>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
>> Michael Cavna: Welcome. Thank you guys so much for coming out. My name is Michael Cavna, ^IT Washington Post ^NO, "Comic Riffs" blogger and cartoonist. And this is the second annual graphic novel night, the second year off the mall and I tell you, given the humidity last night at 1:00 in the morning when I was stuck in a Metro car in a tunnel, packed wall to wall and it felt like 105-degrees, I am so glad we are indoors today. But thank you guys for coming out. You know, it was a few years ago that this festival, it's been -- this is the 15th year, but it was a few years ago they still did not recognize or have a pavilion for graphic novels. And it was some local bloggers who said we need to take you guys for beers and get you drunk and get you to understand graphic novels. And the very next year the beer must've kicked in because we had a graphic novels pavilion. So, this is a great event, a great part of event to have these three hours of programming. The ^IT Washington Post ^NO is a charter sponsor and I'm told to say that you can earn PostPoints for being here. So if you know what that means find me afterwards and tell me what it means. I hope that wasn't live. So, you know, to me this is a special thing and to have these gentlemen tonight here is a special thing. But first, another sponsor is the Small Press Expo, which is in two weeks here in North Bethesda, and they have helped bring some of our talent here tonight. So I'd like to ask Mr. Michael Thomas to make some remarks about his role and the convention's role.
>> Thank you, Michael. Welcome everyone. I'm very grateful to be here for a moment to talk about Small Press Expo. For those of you not familiar with our organization we are the preeminent showcase for cartooning, graphic novels, and independent comics here in the United States. And as Michael mentioned, we'll be celebrating our 21st birthday in two weeks in Bethesda, Maryland. It may seem somewhat unusual for our relatively modest organization to be a sponsor of something as gargantuan as the National Book Festival but we think it fits perfectly with our mission to promote, preserve, and protect the work of independent creators. And we're very proud of both our relationship with the Library of Congress and our ability to bring some of the best creators in comics here to speak to you tonight. I hope you enjoy the panel; I know I'm looking forward to it. Thanks again.
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[ Applause ]
^M00:02:47
>> Michael Cavna: Thank you, Michael. So, it was about eight years ago, seven and a half, I started a blog for the ^IT Washington Post ^NO. I'd been a syndicated cartoonist as well as an arts writer and I started a blog called "Comic Riffs." You can find it on the ^IT Washington Post ^NO site, just washingtonpost.com/comicriffs. And one way I was able to sell to the ^IT Washington Post ^NO, coming from California as I did, and some of these other gentlemen came from California, a little cultural difference, so I was trying to sell them on like what covering San Diego Comic-Con means to a ^IT Post ^NO audience. And I started little political cartoons. And what they told them, my story was, I drew my first published political cartoon in a major metro paper, ^IT San Diego Union Tribune ^NO when I was 19. And my boss assured me, "No, it'll be fine, you're just drawing a cartoon about a past mayor, some other big names, millionaires in the community." It ran. I come in Monday morning they say you've drawn a lawsuit threat.
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[ Laughter ]
^M00:03:47
And, you know, I was 19. I owned a cinderblock book shelving, that was about all I owned. But I said, "Am I in trouble? Am I going to get fired?" They said, "No, we have lawyers to take care of that thing." So I've never left the newspaper since. But the point is then I was glad because something tickled inside me. I get to do what I drew about teachers and principals. I can now draw about Donald Trump and it's okay. And in this country I don't get shot. I mean, this is an amazing thing. And so, what I'm curious about, you know, with us tonight we have three of the best, most gifted people -- artists practicing this art that needs to stay alive. It's been around for centuries but this needs to remain a vital part. So with us tonight we have Keith Knight, Lalo Alcaraz, and Scott Stantis. And what we have, with Keith Knight, he does -- please. Please.
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[ Applause and Cheering ]
^M00:04:51
Now, Keith draws the, you know, multiple syndicated strips. You know, he does "The K Chronicles." He does "The Knight Life." And let me go down -- and Lalo Alcaraz, we'll come back to this, but he does "La Cucaracha." You know that's the first political Latino-themed syndicated comic strip.
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[ Applause and Cheering ]
^M00:05:14
And somehow Seth McFarland reached out to him to write for "Bordertown," a Fox animated show that will begin in January I believe. So, you know, from the people who brought you "Family Guy," you know, this is going to be amazing. And Mr. Scott Stantis, as well as being a political cartoonist with the ^IT Chicago Tribune ^NO, does the syndicated strip "Prickly City." And he was at the ^IT Birmingham News ^NO, now he's at the ^IT Chicago Tribune ^NO. And you know, what I want to get at with all of you gentlemen is that it's one thing to cartoon about broad subjects. It's another thing -- it's something that's personal. So, first just I want to quickly ask each of you do you remember the moment you thought I want to be a political cartoonist, when you felt that feeling, like it's transgressive or I can speak truth to power? At what point did you think that's a road I want to pursue? Keith?
>> Keith Knight: I think it's -- I had a similar epiphany that you had which was when I was in school. The first strip I ever did, and it was an autobiographical strip, was in junior high school. There was a food fight in the cafeteria and the stories I heard about it were extremely untruthful. There wasn't a straight story. So I set out to set the record straight by doing a comic strip about what really had happened. And I ripped into students, I ripped into teachers, cafeteria people. I was making fun of everybody.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Keith Knight: And everybody was just happy to be in a comic strip. They didn't see that I was making fun of them. And I was just like, wow, if I can get away with this.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah. And still to this day --
>> Keith Knight: Yeah. Yeah.
>> Michael Cavna: You'll see politicians in town, go to Capitol Hill, they'll have strips just cutting into ribbons and they hang it proudly on their wall.
>> Keith Knight: If I was president, like, that's the first thing that I would do is just like have every caricature ever drawn of me up on the --
>> Michael Cavna: Okay. I thought you were going to say deport all the political cartoonists.
>> Keith Knight: I would do that after, but I would collect it.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah. Lalo, can you talk a little bit about when you felt that first transgressive giggle? 
>> Lalo Alcaraz: Well, like I think 99% of editorial cartoonists I drew for my college paper. And when I drew for the ^IT San Diego State Daily Aztec ^NO, which is the only indigenous mascot that I am not against, my nickname on the phone tree was "Please Forward My Hate Mail." And, you know, people always say, oh well, you know, you're doing good job, or you know, if you get a lot of hate mail -- I don't know that that's necessarily true because there's a lot of idiots out there that will write even if you do a great cartoon that is about puppies, you know, they'll find fault with it. But I think -- I was against school spirit.
>> Michael Cavna: You were anti-school spirit?
>> Lalo Alcaraz: I was anti-school spirit, so --
>> Michael Cavna: How do you cartoon to be against school spirit?
>> Lalo Alcaraz: I mean, it's hard at you know, number one party school, San Diego State. You know, they're -- school spirit, lots of it. And so there was always crime on campus. There was always sexual assaults on Greek Row. And so, you know, and not to mention Ronald Reagan was the president. So, it was, you know, all that at once, you know, I felt out of place in college. And so, you know, I was a member of MEChA, the Chicano student group. And so, I had, you know, I don't know if there was one day, but  maybe the one day that MEChA, you know, came to me and said, you know, you should do a cartoon about this police brutality protest that we're going to do next week. And I'm like yeah, that's cool.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: And I can do it, and I can get it in the paper.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: And I thought wow, that's pretty cool.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah. 
>> Lalo Alcaraz: This actually has an effect. And also my editor told me -- when I would draw Ronald Reagan I would draw him with a big drip of oil coming off his hair, you know? And he would say, "You can't draw the president like that!" And I'm like, "I just did, Bro."
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[ Laughter ]
^M00:09:25
So I felt like my work had some kind of effect.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah, absolutely. And you've drawn every president with that same drip of oil, or ever since?
>> Lalo Alcaraz: Well the oil's inside now.
>> Michael Cavna: Okay, great. Scott?
>> Scott Stantis: I was a pre-law major in college, because America needs another lawyer. And I'd always liked to draw but unlike a lot of my cartoonist friends I didn't grow up wanting to be a cartoonist. It just didn't seem like a likely profession. It didn't call to me. But the college paper had a cartoonist and, oh what's the word for it, yes, they sucked.
^M00:10:00
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Scott Stantis: And so, I walked in there and said, "Can I give it a try?" And they said yes. And my cartoon ran the following week and it was an epiphany. It was just like I got to do this for the rest of my life.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Scott Stantis: Which is a great conversation to have with you mom when you come home and say, "You know that whole law school thing? That's not going to happen. But!"
>> Michael Cavna: I'm going to pre-cartoon school.
>> Scott Stantis: The big green, the long green of cartooning. And you try to tell her Charles Schultz made $50 million a year.
>> Michael Stantis: Yeah.
>> Scott Stantis: She didn't, you know, believe that that was the average salary but it was still -- I remember [inaudible]. And my first professional cartoon was May 22, 1978. When I'm more of a drooly old man, I will remember the date of my kid's birth and I'll remember that.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Scott Stantis: Because it was, "Oh my god, $10 American!"
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah. And you didn't have to draw it. Now, that gets at something I just want to touch on before we go to some of the presentations here, all of the presentations, is that a difference, you know, I've had a syndicated strip and done editorial cartoons. In editorial cartoons you're allowed to be more overtly angry, I guess. You're able -- I've spoken to all you guys about how anger being an element and Keith you've said sometimes you wait a while, you let that anger pass a little bit so you can process it. You know, and we've talked about this. So, you've tapped into something. If it's a comic strip you can [inaudible]. You don't have to kind of cut a vein, show your heart. But you guys, you know, political cartoon, you have to have that passion, you have to have that anger and you got to put it out there. Can you talk a little bit about do you tap emotion as you're drawing? Are you sort of metaphorically bleeding onto the page, if you will? 
Scott Stantis: I'd say absolutely. I mean, I like to draw angry. They say don't drive angry, don't do -- but you should draw angry if you're an editorial cartoonist. You know I was -- one of the great mentors when I was coming up was Paul Conrad of the ^IT LA Times ^NO, who was mad as hell all time every day. I'm not sure how he did that.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Scott Stantis: Because I'm not angry every day.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Scott Stantis: And for me it's a conversation with the readers. And some days something sad happens and it's okay to say this is sad. It's okay to have emotion. But I think it always has to have emotional truth to it or it doesn't resonate. 
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah. Either of you guys want to speak to --
>> Lalo Alcaraz: I'm angry right now. 
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah, we can tell.
^M00:12:22
[ Laughter ]
^M00:12:25
That school spirit is still right there.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: I think being angry can be inspirational, but it's just -- inspire me to do certain work. But I just found that in order for me to finish off, you know, do my best stuff, like, anger inspires, like okay I'm going to tackle this. But when I'm drawing the punchline or I'm drawing, you know, I have to wait a while. One of my most effective strips was -- I did one on Amadou Diallo who was shot, was it 41 shots, undercover police and killed in '99 I think. And when they got off scot-free defending themselves I wanted to sort of get the point across that, like, there were 41 shots. Like, at what point does it go from defense to offense?
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: So, I just drew in my best Charles Schultz letters, you know, blam, blam, blam, blam. I did 41 blams. And then I had to finish it, and you know, if I had done it while I was mad I would have just been like F you! F you! You know. But I basically had a cop say -- oh, a little girl saying to the cop, like, "Don't you think that's a little too much?" And then it hit me on the bus like two days later when I wasn't angry, and the cop says, you know, "You people can avoid getting into these situations if you would just lighten up." 
>> Michael Cavna: Wow.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: And it's something that I wouldn't have came up with if I was just straight angry.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah, on every level. 
>> Lalo Alcaraz: Yeah.
>> Michael Cavna: So that leads us perfectly into Keith, I'd like to start with your presentation. And I do want to mention Keith this year won a NAACP History Maker Award, and this is something -- if you're a cartoonist, if you tell your parent you've won an Inkpot Award from San Diego Comic-Con, it sounds like just more mess. But if you say you've won an NAACP Award that has to have some resonance. It's like okay. So I'd like Keith to talk about, you know, illuminate this passion because, again, I just want to say it one more time, cartoonist can be all over the board but if there's something personal, and each of these gentlemen have issues they cartoon about that are personal, that almost identify them apart from every other cartoonist. I'd like Keith to talk about his.
>> Keith Knight: Yeah, this first slide here basically sums up my feelings when I was doing a cartoon about Ferguson last summer, which was, you know, I cannot believe I still have to protest this S-H-I-T. My old roommate from college is here with his kids, I don't want to swear in from of them. But I just had this feeling like I can't believe I've been doing these police brutality cartoons for 20-plus years.
>> Michael Cavna: Since at least Rodney King, right?
>> Keith Knight: Yeah. Yeah. So, it inspired me to put together a slideshow of my police brutality cartoons and once I did, like, just everything took off and I got -- I did a tour of German universities.
>> Michael Cavna: And Germany's a bastion of peace and race relations.
>> Keith Knight: Well, yeah, but here's the thing. It's like, you know, I got hired there to do the slideshow before I ever did it in the states, and this has happened with my career since the beginning, is I hit it sort of big in Europe before I ever hit in the United States.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Keith Knight: In the United States all I would get is when February rolled around I would get some work.
>> Michael Cavna: You'd get 28 days.
>> Keith Knight: Yeah, 28 days to get some work. And then I would do the work but I would always say to the editors, you know, I work the other 11 months of the year, so.
>> Michael Cavna: I'm not Santa. Yeah.
>> Keith Knight: But let's run through some of my police brutality cartoons. I do this basically an hour-long slideshow at universities around the states. So if you're from a university bring me to your school. Police officer application number six. This is one of my earliest ones that I did that really resonated with a lot of folks. This is my "(Th)ink" strip. It's a single-panel strip. I get to take a lot of quick jabs. It's more of my political stuff. But again, I do three different strips. One's a multi-panel autobiographical, "The K Chronicles." One is a single-panel called "(Th)ink." And one is my daily strip called "The Knight Life." 
>> Scott Stantis: When do you sleep?
>> Keith Knight: I don't, I have two kids. Since tying the knot a year and a half ago a lot of readers have been asking me this question. Has this once macho [inaudible] gone all soft now that I'm a married man? The answer is yes I've gone all soft! Soft and supple.
^M00:17:34
[ Laughter ]
^M00:17:37
It's true, the best thing about getting hitched is being able to use all your wife's girly products in the bathroom, stuff I wouldn't be caught dead buying in public. Okay, let's see, we've got some anti-crab ointment, anal wart remover, and a peach [inaudible] loofah scrub. Shh! Not so loud with the loofah scrub. 
>> Michael Cavna: Like I said, cartoonists are able to get very personal with their political cartoons.
>> Keith Knight: That's right people, no more scrubbing in nether regions with Lava soap for me. [Inaudible] eucalyptus leaves infused with hibiscus shampoo, organic sea kelp and [inaudible] exfoliating wash, [inaudible] oatmeal and placenta enema. 
>> Michael Cavna: We did not warn [inaudible] there would be dorsal nudity this evening. So, sorry about that.
>> Keith Knight: Honestly you all, using this stuff does make a difference. A lot of folks have been noticing, gee, your skin --
^M00:18:22
[ Laughter and Applause ]
^M00:18:25
>> Michael Cavna: Too bad that's not still relevant today. You know? 
>> Keith Knight: So, yeah, I mean, what I try to do with my autobiographical strip is to kind of indirectly touch on these type of things. So, this is one of those.
This just in, police have just released a description of the alleged gunman who has been terrorizing the downtown area. Please don't let it be a black guy. Please don't let it be a Middle Eastern guy. Ha, they'll never catch me!
^M00:18:55
[ Laughter ]
^M00:18:59
It's called the power of white privilege. 
This is my daily strip "The Knight Life." It runs in the ^IT Washington Post ^NO. And this is the firing range where police officers do target practice. How come all the targets are black? What do you mean? They're silhouettes, they're supposed to be black. I'm talking about the afro and the FUBU logo across the chest.
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[ Laughter ]
^M00:19:28
>> Michael Cavna: Do you want to talk at all about the ride-along you did? Or let's just say you went on a ride-along. Was it enlightening, as it were?
>> Keith Knight: Yeah, I did do a ride-along, in Washington, DC actually. And the thing that freaked me out the most was driving extremely fast down little side streets. Like going 75, 80 down, you know. It was the scariest thing.
>> Michael Cavna: They let you drive the police [inaudible]?
>> Keith Knight: No. No. But --
>> Michael Cavna: They didn't say, "Hey, you want to kill a guy?"
^M00:20:01
>> Keith Knight: No, but that was the biggest thing. And the other thing was like, I just remember one of the other cops like, just being really suspicious of me. You know, like what's he doing? You know, like what's he doing here?
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Keith Knight: Like suddenly he couldn't do his job because someone was watching him, you know? And it was just really weird. But just about this, I did this in 2008, and then like, just I think -- was it earlier this year they found in Miami they were using pictures of black teenagers for target practice?  
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Keith Knight: And one of the teenager's sisters who was in the military came in to practice shooting and she saw her brother as a teenager out there. So, you know, this stuff I drew seems completely absurd but then becomes -- it's the truth.
>> Michael Cavna: Truth is more racist than fiction.
>> Keith Knight: This is the one I talked about. "Mr. White Police Officer, how many shots does it take for four white officers to defend themselves against one unarmed black male?" 
"A black male? Well let's see." It's coming, I swear. Maybe it isn't. Oh, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam. Now if you look the little girl's looking at her watch. That is a thing that cartoonists do for time going by. Blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam. Forty-one. 
"Don't you think that was a little excessive?"
"Listen, you people could avoid getting into these situations if you would just lighten up."
This is -- I divide the periods of modern police brutality from Rodney King to Amadou Diallo, and then with Trayvon Martin. And you know, you say, well Trayvon Martin wasn't shot by a police officer. But he was shot and killed by a wannabe police officer, and then he was truly disrespected by police officers who show up and say, oh yeah, sure, you can go. You know, you can go to Disney Land. But I literally just took a quote from George Zimmerman and you know, he said when they told him not to go after this kid he said, you know, "F-ing punks, these a-holes, they always get away." And I just put George Zimmerman, murderer and clairvoyant because he predicted that the a-hole would get away. This, I don't know if you're familiar with --
>> Michael Cavna: "Pluggers" is it?
>> Keith Knight: Yeah. It's "Pluggers," and when Seattle made it to the Super Bowl a couple years ago and Richard Sherman made the claim that thugger was the new n-word -- thug, thug was the n-word, yeah, thug was the new n-word, I was like oh my god, pluggers, thuggers. So I'm going to do a thing called "Thuggers." And so I just basically took like crazy stuff that happened in the news and just applied it to thugger. So you're a thugger if you're trying to get help after an accident and things only get worse. And this, you know, this was the 17-year-old girl who went and knocked on the door and the guy blew her away, but it could apply to the other kid who was shot and killed by the cop after he got into a car accident. So I did a couple of those. You're a thugger when the third likeliest way to becoming a millionaire behind athlete and entertainer is suing the local police department. 
This is my most popular cartoon of the past few years. This was crazy and I did this just after three black basketball players in Wisconsin took a picture in the paper and they were doing the three-point signal. 
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Keith Knight: And they got suspended.
>> Michael Cavna: Convinced it was like a gang sign.
>> Keith Knight: That they were doing the gang signs. And what was great about this is everybody started posted all these white basketball players doing the same thing. How to discern an innocent gesture from a gang sign. It's really subtle, so look closely. Sorry. Peace. Vice City Vagrants. Three-point signal. Tri-City Bloods. Okie-dokie. O-Town Crips.
^M00:24:45
[ Laughter ]
^M00:24:48
Rock on, Bro! West Side Ballers. Misguided youth. Thug. So, and then this went viral again after the small town, like Minnesota mayor or something took a picture with like a kid I guess who was in jail before but now he was a community volunteer. And the cop was saying oh my god, she's posing with like gang members, you know? And cops were saying I feel -- sorry -- I feel like my life is threatened, and all this stuff. It's like oh my -- you know? It's absurd, like, what you see revealed before our very eyes. And when I talk about this stuff, this stuff has been going on for decades. It's been going on for years. And the only reason why you see it now is because of social media, and that's all we have now are our cellphones. And even now when cops have like cameras and stuff they're like turning them off or they're pointing them a different way and they're going -- and they're saying stuff like, "Get up, you're not complying," as they're beating somebody. And the only reason why they get caught is someone else is filming them at the same time and they don't realize it. So --
Michael Cavna: Keith, we have time for one more of yours.
>> Keith Knight: Yeah. Oh, okay. Really quickly, oh, I was going to read this hate mail. It's like the best hate mail ever. But this is my last one, which is -- I did this with Dylann Roof and you know, again, it goes back to it's not a police brutality thing but it really is about the idea of like black lives and not valuing black lives, and the idea that you know, his manifesto that he wrote, you know, people were calling him crazy and everything in the media but his rants were no different, if you changed a couple of words, they're no different than the average [inaudible]. It was like no different. And so, I didn't see him as crazy. I see him as someone who buys into this idea that if black people are not treated the way they're treated by cops they will be -- they will succeed more. And he's got this idea like, you know, they'll be taking over the world. I remember at my dormitory there were six more black students in my dormitory the next semester, and like the white people on the floor had a meeting saying like, blacks are taking over the floor. And I was are you -- really? I have white spies who tell me this, by the way. 
^M00:27:33
[ Laughter ]
^M00:27:36
Seriously. They're all around you, infiltrating. They might be next to you. So, but it's just really absurd. But --
>> Michael Cavna: Well you even draw using white out, so, right? 
>> Keith Knight: No, I've stopped using white out. I'm against it. I'm against white out. But this, you know, this combined my favorite visual, which is I'm a huge Star Wars fan, a big prequel denier. 
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Keith Knight: They don't exist. 
^M00:28:02
[ Cheering and Applause ]
^M00:28:03
But really happy -- thank you. Really happy to use that image for something really evil because it was a very horrible movie. So, that's it. I'm done. I'm finished.
>> Michael Cavna: Thank you so much, Keith. 
^M00:28:15
[ Applause ]
^M00:28:21
On a -- we're going to have Lalo speak next. And Lalo, besides "La Cucaracha" and doing podcasts and "Bordertown," you know, he's been very critical of Disney for years, I believe, for many years. And you had Migra Mouse, I believe, was it? And he just announced a couple weeks ago he has been hired to work on a forthcoming Pixar film about Day of the Dead. So, the Disney Empire, some people -- talking about evil empires, to some is saying we want to embrace you. Pixar, fantastic. And so, you know, you're a controversial guy and I think it means a lot that they were willing -- the film is called "Coco" by the way. Directed by Lee Unkrich. Right? And so, I think this is a triumph for you that they, you know, say we want to bring you in. 
>> Lalo Alcaraz: For a payoff. Because I'm so all-powerful I could stop any film in its tracks, so they decided they'd just hire me. 
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: Pay me off. 
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah. Yeah.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: And I won't kill them all.
>> Michael Cavna: And you have the same white spies I believe, so that's -- I'm going to hand this to you and let you go ahead.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: My white spies are called Cubans.
^M00:29:34
[ Laughter ]
^M00:29:40
>> Michael Cavna: That's in the pilot episode of "Bordertown," on Fox in January.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: All right, I'm going to crown about 1,000 slides in, what do I have, 10 minutes? Because I have my stopwatch going so you can't lie to me. All right, that's me when I used to draw on paper, and now I don't. I got -- I did this last book, ^IT A Most Imperfect Union ^NO, which is a history book, and it was 250 pages, and I said I surrender to digital and so I now draw everything on the screen.
^M00:30:12
But I still have a bunch of originals I'm going to be donating to the Library of Congress, so don't fret librarians.
>> Michael Cavna: And you know, I should mention, the folks at Politics and Prose running the graphic novel sales area have said they will stay open late, I believe until 10:00 p.m. tonight. So after you like them here go support them financially out there.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: Yes. So, here's a bunch of editorial cartoons. Every party's opposite. I started as an editorial cartoonist. Here's --
>> Michael Cavna: Who might that be?
>> Lalo Alcaraz: I'm officially sick of drawing this guy, but you know, he keeps on giving. Oh no, that's terrible. 
>> Michael Cavna: Oh no.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: Trumpacabra is a good one. Trump voter wall. 
>> Michael Cavna: Right?
>> Lalo Alcaraz: Around the Latino vote. Here is -- Memo's an undocumented immigrant in my comic strip "La Cucaracha." And he goes, gets a job in the parking lot at the Home Depot light store. Goes to construction site. Works all day. He gets paid off and he had just built the Trump 2016 headquarters. 
>> Michael Cavna: Which is strikingly close to the truth I believe.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: Yeah, I do believe so. Here's El Chapo's --
^M00:31:31
[ Laughter ]
^M00:31:35
Escape route. Chapo was [inaudible] famous Mexican drug lord. 
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: Not friend of -- here's my confederate flag coming down strip editorial. That's too bad. Here's my the Walter Scott police shooting cartoon where we see the cop shooting the guy in the back and then the civilian taking a photo with his cellphone in the same stance. "He reached for my gun." What was that guy's name? The big guy with the cigars. I forget his name. 
>> Keith Knight: Garner.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: 
>> Scott Stantis: Yeah, Howard Garner. 
>> Lalo Alcaraz: No, no, not the selling cigars guy, the guy with the --
>> Keith Knight: Oh, oh. Michael Brown.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: Michael Brown in New York. "He reached for my gun." Actually, this -- a police officer posted on Facebook that this was racist against cops. 
>> Michael Cavna: What?
>> Lalo Alcaraz: Copist? Is that a word?
^M00:32:38
[ Laughter ]
^M00:32:40
I'm sorry this one did not come out. "La Cucaracha" is my daily comic strip. It's been going on since about 2003, I believe, and it was recently at Comic-Con as a special guest. We made it to San Diego Comic-Con, what do we do first Eddie? Let's go pay our respects. Sergio Aragones, we're not worthy! [Inaudible]. And we're all big fans of Sergio Aragones who draws ^IT MAD Magazine ^NO, and that's what corrupted my brain when I was a kid. Here's various hate letters.
>> Michael Cavna: Do hate letters inspire you, by the way?
>> Lalo Alcaraz: Hate letters make me laugh now, you know. I mean, the threats, not so much, but the hate letters. You know, this hate letter, they accused me of plotting to kill the entire Ferguson Police Department in Missouri. So, you know, they got me figured out. I like Star Wars. Open carry. Uh-oh, there goes Low-Vader.
^M00:33:41
[ Laughter ]
^M00:33:45
Here's my Darth Chuco. Combine the Zoot Suit image from the movie "Zoot Suit" and Darth Vader, two cool guys. 
>> Michael Cavna: That's a standalone, right?
>> Lalo Alcaraz: Oh yeah. Latinos the movie, starring Christian Bale, Scarlett Johannsson, Ben Affleck --
^M00:34:00
[ Applause and Laughter ]
^M00:34:09
I only have this to kind of preface this cartoon. Republicans blocking immigration reform. Dat ass is so hot, right there, isn't it? It's beautiful. Donald Trump's hairdresser.
^M00:34:23
[ Laughter ]
^M00:34:26
I like to do memes and I hate to submit this as an old-school cartoonist, but memes are cartoons also because they're a picture with a caption. And I'm usually a snob about all the hard work that I put in to be a cartoonist, but then memes are cool and I like to participate too. And this one is like, I mean it's true. Pocho.com is my humor website. You guys need to go visit that. Pocho.com. And here's some animated characters that I'm doing for a show that I am pitching around Los Angeles, Hollywood, and it's called "Hoodies." And I put this artwork up at a festival that I was selling at. I always sell my merchandise. And these kids started coming up to it and taking photos with the characters because they saw a resemblance. And we could be here all night.
^M00:35:25
[ Laughter ]
^M00:35:27
But, so I try to draw from reality from the Chicano-Latino community. There's Migra Mouse, which I did in 1992 during the Proposition 187 law. The granddaddy of all the anti-immigrant laws, at least in our era. The Disney Company donated money to Pete Wilson, the Republican running on this anti-Mexican law.
>> Michael Cavna: For governor, right? 
>> Lalo Alcaraz: For governor, yes. And then two years ago the Disney Company tried to trademark the term Dia de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, for merchandise. You know, which they do for every movie that you see so they can sell --
>> Michael Cavna: Cinderella, Day of the Dead.
>>Lalo Alcaraz: You know, yeah. You know, they sell "Toy Story III" yogurt, or whatever. So I did this cartoon "Muerto Mouse" and it was one of the reasons that they pulled the trademark applications for the, you know, this blunder that they did. And it might have been one of the reasons that the Pixar people, who are the cool people in the Disney Company, no offense to my new friends, overlords at Disney, but --
>> Michael Cavna: This is live streaming, by the way, too.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: Oh great. All right. So, I know that the producer told me that Bob Iger, the head of Disney, said "Have you seen this crap? Take care of it." You know. And so that's why they pulled that --
>> Michael Cavna: They meant hire you not --
>> Lalo Alcaraz: No, first it said, "Neutralize the Mexican." No, but here's -- I do a lot of Indian mascot cartoons and earlier this year, you know, as a football fan [inaudible], but I'm honoring you dude. And then earlier this year someone went on Twitter and put this up and then put them together. And the first cartoon was done in 2002 and the photo was taken this February in Cleveland. It was really, you know --
>> Wow, that's great.
>> Lalo Alcaraz: I'm some kind of a psychic [inaudible]. You know. And today I got to meet Geronimo's great grandson, Harlan Geronimo, and he signed one of these posters for me. And I said, "Here's a poster I did of your great grandfather." [Inaudible]. That was pretty trippy. Thank you Festival Books. I was in a [inaudible] recently and I found an unattended Border Patrol truck, so --
^M00:37:47
[ Laughter and Applause ]
^M00:37:54
>> Michael Cavna: Nice [inaudible]. Okay.
^M00:37:57
[ Laughter ]
^M00:38:03
>> Lalo Alcaraz: Taco cart guy is the most popular guy in my comic strip. He sets up anywhere. 
^M00:38:08
[ Laughter ]
^M00:38:15
He's an expert in his field.
^M00:38:16
[ Laughter ]
^M00:38:18
I recently did a Simpson's comic for Bongo Comics and it's a Bart Simpson gets hit in the head with a pinata stick and wakes up speaking Spanish. So he gets kicked out of Springfield Elementary and transferred to East Springfield Elementary. 
^M00:38:34
[ Laughter ]
^M00:38:36
And then, I miss this guy already. During the 2012 campaign I did a Twitter parody account, Mexican Mitt Romney. And it was actually named by Politico as one of the top 10 Twitter parodies of the 2012 Campaign. And people liked him more than they liked Mitt Romney obviously. He was a sexist goat rancher with 17 wives. And his catchphrase was "I am the 1%."
^M00:39:06
[ Laughter and Applause ]
^M00:39:13
So, I mean, I like to explore every medium for the sake of the political satire joke. So, and that's me back in the day doing another political hoax called Hispanics for Wilson for that racist governor. And we invented self-deportation, we vow to deport ourselves, to support the Republican immigration policy. And then Mitt Romney says that is our policy, self-deportation. And you know, he lost the election, but I got to go on Rachel Maddow so that's cool. And ^IT A Most Imperfect Union ^NO is my current book and it's a -- you can call me Mr. ^IT New York Times ^NO Bestseller, by the way. Thank you.
^M00:39:56
[ Cheering and Applause ]
^M00:39:57
I have it tattooed on my arm. And "Bordertown" is the new show that you're going to watch January 2016.
^M00:40:05
It's coming out I think January 3rd or 6th, I'm not sure, but whatever that Sunday night is. And it's a Seth McFarland show. It's about a racist border patrolman and his very successful immigrant neighbor, and it's kind of all in the family on the border. And the town is called Maxifornia, and it's a great place. And I'm going to defy gravity here and show you a bunch of stuff, characters. We have five Latino writers on it, which is a record in Hollywood.
^M00:40:45
[ Applause ]
^M00:40:46
And so, watch it and thank you very much folks.
>> Michael Cavna: All right.
^M00:40:52
[ Applause ]
^M00:40:55
Now we'll try to keep this quick. One thing I talked with Scott Stantis about was he had never admitted, you know, admit is not the right word, he had never shared with the world that he was a victim of child abuse. And the NFL last season kept having all these domestic violence cases and abuse cases, and you know, all these gentlemen are able to do comics journalism as well as single-panel and just gag oriented. And so Scott shared this and it's just an incredibly powerful, personal work. So I'd like for him to talk about it.
>> Scott Stantis: Oh, thanks. Can I have a -- 
>> Michael Cavna: Oh crap, here it is. Sorry.
>> Scott Stantis: Thank you. Thank you. Real quick, I'm just going to blast through this because the guy showed us the signs so. I have a poster of that piece it's called, "The Beatings Never Really Stop," and it went totally crazy viral. And it's been -- every time I speak about it, do specific talks about that, and it's remarkable the response to it has been overwhelming. Last time I spoke about it this fellow stood up, and he was a mountain of a Southside Chicago Irishman. And he just starts telling his story about his dad and the abuse, and he starts crying. It was a -- it's just, and it's allowed. I've been told by the national organizations that handle abuse and this kind of clearinghouse for them that men don't talk about it. And so that's why the piece I think was so powerful and why people seem to respond to it. I'm not actually going to show it to you but I do have copies of the poster over there. They're free. I'd be willing to sign them for you after this event. So, if you're -- this is also supposed to show Prickly City but it does not. This is -- offensive cartoons ahead. If you are offended please do not shoot, blow up, or decapitate the cartoonist. I think I speak for Keith and Lalo when I say this. This is weird. Well, okay. This is going to be a brief history lesson but I'm going to blow through it. This was from a medieval Catholic book, anti-Protestant Luther, Martin Luther, and it's a -- 
^M00:43:03
[ Laughter ]
^M00:43:05
This is [inaudible], the great French cartoonist, great artist, who is doing impressionist painting in the 1840s. This is 30 years before Monet, Monet, Reinhold, those guys. He was a sculpture but he also did political cartoons and this is King Louis Philippe, who he draws as Gargantua. [Inaudible] was thrown in jail for six months for this one and when he was released he kept drawing cartoons. 
This is Thomas Nast. I'm going to talk really fast because this goes on for a while. He came up with the elephant. This is just to show that Latinos aren't the first, these are his renderings of an Irishman. He never drew them anything but as monkeys. But he also drew Tammany Hall, brought them down.
This is Paul Conrad, who was the editorial cartoonist at the ^IT LA Times ^NO. I'd been drawing professionally for five months and thought I should show a professional cartoonist my work. I went to his house, he uncorks a bottle. Paul drank a great deal. I was 19. [Inaudible] he always talked like a pirate. 
>> Michael Cavna: Yes.
>> Scott Stantis: He goes, "Argh, you want some wine?" I go, "Sure, Mister Conrad." 
>> Michael Cavna: I toast him now every time I --
>> Scott Stantis: Do you? 
>> Michael Cavna: Oh yeah.
>> Scott Stantis: Okay. He opens the second bottle. I can't feel my tongue. He finally looks at my portfolio, he opens it up. This is one of his cartoons by the way. Just to give you the impression of what kind of person he was. He opens up my portfolio, he looks at it, he closes it, slides it back toward me and says -- oops that's not right. He slides it back towards me and says, "I'd never tell anyone not to be a cartoonist but you ever thought of another line of work?" 
^M00:44:45
[ Laughter ]
^M00:44:48
So, every day for, now it's over 30 years, I think I'm going to show that son-of-a-gun, and guess what? He's dead. I'm alive. I win.
^M00:44:56
[ Laughter and Applause ]
^M00:45:01
So I was going to give a dissertation on our shared national experiences. When I was a kid Saturday night lineup on CBS was "All in the Family," Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett. Had 30 to 40 million people watching it. If you went to school or work the next Monday everybody virtually had seen those shows. Now because of the internet everything's fractured. So trying to use our shared iconography is becoming more and more difficult, although not entirely impossible. There's still images that we see and resonate with us, and we see emotionally. Now here's just -- but now we know this. If you're happy and you know it go to hell. So Grumpy Cat's -- oh angry cat, you just hate everything. 
So here's some of my cartoons. This was -- they always talk about random drug testing at our schools which is preposterous. I liked it better when they left apples on my desk. This is a very important cartoon for me because I was working at the ^IT Birmingham News ^NO, where I worked for 13 years, and they finally convicted -- finally convicted the fourth person involved in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. 
>> Michael Cavna: In the mid '60s, right? 
>> Scott Stantis: No, no, look at the date, 2002. The bombing was in 1963.
>> Michael Cavna: No, I mean the bombing was. Yeah.
>> Scott Stantis: Yes. And so justice saying, "Sorry, I'm late." And one of the little girl's family's actually asked for the original which hangs in their living room today. So, you know, for me it's -- for us, it's the refrigerator or something like that.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Scott Stantis: This is how you get your wife not to talk to you for a couple days. Blackmun was the associate justice who wrote the Roe v. Wade decision and he passed away, and he's in front of the gates of heaven and one of the babies is asking him, "So, what trimester were you in?" 
>> Michael Cavna: Wow.
>> Scott Stantis: Yeah, it gets that reaction a lot. 
>> Michael Cavna: It's good.
>> Scott Stantis: This is my wife who, just to show you our relationship and just to show you where my mindset is, she was pregnant with our second child. Election Day, 1988. She literally pops that morning and she's in labor and we're not talking about cute, like -- we're talking like grabbing your bottom lip, pulling it over your head, saying, "You did this to me you son-of-a --" labor. She still insisted on stopping by the polling place so she could cancel my vote.
^M00:47:10
[ Laughter ]
^M00:47:12
And we're going to celebrate 34the.I believe in the, I'm going to blast through these because I'm totally running out of time. So, death penalty, I'm for the culture of life. I oppose abortion, death penalty, euthanasia. I don't think we should kill each other. Can we agree on that? Maybe? Maybe not? Okay. So anyway, so Illinois finally effectively we got rid of the death penalty. At least they still love me in Texas. This is because killing is wrong we're going to kill you [inaudible] the Boston Street bomber. This is Generation XXL. 
^M00:47:42
[ Laughter ]
^M00:47:45
This is my favorite cartoon of all time because Dick Cheney shot someone in the face. And it says sorry, I thought you were the Bill of Rights. And I got Republicans, this was for ^IT USA Today ^NO, I got Republicans running to me all day, "How can you do this? Why is this even a story?" Because the vice-president shot someone in the face! And if you remember the story, two days later the guy who got shot apologized for getting in his way!
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Scott Stantis: This was the entry to the war and I was going to show this cartoon very quickly which is 10 years ago I was a true believer, USA. I believed in the war, but as the war dragged on we weren't welcomed as liberators, there were no WMDs, the casualties kept coming. It hit me, I was wrong. I had broken my own rule. I had stopped listening to my own natural cynicism. I still feel tremendous guilt over my part in promoting a bad war. I tell myself I won't be fooled again, but it's cold comfort. And this, I think it was cathartic. I think I'm the only conservative and commentator who actually on the 10 year anniversary said, "Yeah, we probably shouldn't have done that." These are some of the graphic things, long-form, graphic forms I'm talking about. This is "The Beatings Never Really Stop." 
>> Michael Cavna: The child abuse one. Yeah.
>> Scott Stantis: Again, I'm going to just blast through. This is Chicago where [inaudible] killing kids. I'm going to just now, this is a Cubs cartoon saying, "Someday, kid. Someday." Because the Black Hawks won the Cup again. And I believe we're out -- are we almost out? This was -- okay, one quick one. Joe Paterno, may he rot in hell. When he finally got fired, I just have two Catholic priests. This is how you get your priest -- I'm a practicing Catholic. This is how you get your priest not to talk to you for a couple weeks. So I have one priest saying to the other one, it says Joe [inaudible] fires, it says why didn't they just move him to another school?
>> Michael Cavna: Wow. Wow. Wow.
>> Scott Stantis: This is the Tea Party, drink it. And how are we doing on time there? Am I -- this is Bit Coin analog version. This is [inaudible]. It can't hurt me if I don't know what's in it. And this one, stop or I'll shoot! Again! And it's just a cop. If you notice the gun is pointing towards him. And there's my time. This was the framework for the Iran Deal. Of course, I'm sorry, I'll just turn this off. 
^M00:50:00
[Inaudible]. How are we doing? Are we -- am I cool? Tell me. Okay, real quick, this again, I had my republican friends telling me how stupid I was because Indiana passed a law that was made that gays could not get married and gays were second-class citizens, and that's wrong. So I just had the GOP say, "This is not what it looks like." Thanks a lot Jenny McCarthy. And this is the latest, it says, "Wait for it."
^M00:50:31
[ Laughter ]
^M00:50:34
>> Michael Cavna: You can just keep running this one, right?
>> Scott Stantis: Oh yeah, I know. Well and this was of course, now Joe is thinking of running, it says, "I might run." And this was after the Planned Parenthood says, "So, what do you have?" Yeah, okay. Moving right along. I don't get -- and this was an actual conversation I had with Jeff McNally's son at a restaurant. And it says, "I don't get a Protestant marrying a Catholic." It's a little forward in time. "I don't get a white marrying a white marrying a black." Next panel says, "I don't get a guy marrying a guy." And the last one says, "I don't get a guy becoming a girl." And it says, "To be continued." And this is just Chicago. I mean today's headline, "Four killed, 17 shot last night." In Chicago alone. We're on pace to have over 500 gun deaths today. This is --
>> Michael Cavna: We need more guns.
>> Scott Stantis: Yeah, we need more guns. This is a good deal, United States. As North Korea freezes its nuclear program the entire world will be safer as it slows the spread of nuclear weapons. The United States and international inspectors will --
>> Michael Cavna: Carefully.
>> Scott Stantis: Thank you. Carefully monitor North Korea to make sure it adheres to its commitments. Of course the next one is, "Uh, what he said. You know, only with Iran." 
>> Michael Cavna: Probably have time for just --
>> Okay, your impressions were dead on.
^M00:52:02
[ Laughter ]
^M00:52:05
>> Scott Stantis: This is a quick lesson in caricature and how you can -- this was Cantor who at the time was majority leader of the House. The speaker and the president were trying to work on the grand compromise on the budget. So you had the monkey, it goes [monkey noises]. So I tried to make it look like Cantor and so I did the drawing initially and I looked at Cantor, and I didn't have to change a damn thing.
^M00:52:25
[ Laughter ]
^M00:52:28
This is how to draw -- do I have time to tell a funny story here? Okay, it's just a step by step. [Inaudible] becomes mayor of Chicago. Someone calls me the next morning with this. I want to show you the close-up and see if you can see it before anyone else does. This woman calls [inaudible], "Are you the cartoonist? Are you the one who did the drawing of [inaudible] this morning?" I go, "Yes I am."
"Have you always been anti-Semitic?" What? Stay with me here. She says -- I go, "Ma'am, I -- what?" And she goes, "The two figures, the first Jewish mayor of Chicago and you picked characters that were created by Jews." 
>> Michael Cavna: Wow.
>> Scott Stantis: ET was developed by Steven Spielberg, and the Grinch was Geisel who was also Jewish. And I had to tell the woman, "Ma'am, you thought about this a lot harder than I did."
^M00:53:16
[ Laughter ]
^M00:53:18
So, okay, now just [inaudible]. If you ever write to me or write to any of us, don't tell us we're not funny or we can't draw because we've been doing this for decades. This is what it usually looks like. I'm a horse's ass. This I just got. Excuse the language, it's going to get a little rough kids. Sorry, but this is [inaudible]. This card just came from -- I kind of like this one. You can read the -- and so this one, lastly, this was on Joe Paterno, and this one says, "Damn him." And this guy writes, "You are only a victim of a sex act if you let yourself be one. Damn you." By the way, I want to point out, you can write to him.
>> Michael Cavna: Okay. 
>> Scott Stantis: Because he signed it.
>> Michael Cavna: You didn't fully redact that, so.
>> Scott Stantis: And this was the worst death threat I ever had was I was working in Arizona. They had just killed -- they had voted against the Martin Luther King Day so I have, why, yes I am from  Arizona. How could you tell? Next morning on my answering machine, how quaint is this, I click this button, and this comes out. A voice comes out, says, "After I kill you I'm going to kill your two kids." 
>> Michael Cavna: You got that?
>> Scott Stantis: I got that and that was when I had police protection for a few months. That was -- the cop was nice. So, should I wrap it up now? Do you need to --
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah, we're --
>> Scott Stantis: Okay, does any of this  matter? [Inaudible] go to hell, cartoons, Ali Fazat, Syrian cartoonist beat up by the Syrian regime. [Inaudible] the other attacks on cartoonists. You know, so the next time someone asks, this is my [inaudible] Prickly city where I redacted from editor's requests the images of Mohammad -- so if anyone asks does any of this matter, yeah it really does. Thank you.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah. Thank you guys so much.
^M00:54:57
[ Applause ]
^M00:55:04
Thank you. You know, first I want to make sure to say the signing will continue. The books are still on sale. Some of these gentlemen will be there. So if you want to get them signed they will be there. I just, in a town like Washington, more than any, it matters that these voices are heard. So let's please give a big hand to all three of these.
^M00:55:23
[ Applause ]
^M00:55:26
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us a loc.gov.
^E00:55:33