Tweed in the 1870s. And by the 1880s, America had changed so much that there was no longer an appetite for his kind of ferocious work. However, her block began in the Washington Post, I believe, in the 1940s, and finished up, I don't know, I think in the, in the eighties. No, I think in the early two thousands. I think he may have gone to, I don't know, the, his end date, 99, something like that. Anyway, it's a very long career. And but his influence carried on all those decades from Truman, I think until Clinton, I believe, and or beyond.

Steve Brodner (09:06):

And always, you know, a fighter for Liberty, civil rights, freedom the First Amendment, the everything that's in the Constitution, all those radical ideas, preamble, the Constitution must make maga people explode to read that thing. No wonder they're so wor hard at work to, to cancel it out, <laugh> and Supreme Court and the vanguard of that. Anyway, he had a special period of time, like Nat as Nast opposed Tweed. Herb Black was one of the few voices opposing McCarthy and the Red Scares, and the red baiting of the 1950s. And Nixon especially. And Nixon then, of course, tragically was elevated to the presidency, and her block was still there at the Washington Post. Whamming away at <laugh>, wailing away at Nixon. And Nixon did not have an easy time with her block. And then finally, when Watergate hit her block was one of the greatest, that was maybe his gr McCarthy times, and then Watergate, where were her block's golden moments. But he, you know, like Bill Malden, who's a contemporary of his and a also great cartoonist and a better artist than Herb Black was strong on civil rights and human rights and anti-war. And so these are the people I I grew up on. You know, I don't know where you live, Larry. I'm from New York, and are you, are you, you sound like you might be a New Yorker, are you? 

Larry (11:00):

Well I'm originally from Boston. I'm back in Boston. We did live in New York for, okay. Oh, a dozen years or so in the city. So,

Steve Brodner (11:12):

So you could, you could maybe have some of it rubbed off on you.

Larry (11:17):

Oh, a lot of it, <laugh>.

Steve Brodner (11:20):

But when I was a boy, the New York Post was a liberal newspaper and before Murdoch bm before Murdoch. And he Dorothy Schiff was the publisher of the New York Post at that time, and they ran her block every day. So I followed her block daily. Of course, I bought the New York Post when I was I was pretty, I guess for a kid. I was pretty early, a news junkie, but part of that was because I followed sports. And I, New York Post had a great sports section. I think it still probably does. I don't look like it too much, but I, I, I would then wind up reading all the columnists, mostly syndicated columnists in the post, and then a lot every day.

Larry (12:11):

Great. What's always gotten to me in a political cartoon as opposed to writing where you have, yeah, a limited number of words, but enough to express yourself. How do you compress a statement into one frame?

Steve Brodner (12:32):

It's alchemy. It's absolute alchemy. There's no way to describe really how it works. I teach illustration, so if I can't do it, <laugh>, I been teaching illustration for 35 years. I, I tell my students that all art is a mashup. Okay? It's always, you know, king Kong meets Godzilla, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. That's their best movie, I think. Anyway,

Larry (13:10):

One, one of the best. Anyway,

Steve Brodner (13:11):

Yes, I love it.

Larry (13:12):

I, I think The Mummy was a good meeting too.

Steve Brodner (13:16):

Yes. and it's, it's, it's, you think about all the movies most of the films that are made, or books that are made written or have a kind of fish out of water sequence or aspect to it where a character is now confronted with something completely unexpected and then has to find resources within him or herself to overcome. A political cartoon is no different than other art. It but it does have to be current in the moment, and it has to combine different things. So, for example, I did a cartoon a couple of days ago after Trump had this obscene, great Gatsby themed party while cutting food benefits for children and poor people. And so I had this idea of them at the party looking out the window or having an open window, and it so happens thousands of starving children are gathered outside the window. And then I realized there's gotta be a quote from Gatsby that I can throw on there. And then there is a wonderful quote about, you know, it's a famous quote about they were careless people, Tom and Daisy. And it goes on Fitzgerald ends the, and it, it just enough of a paragraph to fit at the bottom of my cartoon and talking about he ends with, they spent their life damaging other people and having other people clean up their mess for them.

Steve Brodner (15:14):

And then the word careless is moving in my head, and then I remember, so this is the mashup. This is where mashup happens. I'm mashing up hungry people, and the party, and then Gatsby, and then an additional one happens where I'm remembering Melania wore a jacket that said, I really don't care. Do you,

Larry (15:43):

Hold on a sec, I'm gonna show that

Steve Brodner (15:46):

You have it. There it is. Okay. Thank you. Wow. Johnny on the spot. I really don't care. Do you? She had this jacket, so I thought, how great careless people, I really don't care. She said it, they gave you, in other words, this cartoon was drawn by the Trump family, <laugh>. I didn't have to do a thing except to make these connections, right? And then he answers her with a Nazi armband. I'm, I said it again. I'm sorry. We're both going to Uganda <laugh> armband says, no. Now, this is a three-way, four-way mashup. And that's what the good cartoons are. Yeah, mashups, good movies are mashups, <laugh> what's, what would be another word for it? Combinations. cross references, jokes.

Larry (16:56):

You balance humor, anger, and clarity in one image.

Steve Brodner (17:02):

If you, if you, if you're good, if you're lucky with a good wind, <laugh>, if, if it all works, yes. Otherwise,

Larry (17:12):

<Laugh>

Steve Brodner (17:12):

Doesn't work.

Larry (17:14):

How, how do you can, I was gonna say, how do you measure? But can you measure the impact of your work? Public reaction? No editorial reach.

Steve Brodner (17:25):

You have no way of knowing. You have no way of knowing. Years later, somebody comes on and says, oh, I, that great cartoon you did, and I sent that to all my friends, and, and you inspired me. That's why I started to draw pictures. And you, it's quiet out there, you know? I could see that, like, that cartoon that you just showed got many likes on social media. It got many comments on substack. Other things are more obtuse. They don't as much, but you never know. You, you don't know. You're, I've spent my life making these pictures most quite often in the dark at night after spending a day marinating in news, which I do. I'm a news junk. I was a news junkie when I was 10 years old. I'm 71, <laugh>, 61 years later, I'm still doing this. I got time and Newsweek sent to my summer camp. Other kids were reading Batman. I'm reading Newsweek when I'm 10 years old. Anyway it's just the way I was, it was my obsession politics and, and what was happening, and the cartoonists and the artists, and the movies and all that. So I marinate in all of this. I draw in the dark at night. It's quiet. It's quiet all the next day, too. <Laugh>,

Steve Brodner (19:04):

I've, I've learned to tell myself, don't worry about what people say. Don't worry. What about what people think? It doesn't matter. What matters is how you feel about your work. I have this kind of perverse belief in God. I believe there's a God of illustration. I believe there's a God of cartoons. And when you've done it right, God is happy and you know it, and your relationship is just one-on-one. And I feel this should be the case with musicians, dancers writers. You know, when you've done well, you don't need somebody, especially if you're in this a long time, you know, when you've done it. You know, some of the greatest movies never won an Oscar. I don't know if you're a fan of old movies, but I love, especially silent movies. And my favorite silent movie is The General by Buster Keaton. If anyone has the opportunity to see this in the theater, you're a great treat.

Steve Brodner (20:15):

If you haven't ever seen Buster, this movie was the most expensive, silent comedy of all time. Not many people went to see it. Not enough critics were mixed on it. And it was because of this movie that he lost his independence as a filmmaker. It, it doesn't matter, because even though he paid a high price, the movie is a masterpiece. It is a jewel. It is in the Library of Congress, pervert, preserved for all time. And, you know, buster's dead 60 years, all the people involved are dead, including the little children who are in the film. This, this is, this is the curious nature of art. It's, it's just between you and the picture that you're making, and the rest of it is completely under you. You mentioned these awards. It's nice to have awards. It's nice to have people like what you do, but in the final analysis, you have to like what you do. You have to be, when I say God of illustration, I mean, that's like this thing inside of you here, you know,

Larry (21:27):

On the other side. Have you ever faced censorship for something you've done?

Steve Brodner (21:32):

Oh, sure. Happens all the time. You mentioned when we started Washington Post and LA Times, I'm no longer in those publications. Just in the last year since Trump, as you know, I'm sure both those publications have kowtowed, shall we say, bent the knee, shall we say, to Trump. And as a result, Ann Ness no longer works at the Washington Post, and neither do I. And that was a place for me to do some of my best work over the last 10, 15 years. LA Times also is Run, run now by a man who, it's a similar story where a, a billionaire savior comes in and was hands off for a long time. And, and, and life was good at these publications, and now they have turned into shadows of their former self. And, and in the Amen Corner for Maga or worse,

Larry (22:43):

What is this fear of Trump? Is it just verbal, or is it monetary threats, or,

Steve Brodner (22:55):

Yeah, it's monetary. It's all about money. Jeff Bezos and Ung are both heavily invested. They're, they're, you know geopolitical oligarchs. They are interested in expanding their wealth and competing with each other to be the richest man in the world. And they are all investing in AI and chips and engulfing and devouring other media and getting bigger and bigger and stronger and wealthier. And their first mission is not journalism. These people are not journalists. They not like the Graham family was, or the Sulzbergers. They were, they were oligarchs too, in a way, wealthy people. But Dorothy Schiff was not Dorothy Schiff, but Catherine Graham was ready to lose money during Watergate. Certain corporate were willing to lose money during the McCarthy era. That player in that film that just was on Broadway called Goodnight, and Good Luck, tells the story of Edward r Murrow.

Steve Brodner (24:18):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Like Herb Block was willing to challenge and oppose Murrow, even though William Paley, the owners of CBS kept pressuring him to stop because they were gonna lose viewers. Finally, Murrow insisted and wound up toppling helping to topple McCarthy. But also we see at the end of that film how Hayley takes Morrow off primetime. And he paid a price and then got out of journalism before he died to work for the Kennedy administration which is what journalists probably should not do, but, you know, you have to be willing to pay a price to have your independent voice. So in my case I am on Substack, which I'm, I'm very happily am until <laugh>, something terrible happens to Substack. And it's a trend. You know, Paul Krugman Krugman went to, to Substack Jim Acosta went to Substack. So by going to Substack and subscribing to the people that you like, and the people that you, you know, for free and then pay for the ones that you really like or wanna support, you have a channel there where you can go to, you know, one after the other. The bull work is wonderful, and Jennifer Rubin is wonderful, and Heather Cox Richardson, the Queen of Substack, and, and Robert Hubble. And I could name people all day on Substack, and I hope somebody names me. <Laugh>.

Larry (26:13):

We get back to Substack in a second, but you, you're talking about journalists like Mike Lindell,

Steve Brodner (26:22):

<Laugh> and Crew.

Larry (26:25):

Is

Steve Brodner (26:25):

He on Substack, Mike Lindell?

Larry (26:27):

No, but the crew over at the Pentagon now.

Steve Brodner (26:33):

Oh, yeah, that's right. He's, he's a, is he a Pentagon reporter now, Michael?

Larry (26:38):

Oh, he's a, yeah, he's a journalist. That's perfect. It, it gives journalism

Steve Brodner (26:42):

Also, Luer Luer is now a sub, is a journalist

Larry (26:47):

<Laugh>. It, it's got quite a group over

Steve Brodner (26:49):

Here, <laugh>. Oh, I gotta draw this.

Steve Brodner (26:53):

See, mashup, mashup, keep going. Yeah. This is good for me. Yeah.

Larry (26:58):

Even I'm on Substack I'm trying Substack is, I

Steve Brodner (27:05):

Recommend Larry, everybody.

Larry (27:07):

Thank you.

Steve Brodner (27:08):

And I'm gonna, but what I can do on my Substack is link to you and recommend you that way. So,

Larry (27:15):

Well, you better look first, but I think we agree politically anyway. Yeah. Substack gives you the freedom to say what you want, at least for now.

Steve Brodner (27:28):

Yeah, yeah.

Larry (27:30):

And use any language you want to use.

Steve Brodner (27:33):

Right, right. 

Larry (27:36):

Which I, I am proud to have been thrown off Facebook a couple of times, <laugh>. So it's

Steve Brodner (27:43):

I'm off TikTok permanently. They're, they were vowing to, to not let me back on. So I'm gonna have to, TikTok

Larry (27:51):

Is another story. I'm

Steve Brodner (27:53):

Gonna have to find another name. Maybe I'll use your name.

Larry (27:58):

Oh, please. <Laugh>. I might as well get in trouble. I'm 89 when you get to my age. The threat of a life sentence doesn't carry the weight. <Laugh> it once did.

Steve Brodner (28:12):

Except, you know, Larry, I'm seeing so many obituaries now, and the paper of people who are over a hundred. This one's 103, this one's 104. Just wanna celebrate a hundred first birthday. It's like you never know. <Laugh>, you don't know. You look fantastic. And you sound fantastic for 89 for any, any age, and I wouldn't have come close to guessing your age.

Larry (28:38):

Oh, thank you. Let's get back to political cartooning. Yeah. So far a few, I looked back, I know we talked about showing just the new, some of the new work.

Steve Brodner (28:52):

Yeah.

Larry (28:53):

Like the Gatsby one. Yeah, yeah. But there was one older one I wanted you to comment on.

Steve Brodner (29:00):

Okay. Yeah. The

Larry (29:01):

Wing monkeys. Yeah,

Steve Brodner (29:02):

Yeah, yeah. That's the Washington Post. That was the Washington Post. And I wanted to do something different than this, but I had a wonderful art director named Chris Kin, who is no longer there for reasons you can imagine. And he he's still a good friend, but Chris kept saying, more monkeys, <laugh>, more monkeys, like more cowbells, you know, more monkeys. So I just kept throwing more and more monkeys. And each one of them is a specific character from the MAGA sphere. And you know, poor Biden is Dorothy, as the monkeys are entering, are, are passing the window as and seen from Wizard Oz. And, and Trump is the wicked witch in the in the crystal ball screaming at him. And so the Washington Post did change this around in a way that I thought weakened it because historically it's truer now than it was then.

Steve Brodner (30:17):

I wanted Merrick Garland to be Dorothy, first of all, his name is Garland. Isn't that quite great that his name is Garland and Dorothy. And, but he was the one who was, who had the power to prosecute Trump had the power to go after all these people, and he waited and waited and dithered and Trump could have been prosecuted right off the bat, and you would've had a different result, harder to run from jail. Anyway, I think Merrick Garland when history gets around to it, is not going to fare well in the scheme of things. But the Washington Post said we can do this if you make it Biden. I said, okay I take what I can get <laugh> from, from the client. And even though they weren't paying nearly as much as this amount of work required, but there's Tucker Carlson, there's Mitch McConnell, there's Bannon there's Roger Stone, everybody <laugh> got everybody in there. And and I thought it was successful as far as it went.

Larry (31:48):

And one of the things I noticed looking at this and some of your work from this time period

Steve Brodner (31:59):

Yeah.

Larry (32:00):

Is that the recent work has changed in style.

Steve Brodner (32:04):

Oh, yeah. And,

Larry (32:05):

And in metaphor,

Steve Brodner (32:07):

Uhhuh <affirmative> in metaphor, you think? Yeah.

Larry (32:11):

Yeah. I, I, the, the, even the way the illustrations are drawn,

Steve Brodner (32:19):

Oh, yeah. This is done in a matter of hours. The other one took weeks. The amount of detail in a piece that you have a long deadline for is a completely different series of, of choices that you have. Here again, I'm doing a mashup of the famous Margaret Burke white photograph of poor people standing on a breadline, waiting in front of a, a poster of Happy White folks. It says, there's no way, like the American way, world's highest standard of living. I actually swiped the text, the type from the photograph, and I threw it onto this illustration where Trump is holding in his hands the withheld emergency food aid, which he still holds, even though two courts have told him to release it while people now in modern dress are in the, on the, on the breadline. And and then I took a quote from the ap, I think it is. And but the style is has to adapt to the fact that I'm turning it around in two hours, three hours.

Larry (33:45):

And let's take a look at this as a another. Totally different, yeah. Style

Steve Brodner (33:51):

Style, you know form follows content. I found a pattern that had a million little dots on it. And and I thought, well, 40 million will be thrown off of food stamps or snap. Let's take four faces of children and draw them with a crayon on top of a a, a a dot pattern that represents 1 million dots. And the four of them will represent 40 million. Just to try to touch the magnitude of this horrifying tragedy.

Larry (34:42):

The cruelty is just totally unbelievable. It's beyond even description.

Steve Brodner (34:51):

It's a hostage situation. Really, I will kill you if you don't. I will kill you with food if you don't let me kill you with Medicare medical care and Democrats for the first time, or showing backbone and fight. And I think it made a, a difference on Tuesday.

Larry (35:15):

It certainly did. Let's take a look at something totally different.

Steve Brodner (35:22):

Yeah. I've been enjoying drawing with colored pencils, <laugh>. So I draw one line with red. I have them in, in the left hand. I take a green one out. I draw another line with the green one. I take a purple one. I draw another line with that. And these are people who will be devastated by the the cuts to Obamacare. They just, they're very creative. They just are so good at finding ways to hurt people. After Tuesday, Trump feels a really great idea is to cut the air flights out of airports by 10% on Thanksgiving.

Larry (36:10):

Yeah. Really,

Steve Brodner (36:11):

Really smart pal. You do that. You go ahead and do that. Enjoy yourself

Larry (36:18):

And his followers. Think these are great ideas. Great. Even though it affects them,

Steve Brodner (36:24):

It's gonna affect them. They're owning the libs. Good. Own the Libs in Keokuk, Iowa while you're trying to get to Des Moines. Okay. Enjoy yourself. And Democrats will win that Senate race in Iowa. Democrats are gonna win and read, you know, a lot of the, the vote on Tuesday, I just read this this morning, or Trump supporters who voted Democrat this time. Yeah. So the, instead of realizing how he's messed up, he's doubling down on the cruelty. It's going to be Larry next year. It's going to be in 20 20 26. One of the most devastating elections in history. And not just because of Trump, but because of us, because we have become activists. We across the country are knocking on the doors and writing the postcards. And don't forget postcards. You know, if you're senior postcards are extremely effective. You don't have to walk anywhere. You can sit and just do five a day. We have 362 days, Larry till the election.

Larry (37:41):

Do,

Steve Brodner (37:42):

Do a part every day. Do

Larry (37:44):

Five, five a day. You are quoting Tony the Democrat.

Steve Brodner (37:47):

Is that right?

Larry (37:48):

Yeah. He's coming on in a couple of weeks.

Steve Brodner (37:51):

What does he say? A car a day.

Larry (37:54):

He he is he asks for just five,

Steve Brodner (37:57):

Five a day

Larry (37:58):

Over three day. Now you get three days to send out or to write five postcards.

Steve Brodner (38:05):

That's, that's gonna have to be the thing. Everybody does get any kind of car, just a personal note. Use to loose a couple of colors, you know, a blue and a black and and, and, and just make it come from you and send it. Can you imagine the millions of people who will be writing these cards and how many there'll be that's far more effective than any TV ad with you know, Robert De Niro or somebody else. This is, this is like, but you know, everyone can see what's happening. We've got the wind at our back now. So when you write a card now after Tuesday, it's different. It's significantly different because this is a popular uprising and like we haven't seen in this country really since Vietnam.

Larry (39:01):

Yeah. Getting back to your cartoons ice is another story.

Steve Brodner (39:14):

Well these images fly by on Instagram for me too fast. I want to freeze them. I want to hold them. And I feel that when you draw something you you give it something more. I can't tell you exactly what that thing is, but I think this is endemic. It's a, it, it's a, an in the nature of drawing about something or writing a poem about something, or singing a song about something, it makes it, it isolates it and, and holds it up. And you can look at it and turn it around and examine it. Think about it, it holds it in the mind. So this is one of the things I want to do now, is to take these pictures that I see flashing really fast on Instagram, pausing the video and drawing it. And then finding quotes that go with it. And quite often there are people who are speaking or being interviewed about what happened. And I think the, it's not just what's going on, but also how it's being done. These, these people do not have badges. No Id, and they cover their faces, like the criminals that they are, Larry. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Like the bandits, the, the statistic low life that they are.

Larry (41:01):

And then you get,

Steve Brodner (41:04):

This is a mashup. Oh my God. Talk about mashups. <Laugh>. He wants to build an arch in Washington. Okay. He wants to build an arch in Washington as he's tearing down part of the White House. So I took the pictures of the White House being torn up, and I superimpose them onto this arc that I realized I could make look like him. Alright. So those are three things together right away, the Arc Trump and the, and the White House. And then I could put on the bottom big bags of money. And I took the trouble to get all the corporate logos of actual contributors donors to this ballroom that he's building. That's a fourth mashup. And then I decided to have some kind of a extra thing where the bags of money crush people as they try to pass through <laugh>, like the arch in Washington. So for whatever it's worth, arc to Trump. <Laugh>,

Larry (42:13):

Do you draw for others too much? Too much,

Steve Brodner (42:15):

Yes.

Larry (42:16):

What do you draw for others that, do you draw for yourself?

Steve Brodner (42:20):

Oh, I really draw for myself. I, I mean, I, I hate to say this, it sounds so stupid, but I really do like draw for God. I draw for the God of, of cartoons. I know. I, I'm, I'm, it's like, I know when I've done it, right? I know when it's, when all these metaphors work together and fit together, and it's a puzzle, and I'm working on it every day. And it gives me tremendous pleasure when I feel this process has resulted in some truth made, illuminated and emphasized and clearer or more memorable. Again, we're not interested in changing minds. That doesn't happen. It's not in our, it's not something that we can achieve. What you can achieve is tell the truth. You know, shame the devil and support people who need to see it and hear it. And and that's really, that's how to live a good life. <Laugh>

Larry (43:30):

We touched on it right at the beginning when you talked about print journalism as opposed to digital journalism. How does editorial cartooning evolved to remain relevant in the digital world?

Steve Brodner (43:49):

God only knows. I don't know. I, I think I, I, what I tell what one of the, one of the things that keeps it in print, that's, that's not answering your question, but it, it really, in order to, to be very effective I tell my students to learn about graphic memoirs and graphic novels. People still love opening a, an actual book and reading a graphic novel, mouse Persepolis, fun Home. These are classics. These are, these will be read in a hundred years. They are amazing, amazing books, and people want to read them. I, I, I don't do those kinds of books, but I think it is an option for us. I do other kinds of books basically printed versions of what I have done here in, in online, in the internet world. If you say something that people respond to, it will get coverage. It'll be forwarded and shared, but you can't control that. I don't know how you, how it happens. You you shouldn't work. It's none of your business really. <Laugh>.

Larry (45:15):

Can I ask you how can we view an editorial cartoon more intelligently?

Steve Brodner (45:28):

Read, read as much as you can. That is now everybody's real mission. It used to be Walter Cronkite. It used to be that all you had to do was turn the TV on at seven o'clock at night, half hour, you got the news. And, and when Walter Cronkite said, Vietnam War is a terrible thing, we shouldn't do it. It changed the world because he had that kind of influence. Or when Edward Odd Morrow said McCarthy is a bastard. Watch out. That changed the world, too. That doesn't exist anymore. CBS is now run by Barry Weiss <laugh>, so that, that's gone. No more CBS no more Washington Post. No more LA Times. New York Times is very, is very shall we say cherry about saying things directly for different reasons. It's up to us to curate our own news.

Steve Brodner (46:33):

It's up to us to find out who's telling the truth and who's reliable. And it's, it's, it's a job to read good journalism. And it's out there. The Guardian is excellent democracy. Now, Amy Goodman excellent. Mother Jones, the nation, the Atlantic, the New Yorker. These are really good places. Subscribe to them. You don't have to get them in print. You can get them on your phone, on a, on a little app. And as I said, all the Substack people there's a wonderful book that I recommend. It's not too political it's called Dopamine Nation. And look that up, and you'll get the name of the author, which escapes me at the moment. And she describes what happens when you get a dopamine hit that explains Fox News. It explains M-S-N-B-C. It explains why people prefer news that makes them feel better. It's our job to read all news, including the news that upsets us, because then you can be an informed citizen. And then you can not only understand political cartoons, you can understand all manner of informed coverage of important information. Read widely, read constantly, and and know that that's your job.

Larry (48:13):

Before, before we close, I'd like you to mention your website and your Substack address. Okay.

Steve Brodner (48:23):

Well, the Substack is more important than anything else right now. And that's Steve Broner. My name Steve, S-T-E-V-B-R-O-D-N-E-R do substack.com. My website is steve broner.com. But there you'll see a lot of old things and the nation. Also, if you go to the nation.com and scroll down you'll see how they collect my work every week. So I send all the things I do all week on Friday, tomorrow morning, I'll send the whole basket of things to the nation, and they put it on their website, which I'm greatly honored to do, because I've been a contributor to the Nation for over 25 years. And now they carry me, and they gave me a column. And and I, you know, I very, I'm, I feel very close to them, and I value them more than ever because I, I put them with all those other publications I mentioned. They've got great writers. John Nichols, jet here Katrina Vanden Hoel is our editor, and she's a great writer also. And I highly recommend the Nation, and I'm thrilled to be among them. So,

Larry (49:45):

And your Substack post is called The Greater Quiet.

Steve Brodner (49:49):

The Greater Quiet, yeah.

Larry (49:50):

Why?

Steve Brodner (49:52):

Because it started during c I'm doing it now almost six years. And in March of 2020 I would be quite literally weeping over the obits that I was reading of people who would pass away. And if you remember, back then, it was massive. And I don't know where you were living in 2020, but I was right here. I'm on the Upper West side of New York, and out there is Amsterdam Avenue. And I would hear the ambulances coming all night long, and the streets were empty, and it was me and my dog, <laugh> and my wife, and not necessarily in that order. And it was kind of, kind of scary. As older people, we didn't know when our time to get the COVID would be. There weren't vaccines then. And and we were losing anonymous people, and I just started to draw this one and that one.

Steve Brodner (51:03):

And, and not on Substack, but just on to put on social media. One thing led to another, and articles started to get written about these. And Washington Post ran a piece about it, and, and American Prospect wrote a piece about it. And somehow I got to Substack. I'm not sure exactly, but it didn't take long. And then not very long after that, the nation started to carry these. So the greater quiet was the quiet of the dead that those silent were speaking in a very loud way through pictures for me. So again, it's the same thing I described before about how a drawing can crystallize something make it stronger make it stand out and maybe make it more memorable. Anyway, I wanted these faces of these people, many of whom were innocent. You know well, they were all innocent, but many of them were, were inadvertent people who like lived, worked in a, in a hospital. The first one was a young man in his thirties who worked in a New York hospital who was a, a nurse who died early on because there was no protection. Nobody knew what it was. And that all got collected in a book called Living and Dying in America, published a Fano Graphics couple years ago. She was still available. And yeah, that's why it's called The Greater Quiet. I like the name. I think it's still okay. <Laugh>

Larry (52:49):

That's where my podcast started. My wife and I were living in Florida at the time. She was in memory care,

Steve Brodner (53:01):

Uhhuh <affirmative>

Larry (53:03):

And with no socialization possible, I basically had nobody to talk to.

Steve Brodner (53:12):

Wow.

Larry (53:12):

So I bought a microphone and a <laugh> pair of headphones, which, yeah, I think they're mostly for decoration, <laugh>. And just started with talking to some of my friends, and it grew

Steve Brodner (53:30):

Fantastic.

Larry (53:32):

What's next? What's next for you?

Steve Brodner (53:37):

Friday, <laugh> <laugh>, Friday, another cup of coffee. And the next cartoon, which I'm not at this point I have no idea about. After we hang up, I'm gonna go back and check the headlines. And when I get an idea, I squibble it down. And then by tonight sometime I'll come, I'll arrive at what I think Friday should be. And I have it done in the morning by 11 o'clock. That's my deadline at the Nation. I send everything over to them. And and then this weekend I'll start thinking about Sunday funnies. 'cause All on Sunday, I do ridiculous ones, silly stupid ones. Like you wanted to put a pooper man <laugh>, but I didn't want it. I didn't want this podcast to be sed by too much poop. So we but for my, for my Sunday followers the, the, the, the, the paid subscribers get Sunday funnies.

Steve Brodner (54:45):

And the serious pieces are for everyone. I feel that they, they know me, and they'll excuse all these vulgar completely tasteless irresponsible drawings. So that's for Sunday. I'm already collecting them. I have on my cell phone, like little, you know, notes on your, on your if you have an iPhone, there's notes. Yeah. So I, I have one just called Funny's. Everything's like a ridiculous story that I just throw in there. And, and all I need is the story. The cartoon comes once I have the news. That's, you know, stupid enough. So if anybody out there has really stupid news

Larry (55:31):

<Laugh>, I, I may just have to start paying fear. 

Steve Brodner (55:35):

<Laugh>

Larry (55:36):

Substack. Steve, this has been great. The, it's been a terrific conversation. Thank you. Us to.

Steve Brodner (55:46):

Hmm. Thank you very much. Likewise.

Larry (55:49):

It's just been great to understand more about, about your art and about your politics, <laugh>. So it's been terrific. Thank you. Thank

Steve Brodner (56:04):

You, thank you. It's, it's just doing what comes naturally. I think whatever we are going to be good at you have to feel it in here first. First comes the, the need the desire, the interest you follow that don't impose anything on yourself that's not there already. And when you're, when you're doing that, you're cutting with the grain. You're gonna be very effective and very happy. And I wish that for everybody. Thank you, Larry. That's,

Larry (56:40):

 I was trying to think of something to say about that, but that's a great closing. Thanks, Steve.

Steve Brodner (56:48):

My pleasure.

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