I’ve been a cartoonist for The New Yorker for more than 40 years. This  is how I draw myself. 

What drew me to this art form was a desire to harness its power to communicate; I wanted to join The New Yorker cartoon community and say something with my drawings. Cartoon artists have long held up a mirror, reflecting the good, bad and the ugly bits of our culture right back at us–while making us laugh. 

I’ve long been fascinated with the power of humor, particularly cartoonists who identify as women. I even wrote a book about it.  Very Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Women Cartoonists tells the little-known story of the pioneering women cartoonists at The New Yorker, past and present.  Groundbreakers then and now, these women share the same drive and passion to speak in line drawing, yet are equally different in who they are as individuals. These inspirational artists were and are creative individuals, independent, married, mothers, non-binary, transgender, Black, White, Asian. All have unique perspectives.

In WOMEN LAUGHING, I’m setting out to explore how women’s humor helps us see the world differently. I plan to talk and draw and laugh with some funny women--cartoonists and comedians whose lives and work inspire my own. Together, we’ll reflect on how far we’ve come, how far we haven’t, and debate on the many challenges that lie ahead.

Of course WOMEN LAUGHING  is also my story.

I started out wanting to make just one woman laugh--my mother. One day when I was about seven years old, she gave me a book of drawings by James Thurber along with some tracing paper. His work is simple and expressive, so I easily copied his people over and over.  My mother smiled. I was hooked for life.

It’s no secret that until recently, women-identified cartoonists were kept from the gates of humor.  So I was surprised to learn that there was a cartoon by a woman in the very first issue of The New Yorker in 1925. Over the decades, women cartoonists were accepted at The New Yorker, but they were  not always welcomed. They had to fight to make their voices heard, on and off the page. Their individual stories have long been overlooked. Yet they are as dramatic as any soap opera and important to our understanding of the creative lives of women.

Looking back, I was shocked to learn that by the 1950s women cartoonists had all but disappeared from the magazine.  Too many women of my generation grew up with mothers who were discontented by society’s limitations and strictures; women who, if they aspired to a life of creativity, were too often discouraged.

In the 1970s, women in my generation returned to the workplace in droves, but it took us a while to understand that we were living in a man’s world. There may have appeared to be complete freedom following the second wave of feminism, but stereotypes and barriers remained, backed by Hollywood and Madison Avenue.

I began drawing for The New Yorker in 1979. Along with Roz Chast, we were two of four women drawing for the magazine–there were over forty men! Our success came from our passion to communicate in drawings, and we luckily benefited from slight changes in the culture that allowed a measure of autonomy.

At first, I unconsciously drew mostly men in my cartoons. My “everyman” was literally a man.  It took time to grasp what I was doing. Today, however, women do most  of the talking in my cartoons. My “everyman” is a woman. 

Currently in the community of cartoonists at The New Yorker, there are more artists who identify as women and non-binary; plus an increasing number of Black, Brown and Asian artists, as well as cartoonists from other countries. But the struggle is far from over. In many ways it is beginning all over again. From abortion rights, talk of the return of “traditional family values,” to gender equity in countless fields, sometimes it feels as though we are returning to 1950s America. 

For women, every day is a political day. Cartoons can help us see the everyday and what needs to change. And help us laugh

Liza’s TED Talk.