Strip Search, Episode 29 — David Sipress

David Sipress, the author in repose. (Photo by Nina Subin)

In this episode of "Strip Search: The Comic Strip Podcast," we had the great fortune to interview David Sipress — one of The New Yorker magazine’s most well-known contributors — about his wonderful new memoir “What’s So Funny,” a cartoonist’s origin story that delves into tortured family dynamics and hard-learned life lessons that can make you cringe and chuckle all at once. (The best kind of cringing, in our humble opinion.)

Given our Boston base-of-operations, we of course chatted David up about his time at the Boston Phoenix, along with the seminal moment in Harvard Square that presaged his entrance into the world of professional cartooning. But we also got into his creative process, his influences, what makes a New Yorker cartoon a New Yorker cartoon (spoiler alert: there is no such thing, at least not anymore), and why cartoonists (and other creative folk) have an advantage over, well, everybody else:

"For me, doing cartoons means that when those difficult things happen in life, the things that get you angry or scare you, there's always this place you can go to to to be creative and to feel the optimism that doesn't necessarily cure you of the bad feelings, but it just kind of gives you a way to navigate the situation that most people don't have," Sipress told us. "I feel enormously lucky that I that I have that creative bone in my body."

Listen to the whole episode below (or here), featuring our entire discussion with David, plus our take on the new "Bloom County" TV show that's in the works; a plug for the latest must-have comic strip compilation, "Next Door Neighbors" by our pal Pat Sandy; and the usual banter. (And you can also read a Q&A with David at Boston.com.)

If you like faces, you can also watch on video:

Some of the cartoons mentioned in the podcast:

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Introducing Strip Search, the cartooning podcast

Hello all! Welcome to Strip Search, a new podcast where we'll be interviewing cartooning professionals and talk comic strips: their history, classic comics, the current state of the industry, and comics to watch out for. If you're a cartoonist or humorous illustrator and want to appear on the podcast with Dave and Pete, email us at petpeevescomic@gmail.com .

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