While the former president has been an easy target for years, Montrealer Barry Blitt says he’d like to turn the page on this chapter of U.S. politics.
One might expect that Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Barry Blitt would be on the euphoric side with a coming U.S. election pitting his seemingly favourite target, former president Donald Trump, up against Vice-President Kamala Harris. But the acclaimed New Yorker magazine political caricaturist, a Côte-St-Luc native, is becoming a tad weary of the man.
“Trump has given me a lot of gravy, but there’s just too much gravy on the meal now,” laments Blitt, taking a break from the Canadian Association of Cartoonists convention held this past weekend at the McCord Museum.
“Admittedly, he’s easy to draw and Kamala Harris is really hard to draw. But I’ll be happy when this election is over and when the post-election demonstrations and riots and wars are over. It’s part of the deal now.”
True to form, Blitt’s Aug. 26 New Yorker cover depicted a roller-coaster ride with Trump and his VP candidate JD Vance spiralling downward at high speed while Harris and her running mate Tim Walz were flying to higher ground. The ‘toon essentially encapsulates Trump’s political roller-coaster ride following President Joe Biden’s sudden exit from the race and Harris’s quick ascent.
Blitt provides a scathingly clever and highly amusing outlet for those alarmed by the presence of Trump.
“There are a lot of pundits and cartoonists making jokes, and what else can you do about it? But the situation is really unpalatable and hard to live through, so you just have to laugh your way through to deal with it,” sombrely notes Blitt, while tugging on his well-worn, trademark Borsalino fedora.
In fact, Blitt is so distressed by the prospect of Trump regaining the White House that he and his wife, Angie Silverstein, are even contemplating uprooting from their Connecticut home and moving back to Montreal.
“Hopefully, it won’t come to that but we’re fixing up our house just in case, so it will easier to sell if we have to,” Blitt says. “He could definitely win. It’s a terrifying thought.”
Not surprisingly, Blitt has been attacked by Trumpers, which he totally comprehends in light of the polarity that exists in the U.S. But a 2018 New Yorker cover, depicting a naked Trump standing behind a lectern, suggesting “the emperor has no clothes,” drew the ire of one reader.
“This guy did a deep dive into my life and dug up my wife’s name and my son’s name. He did research on where my son was going to school. He kept sending me reams of insults for a few weeks,” he says.
“But this was not my first rodeo. I once did a clumsy piece of satire on Obama, and got a lot of grief from all sides of the political spectrum for that. The difference, though, is that Trump is a cult leader, and if you insult his people, it inflames passions. I never got this from George Bush’s or (Bill) Clinton’s people.”
Although he had a penchant for drawing, Blitt, a Wagar High School grad, hadn’t envisioned a career as a cartoonist.
“I was a really shy kid here. No one knew I was pretty back then,” Blitt cracks. “But cartoonists and satirists come in all personality types. You don’t necessarily have to be an extrovert or particularly aggressive.”
Although Blitt, 66, visits Montreal regularly to touch base with his family here, he left the city after graduating from Concordia in 1978. He moved to Toronto to study at the Ontario College of Art and Design and a decade later ended up in New York City. He was to land the plum New Yorker gig in 1992 and to become one of the magazine’s most prolific illustrators — doing both covers and inside sketches — over the course of its nearly 100-year history. Blitt’s work has also appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly, Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, Graydon Carter’s newsletter Air Mail and his online Kvetchbook. He is also the author of the bestselling tome Blitt.
“I really didn’t start doing political work until the Clinton days,” Blitt recalls. “I started getting work at first mostly as a pop culture illustrator for Entertainment Weekly. Then the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky stuff all blew up and all my editors who were asking me to draw Tom Cruise and Cher were now asking me to do Bill and Monica. That was my entrée into politics. Then the New Yorker started asking for that stuff and that’s how I became radicalized.” Pause. “Okay, maybe passive aggressive and looking for a laugh at anyone’s expense.”
“I just gave a speech at the convention and told the 50 cartoonists that everyone there thinks they’re the best cartoonist of all, me included. But none of us are … this guy is,” says Mosher, pointing to Blitt.
To which Blitt, who credits Mosher and Popeye creator E.C. Segar as among his big inspirations, replies: “You said that! That’s horrifying! I hope you were joking. Sure, I’m getting published and have been fortunate, but so have many others.”
Would that those whom Blitt targets show that sort of humility.