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February 6, 2003
Rob Rogers: 20 Questions (or thereabouts)
Interview by J.P. TrostleRob Rogers is currently one of two editorial cartoonists with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
After graduating in 1984 from Carnegie-Mellon University with an MFA in painting, Rogers was hired as staff cartoonist for The Pittsburgh Press, and joined the Post-Gazette when it bought The Press in January 1993.
His work is nationally syndicated by United Feature Syndicate, and has appeared on the cover of Newsweek and in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, U.S. News & World Report and USA Today. Since 1987, his cartoons have appeared regularly in the annual collection "Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year."
Rogers has received the 2000 Overseas Press Club Award, the 1995 National Headliner Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1999. In 2000, People Magazine named him one of Americaﾒs 100 Most Eligible Bachelors ﾖ an honor he had to give up a year later when he proposed to girlfriend Sylvia Rhor during the AAEC convention in Toronto.
This summer, Rob Rogers will host the 2003 AAEC convention in Pittsburgh.
When did you first realize you wanted to be a cartoonist, and how did you end up doing political cartoons?
To be honest, I have been drawing cartoons since I was old enough to grasp a crayon so choosing a specific conscious moment of realizing I wanted to be a cartoonist is kind of tough. I was just always doing it and no one told me I couldnﾒt (until I got an editor.)
But if I had to pick a moment, eighth grade seemed to be a turning point. Several things happened in 1972 that made a career in cartooning seem inevitable. First, I moved to Oklahoma where the average fourteenﾗyear-old is 6ﾒ2", 250 pounds with an appetite for red meat. My lifelong dreams of playing professional football were quickly crushed along with my spinal chord. Second, I discovered that drawing cartoons was a great way to impress girls. Of course, I was too shy to say anything to them ("heﾒs nice for a mute cartoonist") but it was still pretty cool. Especially since my plan to impress them on the football field had gone bust. Third, in my civics class we had an election-year project that included choosing sides and campaigning for either Nixon or McGovern. I chose McGovern. I even drew my first political cartoon for the project. And thus, a tradition of supporting earnest, peace-loving liberal candidates with no chance of winning was born.
Did you have to relocate to take your current job, or was western Pennsylvania always home?
I was born in Philadelphia and we bounced around the suburbs until I was 13. The last place we lived was Swarthmore ﾖ a far cry from Oklahoma. I came to Pittsburgh after college to attend graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University where I earned an MFA in painting. My last semester of Grad school I put together a sampling of cartoons to send to papers around the country. If that mass mailing was any indication, the only newspaper in the country looking for a cartoonist in 1984 was the Pittsburgh Press. Talk about right place, right time. I started as a summer intern the day after I graduated from CMU.
What is it you find most attractive about Pittsburgh? Since a lot of us will be heading there this summer, tell us why you think itﾒs such an interesting place?
The babushkas are really hot. Actually, one thing that is striking about Pittsburgh is the geographical setting. Location, location, location! Our downtown is positioned neatly between mountains (hills to some) and rivers. On a clear day in summer it is as pretty as any city going. It is also a city in transition, still trying to find its personality after the Steel Industry dried up. It is very fertile ground for new ideas. That makes it an exciting place to live.
What is the best bar in the city?
The one youﾒre at when the Steelers are winning, of course!
I canﾒt pick just one so Iﾒll list a few genres. If you want a martini at a hip cocktail bar frequented by young lawyers I suggest Bossa Nova (downtown near our hotel) or Soba, a Pan-Asian eatery and bar in Shadyside. For the best beer selection in town I recommend the Sharp Edge in East Liberty or Chiodoﾒs in Homestead where you also get sawdust on the floors, shuffleboard and lingerie hanging from the ceiling. For music I prefer the dive bars. You can find good rockabilly at Gooskiﾒs, local rock at the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern or great acoustic acts at the Club Caf￩ on the South Side.
A decade ago, the newspapers in Pittsburgh went through a huge shake-up due in part to a long teamsters strike. How did that effect you, your paper, and the general publishing atmosphere in the region? (For example, the hole created by the delay of the main dailies allowed both the two independent weeklies and the nearby Greensburg Tribune-Review to expand and create direct competition to the Post-Gazette.) Has this been a good thing for you and other cartoonists?
Nothing good ever comes from stupidity and greed. It never should have happened. Scripps-Howard and the Teamsters, each battling to be the bigger bonehead, left Pittsburgh without a major daily newspaper for eight months during an election year, 1992. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Pittsburgh Press were in a JOA so both papers, although healthy, were affected by the strike. In the end, Scripps sold to the P-G.
Was it a good thing for cartoonists? I can only speak for myself. Iﾒm still employed which is great and speaks to the vision of the P-Gﾒs editor and publisher. But local journalism definitely suffered. The thrill of opening the paper in the morning to see if you beat the competition to a story or a cartoon idea is gone. The Trib has certainly made some advances (which include buying up all those suburban papers you were mentioning) but psychologically it has always been a Greensburg, PA newspaper and to many P-G staffers it will never be seen as serious competition. We all do our jobs to the best of our abilities, but some days it still feels like weﾒre all walking around with the competitive wind knocked out of us.
Do you have other responsibilities at the paper, or do you have one of those rare ﾑfull-timeﾒ cartooning positions?
Aside from the daily foot massages Iﾒm required to give the publisher, yes, I am one of those rare "full-timers." In fact, rarer still, I am at a newspaper with two of those oddities (Tim Menees being the other.) My only experience with doubling up was my first week of employment. When I was first hired as a summer intern they didnﾒt want me to burn out too quickly so they asked me to draw three cartoons a week and then do graphics the other two days. My first day in the art department, I struggled for three hours on an informational graphic that one of the other artists couldﾒve knocked out in twenty minutes. The next week I asked the editor if I could just switch to five cartoons a week. He said yes, which made the art director very happy.
We all pull information from a variety of outlets, but do you have a preferred media (print, web, radio, TV, et. al)? What information sources are you sure to check every day?
I get all of my important news from the informative reporting on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Itﾒs amazing. Iﾒve seen reports on that show that no one else covers! New York Times isnﾒt too bad either. As far as the web, I use it a lot to dig a little deeper into a topic and search for images for reference.
What is more important in creating a good cartoon: the drawing or the writing?
Come to Hy Rosenﾒs panel and find out.
How many times have you seen "Flashdance"? Be honest.
I could tell you ﾅ but then Iﾒd have to kill you.
It seems everyone is doing a strip these days. Any plans to do the same?
Iﾒve tried a couple of strips without much luck. It really is another full-time job on top of editorial cartooning. I donﾒt know how people do both. Right now my comic strip bug is being satisfied by the full color once-a-week local strip I draw called "Brewed On Grant."
What do you enjoy doing outside of sitting behind a drawing table?
Sleeping behind the drawing table. I also enjoy playing guitar and writing my own songs. My latest composition is a blues song called "Why the Hell did I ever agree to host a convention?"
Are you politically active, or at least involved in certain causes you believe in, or do you think that as a commentator you need to be removed from the fray so as to appear fair and balanced?
Great question. I am not as active as I would like to be. I donate money and cartoons to charities and political causes but thatﾒs about it. I think itﾒs OK to be active. We arenﾒt paid to be objective. People should already know who and what we support. On the other hand, we need to use discretion. You may have to draw a negative cartoon about a group you support (the money I sent to "Adopt an al Qaeda Rebel Fund" didnﾒt work out so well ﾅ boy was my face red.) I think being politically active lends credibility to our opinions in the paper. I say put your money where your pen is.
Rolling Rock or Iron City?
Penn Pilsner.
So, after People Magazine named you to its list of 100 Most Eligible Bachelors, did you get a lot of action from that? Or just a lot of good-natured grief from your colleagues?
I could tell you ﾅ but then Iﾒd have to kill you.