Category: Liza Line
. Journalist and filmaker, 
Packed House For Cartoonists Who Are Women in NYC!
Who knew that an exhibition about women cartoonists from The New Yorker would draw a huge, standing-room only, out-the-door-and-around-the-block crowd ? When the room downstairs was full, they sent people to the second and third floors (where the bar was) and to the lower level (where the food was). The evening was the opening event, and included a lively–at times hysterical– panel discussion with cartoonists Roz Chast, Liana Finck, Carolita Johnson, and New Yorker cartoon editor Emma Allen. It was so much fun! I selected and moderated the panel, and each participant was so funny and told stories and shared what the life of a cartoonist was like. Then we showed cartoons that are particularly feminist in tone, and talked about those.
I curated the Funny Ladies At The New Yorker, Then and Now exhibition to include original art from 1925 through 2018. It is based in part on my book, Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Women Cartoonists and Their Cartoons,a history of the women who drew for The New Yorker from the very first issue of the magazine in 1925. But the motivation for the show was also to celebrate that on Dec 4, 2017, for the first time in its history, the magazine published the first issue ever that included more women drawing cartoons than men.
The show runs until Oct 13. There will be another panel event on Oct 11th! It’s at the Society of Illustrators, 128 East 63rd, NYC. It’s a wonderful three story townhouse museum dedicated to art and illustration! They have a restaurant bar on the third floor, check it out.
(Above photos credit Steffen Kaplan, @SpinItSocial)
And here are photos of the exhibition:
Photo credits: @SpinItSocial, @lizadonnelly
My Left Hand vs My Right Hand: Creativity Revisited
Breaking a bone is common, but when it happens to you, it’s all consuming. I broke my arm a few months back, and wrote about it for The New York Times. For the first time in my life, during the healing process, I couldn’t draw with my right hand. I got to know my left had very well, and wrote about it. The Times published some of the drawings and writing about the experience in the Sunday Op Ed section (7/22/18) and online. Here is the link.
During the months of healing, The New Yorker published one of my drawings that I did with my left hand! 
And here are some of the drawings.
Politics, Sexism, Humor: Irish Times Podcast with Liza Donnelly and Roisin Ingle
While in Dublin, journalist and feminist Roisin Ingle invited me to be on her podcast at the Irish Times. We had a great time talking about everything!
Animations On CBS This Morning
As Resident Cartoonist of CBS News, I was invited to create animations for a story on CBS This Morning. The story is about people who wear “uniforms.” Not the traditional police or nurse type of uniform, but clothing they select and then buy numerous sets and wear every day. Like Michael Kors and Steve Jobs, for example.
When President Barack Obama was in office, he wore the same type and color of suit all the time. Remember when he appeared on tv in a tan suit
and the Internet went wild with speculation? I immediately drew this image to the right as I watched him on television. No one listened to what he said, which was a serious talk about terrorism.
Steve Jobs said if you wear the same thing all the time, people will listen to what you are saying and not what you are wearing. I believe this, and acknowledge that this can be a complicated discussion when it comes to gender.
The animations were integrated in a very creative way, I was thrilled to be a part of this. Here is the link to the story, and the drawings are below. CBSN’s Vlad Duthiers was the correspondant who told the story, and performed an interesting workplace “experiment.” Kira Kleaveland was the creative producer of the piece.
Solo Exhibit Of My Political Cartoons In India
I was honored to have an exhibition of my political cartoons in Bangalore, India at the India Institute of Cartoonists.
It makes me very happy that my work was able to travel, it can speak as well (if not better) as I can
in person. Seeing my cartoons about women’s rights be shown in different countries, as well as my cartoons about politics and life in the United States means a great deal to me.
India has a long, fascinating history of political cartoonists, and I have read some about it in Caricaturing Culture in India, by Ritu Gairola. It is fascinating to me to see how different cultures approach cartooning, and how different countries find humor in their lives. A vital art form that often is a risky profession, in many countries cartoonists are jailed for creating satire about their governments.
Cartoons can cross borders–in important ways, and in difficult ways– when words cannot. We have seen with the Danish Cartoon Controversy in 2006, and then the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris in 2015 that cartoons can be misunderstood and the result can be deadly. A firm believer in total freedom of speech, nevertheless I am finding it a complicated line to walk. It is a line that requires trying to understand how one’s work might affect others, while drawing about issues that are important to you and you feel need to be expressed. I wrote about this in The New York Times following the death of cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo publication in 2015, here.
Many thanks to the organizer, V.G. Narendria, and his colleagues at the India Institute of Cartoonists for giving me the honor of having my work cross the border into India, a country I find fascinating.
