Title: Funny Women of The New Yorker

[MUSIC - Marden Hill: Hijack]

Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We've been through Democratic socialism. Coming to New York City this morning, the pros and cons of the possible end to the government shutdown that the Democrats seem to be allowing, at least in the Senate, and the horrific crisis in Sudan. We will end on a lighter note with a preview of a new documentary from New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly, Women Laughing, brings us into the world of the women who make some of your favorite side-splitting cartoons in The New Yorker each week. Here's a 40-second preview of the documentary.

Liza: Back when I started in the 1970s, there were just four of us among the dozens of male contributors.

[MUSIC - Dick Walter: Five over Four]

Liza: Now, almost half of the people drawing for the magazine are women. We're all freelancers, working separately, mostly in solitude, in our studios, sometimes out on the street, but not today.

Brian: With me now today is Liza Donnelly, writer and cartoonist at The New Yorker, and the author of Very Funny Ladies: The New Yorker's Women Cartoonists, 1925 to 2021, and the substack Seeing Things on this documentary. By the way, we were just mentioning the DOC NYC Festival in the break, and this film, Women Laughing, is going to have its New York City premiere as part of that festival on November 15th. Hey, Liza, welcome back to WNYC.

Liza: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me. It's so great to be back.

Brian: The documentary opens with your story. Remind us, how did you first get into drawing cartoons at a time when, per that preview, maybe not that many women were being hired to do that?

Liza: That's right. I started drawing to make my mother happy, and I was really shy, so it was a way to be by myself and just draw, and just kept doing it. Once my mother laughed, I just couldn't stop, and my classmates laughed. I submitted during college to The New Yorker. I found myself attracted to The New Yorker, in part, because it had political cartoons in it, and I was a political animal, even at a young age, because I grew up in Washington during Watergate. I just wanted to be a cartoonist. I didn't think about my gender at all. There were four of us.

Brian: You just mentioned working alone, as I guess most cartoonists do. You sit there at a desk, and you draw, and you write captions, and you think, "What's funny?" You and the other women you spoke with in the documentary, besides working in solitude for the most part, apparently got together for this. Why did you want to gather everyone together?

Liza: I thought it'd be fun. The camaraderie of cartoonists has been strong as long as I've been submitting to The New Yorker. My whole idea for this film, which I co-directed with Kathleen Hughes and the producer's, Judith Mizrachy, wonderful, wonderful people. My idea initially was to have it be about the creative process. I wanted to talk with my colleagues one-on-one. That's how we started. The film has sections where it's one-on-one, talking with them and drawing with them.

We're sitting across from each other, there's a big piece of paper in front of us, and we're just drawing and doodling and talking about why we do this crazy thing, and what's it like to be a woman in this business, does it make any difference? Then I thought, "We should have everybody come together," and we got access to The Algonquin Hotel. Thanks very much to The Algonquin Hotel. They were very generous in giving us space and a roundtable. Ten of us sat around the roundtable and did the same thing, talking and laughing and teasing each other and drinking wine and drawing. This movie, Brian, is a lot of fun, and it's joyful, but it also has some serious elements to it.

Brian: Listeners, if anybody has a favorite Liza Donnelly cartoon, anybody out there can get that specific, or maybe a famous New Yorker cartoon by any woman cartoonist, or a question for Liza Donnelly, upon the release of Women Laughing, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We'll play another clip. Now, this is just 20 seconds. We're going to hear Amy Hwang first, followed by Sarah Akinterinwa. How do you say her name?

Liza: That's correct.

Brian: I want to get it right.

Liza: Akinterinwa.

Brian: Here we go, Amy first.

Amy Hwang: A lot of things about being a woman can be negative. There are problems-

Sarah Akinterinwa: There are problems.

Amy Hwang: -and they make great cartoons.

Sarah Akinterinwa: I just think women are the funniest. We're the funniest gender, to be honest.

Brian: Do you agree with Sarah? Are women the funniest gender?

Liza: [laughs] I don't want to disagree with her, but both genders are funny. She goes on to talk more specifically about what she means, and that she believes that for women, it has been a coping mechanism, as is true with humor in many other demographics. Right now, we're using humor to get through the politics that's going on.

Brian: Do you have any favorites of your own that you would describe or mention the caption of, or of some of your colleagues?

Liza: When you asked me that question, all kinds of cartoons flooded my brain, and I don't know how to choose.

Brian: Let me reframe the question so I don't make it a favorite. Just one that comes to mind.

Liza: Two come to mind of mine is a woman on a swing. I use the swing metaphor a lot in my drawings. She's on the swing swinging, and she's saying to a little boy or a little child, I don't know if it's a boy or not, she's saying, "Fun can happen to adults, too." My cartoons are pretty quiet. That was a New Yorker cartoon. The other one is not a New Yorker cartoon. It's, again, a woman and a young person. I don't always just do that, but the little girl is looking up at her mother, and she's saying, Mommy, what did you do in the war on women?" Which, if you remember, was a phrase that was in the news 10 years ago, was actually being used in the news cycle. Those are just two of my cartoons.

Brian: Are there topics or types of humor that you feel you can explore as a woman cartoonist, or just that were previously overlooked in the magazine that you and your colleagues brought to it?

Liza: Oh, yes. Not me specifically, but my colleagues, the younger ones, are branching out into topics that were not previously covered in The New Yorker or anywhere in my time in this business. Things like menstruation, menopause, and dating from a woman's perspective. It's not like men and women have different senses of humor, per se, but we have different experiences in the world. We're going to draw and write about how we are moving through the world, which can be different than how men move through the world.

Brian: Looking up something else, I was flipping through a few old New Yorkers recently, and one back from 2001 had a cartoon in it that caught my eye since I knew you were coming on. I don't know who the cartoonist is or if it's somebody that you knew, but it's two women speaking at a bar, talking to each other. One of them, I guess, talking about a relationship, says, "Sex brought us together, but gender drove us apart."

Liza: [chuckles] That's Barbara Smaller, who is a friend of mine. See?

Brian: I guess I wondered if a man would have come up with that cartoon. Maybe, but maybe less likely.

Liza: Maybe. There's some men drawing great feminist cartoons, but in terms of our experience, only we can draw about that.

Brian: Another one was a woman with a cat. Again, this is from a decades-old New Yorker, a woman with a cat going to the municipal offices and saying, "We'd like to register for a domestic partnership."

Liza: [chuckles] I don't know that one. That's great.

Brian: I would have to pull it out and see if I can read the signature of who the cartoonist was. I thought, "Oh my goodness, if that was today, it would either be out of touch or it would be relevant with JD Vance and his childless cat ladies poking fun at him."

Liza: Yes. Cartoons can be timeless, but they can also lose relevancy or be offensive after 10 years even. I love how cartoons can make people think differently. Somebody said to me recently, it was Heather Cox Richardson. I did a panel with her. I did a one-on-one with her, the historian. She said that cartoons, they stay in the realm of reality a little bit, and when they adjust slightly, if they twist reality slightly, hopefully you'll understand what the point is, you'll get the joke, but it'll make you think, "Oh yes, I hadn't thought of it that way." Humor's great that way. [crosstalk]

Brian: Emma in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Emma.

Emma: Hi. Quick question. Do you have any advice for older women who have been in the business, they have had their illustrations and cartoons published, maybe back in the 90s or the early 2000s? Any advice for women who have to adapt to the newer technological skills that editors and publishers are expecting? Thank you.

Brian: Thank you.

Liza: I don't know what you mean by newer technological skills. A lot of us do draw on machines. I draw on iPad and on paper. You just have to keep drawing. I love technology, so I try to adapt to what tools that are out there, such as the iPad or using my phone over my hand and drawing for people that way, a video. I do a lot of that on my Substack. Just playing with the new technologies is--

Brian: Let me ask you this new technology question to close. After women cartoonists have fought to achieve nearly equal representation at The New Yorker, just as you're reaching this milestone, AI image generators are becoming capable of creating cartoons and illustrations without any human. I'm curious if you and the women you spoke with for the film are thinking about AI's impact on your profession and career prospects in any way.

Liza: We didn't talk about it in the film. We didn't go there, but certainly it's being talked about among my colleagues because there's an app out there now that says, "Draw your own New Yorker cartoon." I shouldn't be saying this on the radio because people will go try to find it, but I worry. I worry. There's nothing like a human sense of humor, and they can't recreate that. The computer can recreate the semblance of a joke to make it funny, but it's nothing like humor coming directly from the heart of another person or directly from the hand of another person. I don't know. I'm not anti-AI, but hopefully, we will figure out a way to work around this.

Brian: Do you use it at all to help you come up with content?

Liza: No. No. I wonder who does. It's a good question.

Brian: I wonder who does. Maybe that'll be a follow-up segment. For today, my guest has been Liza Donnelly, writer and cartoonist at The New Yorker, author of the book, Very Funny Ladies: The New Yorker's Women Cartoonists, 1925 to 2021, and the substack, Seeing Things. The documentary, Women Laughing, is brand new, and it will have its New York City premiere at the DOC NYC Festival on November 15th. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. Good to have you again, Liza.

Liza: Everybody, come out. Thank you, Brian.

Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Stay tuned for Alison.

[music]

Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.