Liberal Editorial Cartoons: An Interview with August J. Pollak

Shawn Struck: For those people who don't know, how did your work in political cartoons start?

August Pollak: I always wanted to draw cartoons; I made little comic books with stapled computer paper as early as six years old. I started a comic strip in college and it turned into a political strip around the fifth or six installment, mostly because the 2000 election season was starting. Politics tended to be a lot more interesting to do weekly topical strips about than generic college life/dating/sex/drug humor stuff anyway.

Shawn Struck: Who are your biggest artistic influences?

Pollak: I went to animation school, so I'm inspired by a lot of animation pros as well as print cartoonists. I'm also influenced both by writing and drawing from certain people. Tom Tommorow was of course my first major political writing influence, along with Garry Trudeau and Ted Rall, all of whom I discovered my freshman year of college. My writing was also heavily influenced by Steve Purcell (Sam & Max) and I think it shows anytime I had XQUZYPHYR & Overboard talking to each other. As for long-form writing, nothing was a greater influence than Douglas Adams. And every morning I wake up wishing I could have the freeform thought patterns of Stephen Notely (Bob the Angry Flower).

For drawing, I love Bruce Timm [of the Batman animated series] and Bill Amend [of Foxtrot] because even though they're both very different in style they both incorporate a concept of incredible detail with as few lines as possible. Timm is the greatest cartoon character designer of my lifetime, closely followed by Steven Silver [who designed the characters for Kim Possible and the Clerks animated series] and I analyze both as much as I can.

At very root of it all, the two comics I remember reading as a small child were Garfield and Pogo, probably because I couldn't read and liked the funny animals. I learned to draw through Garfield and I guess the more I learned to read the more Pogo took over.

Shawn Struck: If you could collaborate with any political cartoonist, alive or dead, who would it be, and why?