Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With Mike Luckovich
Aired February 09, 2003 - 09:45 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's check back now with editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich of the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution."
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Mr. Luckovich. You know, these are the hard subjects. These are actually when you earn your money on your day, where I know you spend as long as 20 minutes toiling over a cartoon.
MIKE LUCKOVICH, EDITORIAL CARTOONIST, ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: Up to 25 minutes, Miles.
O'BRIEN: Up to 25 minutes. These might take 30 minutes, because you have to be thoughtful. You have to be careful not to be too flip, obviously.
LUCKOVICH: Exactly. And so, as I said earlier, when I heard it wasn't Michael Jackson that was number one, and it was Columbia, I started to really sweat. So I drew this cartoon. I've got the -- a group of NASA employees looking up at this huge thing in space and one of them is saying to the others, "It's the Hubble Space Microscope."
O'BRIEN: That's good.
LUCKOVICH: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: That sums it up. Very nicely done.
LUCKOVICH: I appreciate that.
O'BRIEN: We know the Hubble Space Microscope now can see better, so maybe they'll find out some solutions.
LUCKOVICH: I hope so. I hope so.
O'BRIEN: All right. Let's talk about the week in retrospect for you, before we get back to Columbia again.
LUCKOVICH: OK. Yes, well, it was two weeks ago that Bush gave his -- what do you call that thing? State of the Union, that deal. And he didn't really have much in the way, I didn't think, of anything to offer as far as the economy, other than those goofy tax cuts, which to me don't make any sense so I did the following cartoon. If we could show the cartoon, please. It says, President Bush is saying, "My program to provide jobs for hundreds of thousands of Americans is called --," and a gentleman watching TV says, "War with Iraq."
O'BRIEN: Jobs program, potentially, I suppose so.
LUCKOVICH: Sad to say.
O'BRIEN: Are the ears getting bigger? I'm just curious.
LUCKOVICH: No, actually they've gotten smaller. I guess I'm making him a little bit smaller now, just because we're in a very serious time, and ...
O'BRIEN: So you have an ear-ometer?
LUCKOVICH: It's an ear-ometer, yes. So you know when times are good, when we're at a low terror alert when the ears are huge.
COLLINS: Do you seriously pay that close attention to things that you're making fun of when you have a really serious topic?
LUCKOVICH: Oh, yeah. It depends on the topic. You can't be humorous with tragedy. And so you really -- I like to get my points across using humor. So it's -- it makes my job harder.
O'BRIEN: All right, let's move on. Another big subject matter this past week ...
LUCKOVICH: Right. That was Colin Powell's address to the U.N. so I have him, he's standing there, and he's saying, "Now let's turn to the satellite photo on the easel." If you can turn to the easel, there's the satellite photo.
O'BRIEN: We'll show the easel here, if we can get that cued up.
COLLINS: Zoom out, folks.
O'BRIEN: There it is.
LUCKOVICH: There it is. It's actually a huge North Korean nuke.
O'BRIEN: If we had a close-up of the top of the easel, you'd see "North Korean nuke," point being, maybe we're overlooking something here.
LUCKOVICH: We're overlooking that and, plus, what happened to Osama? I wish we'd focus on that. But it's a very, very scary time right now.
O'BRIEN: Post-9/11, you did a widely republished cartoon of the Statue of Liberty with the tears and reflection of the towers, which was great.
LUCKOVICH: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: This one, I'm going to put it close to that category. Certainly is the same sort of subject matter.
LUCKOVICH: Yes, you know, I actually got a call on Saturday. My editor called me and asked me if I'd come in, and she told me what had happened. I drove in and the first thing I did was turned on CNN, started watching you. And you did a fabulous job, as I know you've been told before. But I was listening to your words and I was looking at the video of the debris streaking across the sky. So I just kind of put everything together and drew this cartoon, the debris is now stars and in the middle star is the Star of David for the Israeli astronaut.
O'BRIEN: Ilan Ramon. Very nicely done. Nice touch. That's something I'm sure the families would like to see. You probably have to keep that in mind.
LUCKOVICH: I do. It's just, it was a tough thing, but I really like to be able to do cartoons like this, because I think that it means a lot to people, and it makes me feel like I'm somehow contributing. Now, if you go to the AJC, my newspaper, ajc.com, they have this poster available. Click on my name and it's like five bucks. The paper doesn't make any money on it, but it's something they do for the readers.
O'BRIEN: If you want one of those, by all means, check it out.
LUCKOVICH: Right.
O'BRIEN: Mike Luckovich, that's very nice. Nice work.
LUCKOVICH: Thank you, Miles.
O'BRIEN: In real time, as well. We appreciate you being with us, as always.
LUCKOVICH: Thanks, Miles. Thanks, Heidi.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 9, 2003 - 09:45 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's check back now with editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich of the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution."
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Mr. Luckovich. You know, these are the hard subjects. These are actually when you earn your money on your day, where I know you spend as long as 20 minutes toiling over a cartoon.
MIKE LUCKOVICH, EDITORIAL CARTOONIST, ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: Up to 25 minutes, Miles.
O'BRIEN: Up to 25 minutes. These might take 30 minutes, because you have to be thoughtful. You have to be careful not to be too flip, obviously.
LUCKOVICH: Exactly. And so, as I said earlier, when I heard it wasn't Michael Jackson that was number one, and it was Columbia, I started to really sweat. So I drew this cartoon. I've got the -- a group of NASA employees looking up at this huge thing in space and one of them is saying to the others, "It's the Hubble Space Microscope."
O'BRIEN: That's good.
LUCKOVICH: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: That sums it up. Very nicely done.
LUCKOVICH: I appreciate that.
O'BRIEN: We know the Hubble Space Microscope now can see better, so maybe they'll find out some solutions.
LUCKOVICH: I hope so. I hope so.
O'BRIEN: All right. Let's talk about the week in retrospect for you, before we get back to Columbia again.
LUCKOVICH: OK. Yes, well, it was two weeks ago that Bush gave his -- what do you call that thing? State of the Union, that deal. And he didn't really have much in the way, I didn't think, of anything to offer as far as the economy, other than those goofy tax cuts, which to me don't make any sense so I did the following cartoon. If we could show the cartoon, please. It says, President Bush is saying, "My program to provide jobs for hundreds of thousands of Americans is called --," and a gentleman watching TV says, "War with Iraq."
O'BRIEN: Jobs program, potentially, I suppose so.
LUCKOVICH: Sad to say.
O'BRIEN: Are the ears getting bigger? I'm just curious.
LUCKOVICH: No, actually they've gotten smaller. I guess I'm making him a little bit smaller now, just because we're in a very serious time, and ...
O'BRIEN: So you have an ear-ometer?
LUCKOVICH: It's an ear-ometer, yes. So you know when times are good, when we're at a low terror alert when the ears are huge.
COLLINS: Do you seriously pay that close attention to things that you're making fun of when you have a really serious topic?
LUCKOVICH: Oh, yeah. It depends on the topic. You can't be humorous with tragedy. And so you really -- I like to get my points across using humor. So it's -- it makes my job harder.
O'BRIEN: All right, let's move on. Another big subject matter this past week ...
LUCKOVICH: Right. That was Colin Powell's address to the U.N. so I have him, he's standing there, and he's saying, "Now let's turn to the satellite photo on the easel." If you can turn to the easel, there's the satellite photo.
O'BRIEN: We'll show the easel here, if we can get that cued up.
COLLINS: Zoom out, folks.
O'BRIEN: There it is.
LUCKOVICH: There it is. It's actually a huge North Korean nuke.
O'BRIEN: If we had a close-up of the top of the easel, you'd see "North Korean nuke," point being, maybe we're overlooking something here.
LUCKOVICH: We're overlooking that and, plus, what happened to Osama? I wish we'd focus on that. But it's a very, very scary time right now.
O'BRIEN: Post-9/11, you did a widely republished cartoon of the Statue of Liberty with the tears and reflection of the towers, which was great.
LUCKOVICH: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: This one, I'm going to put it close to that category. Certainly is the same sort of subject matter.
LUCKOVICH: Yes, you know, I actually got a call on Saturday. My editor called me and asked me if I'd come in, and she told me what had happened. I drove in and the first thing I did was turned on CNN, started watching you. And you did a fabulous job, as I know you've been told before. But I was listening to your words and I was looking at the video of the debris streaking across the sky. So I just kind of put everything together and drew this cartoon, the debris is now stars and in the middle star is the Star of David for the Israeli astronaut.
O'BRIEN: Ilan Ramon. Very nicely done. Nice touch. That's something I'm sure the families would like to see. You probably have to keep that in mind.
LUCKOVICH: I do. It's just, it was a tough thing, but I really like to be able to do cartoons like this, because I think that it means a lot to people, and it makes me feel like I'm somehow contributing. Now, if you go to the AJC, my newspaper, ajc.com, they have this poster available. Click on my name and it's like five bucks. The paper doesn't make any money on it, but it's something they do for the readers.
O'BRIEN: If you want one of those, by all means, check it out.
LUCKOVICH: Right.
O'BRIEN: Mike Luckovich, that's very nice. Nice work.
LUCKOVICH: Thank you, Miles.
O'BRIEN: In real time, as well. We appreciate you being with us, as always.
LUCKOVICH: Thanks, Miles. Thanks, Heidi.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
