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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With Mike Luckovich
Aired April 20, 2003 - 09:43 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.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We are very pleased that Mike Luckovich, editorial cartoonist extraordinaire, Pulitzer Prize winner is here. And all during while Mike Brooks was speaking, he's quickly --
MIKE LUCKOVICH, EDITORIAL CARTOONIST, ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: Trying to finish this up.
COOPER: First, we want to look at a couple of the editorial cartoons you have drawn about the war. A difficult subject to cover, no doubt. We're looking at one of them.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's drop the graphics and get a better look. You describe it.
LUCKOVICH: I've got a gentleman here, and he's saying, "Ingenious makeover, Saddam! No hat, hair, mustache, or uniform." And then you see Saddam in his underwear, and he's saying "They were looted."
KAGAN: I love like just the three little hairs on the top of his head.
LUCKOVICH: That's all he's got left. They took everything. They took everything.
Now, this next cartoon I did was on the Saddam statue coming down. We all remember that scene. And so I showed that, and then you see the replacement statue, which is Rumsfeld. And someone in the crowd is saying "Uh-oh."
I did this cartoon, and when it ran, someone called me up and said hey, you know, the statue's coming down, you showing this, they call me evil. They said I was evil. But then, Rumsfeld requested the cartoon.
KAGAN: He did?
COOPER: Really, he wanted this cartoon?
LUCKOVICH: He wanted the cartoon. He's got a sense of humor about things.
KAGAN: Do you get that a lot, that some things that people might think are offensive, then the person you're featuring actually wants. LUCKOVICH: That happens. Normally what happens is, the person that I've done the cartoon on thinks it's evil, not the readers. And Rumsfeld is one of these people that doesn't mind being poked fun at.
KAGAN: Has a sense of humor.
COOPER: We asked our viewers to determine what they thought was the top news story of the week, and...
KAGAN: They made it tough for you.
COOPER: Show the graphic right there. There were a couple of options. What they picked, they picked the Laci Peterson case, overwhelming 45 percent. That has got to be, I mean, very difficult thing for you to work on.
LUCKOVICH: It really is. Normally, something like that, I just wouldn't do a cartoon on it. It's just a terrible, terrible thing. It's just not cartoon -- it's just not a good topic. But because that's my gig here, this is cartoon that I did on that.
KAGAN: Turn it around.
LUCKOVICH: If you can see there, I drew the water, and then next to the water, you see two Easter baskets, in honor of the mother and the child.
KAGAN: We did put you in a tough position, there.
LUCKOVICH: It was tough, but that's the way it goes. I did a second one, though. And keeping on the Easter theme, and the Easter basket theme, this is sort of today, this is America's Easter basket.
COOPER: Oh, that's great.
LUCKOVICH: It's the U.S. POWs, and they're all back with us.
COOPER: That's great. A great Easter basket.
KAGAN: That's good.
COOPER: What do you look for, when you're dreaming up a cartoon, what do you look for? What makes a good editorial cartoon?
LUCKOVICH: What I like to do, normally, is use humor to get my point across. If I can be hard-hitting, but in a humorous way, I think that's an excellent delivery system. So that's really what I try and do.
COOPER: Making people both laugh and think at the same time?
LUCKOVICH: Right. Instead of being hit over the head, if you can use humor to kind of leaven it a little bit, I think it works better.
Mainly, it's just panic. I try to come up with something at the end of the day.
COOPER: Was the war very difficult?
LUCKOVICH: No, actually, it was really good fodder. It was tough because you couldn't be flippant in many cases, and I'm excellent at being flippant. So I had to kind of put that side of myself away and really concentrate on some of the more of the serious aspects.
KAGAN: And just real quickly, I was surfing around before you came on, looking for -- I know of you, but I was interested in how you got your start. If you click enough times under your name you can find your story of when you were trying to get your first break. And it's true you really drove around in a Pinto selling life insurance?
LUCKOVICH: Yes, I did. It had shag carpeting in it, and it was a very sad situation. I still occasionally have nightmares about that, so I'm always so happy that I'm drawing.
KAGAN: So for people going after a dream out there, go after.
LUCKOVICH: Right. Keep doing it.
KAGAN: Mike Luckovich, thank you very much.
LUCKOVICH: Thank you for having me.
COOPER: A challenging assignment well executed.
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 April 20, 2003 - 09:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We are very pleased that Mike Luckovich, editorial cartoonist extraordinaire, Pulitzer Prize winner is here. And all during while Mike Brooks was speaking, he's quickly --
MIKE LUCKOVICH, EDITORIAL CARTOONIST, ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: Trying to finish this up.
COOPER: First, we want to look at a couple of the editorial cartoons you have drawn about the war. A difficult subject to cover, no doubt. We're looking at one of them.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's drop the graphics and get a better look. You describe it.
LUCKOVICH: I've got a gentleman here, and he's saying, "Ingenious makeover, Saddam! No hat, hair, mustache, or uniform." And then you see Saddam in his underwear, and he's saying "They were looted."
KAGAN: I love like just the three little hairs on the top of his head.
LUCKOVICH: That's all he's got left. They took everything. They took everything.
Now, this next cartoon I did was on the Saddam statue coming down. We all remember that scene. And so I showed that, and then you see the replacement statue, which is Rumsfeld. And someone in the crowd is saying "Uh-oh."
I did this cartoon, and when it ran, someone called me up and said hey, you know, the statue's coming down, you showing this, they call me evil. They said I was evil. But then, Rumsfeld requested the cartoon.
KAGAN: He did?
COOPER: Really, he wanted this cartoon?
LUCKOVICH: He wanted the cartoon. He's got a sense of humor about things.
KAGAN: Do you get that a lot, that some things that people might think are offensive, then the person you're featuring actually wants. LUCKOVICH: That happens. Normally what happens is, the person that I've done the cartoon on thinks it's evil, not the readers. And Rumsfeld is one of these people that doesn't mind being poked fun at.
KAGAN: Has a sense of humor.
COOPER: We asked our viewers to determine what they thought was the top news story of the week, and...
KAGAN: They made it tough for you.
COOPER: Show the graphic right there. There were a couple of options. What they picked, they picked the Laci Peterson case, overwhelming 45 percent. That has got to be, I mean, very difficult thing for you to work on.
LUCKOVICH: It really is. Normally, something like that, I just wouldn't do a cartoon on it. It's just a terrible, terrible thing. It's just not cartoon -- it's just not a good topic. But because that's my gig here, this is cartoon that I did on that.
KAGAN: Turn it around.
LUCKOVICH: If you can see there, I drew the water, and then next to the water, you see two Easter baskets, in honor of the mother and the child.
KAGAN: We did put you in a tough position, there.
LUCKOVICH: It was tough, but that's the way it goes. I did a second one, though. And keeping on the Easter theme, and the Easter basket theme, this is sort of today, this is America's Easter basket.
COOPER: Oh, that's great.
LUCKOVICH: It's the U.S. POWs, and they're all back with us.
COOPER: That's great. A great Easter basket.
KAGAN: That's good.
COOPER: What do you look for, when you're dreaming up a cartoon, what do you look for? What makes a good editorial cartoon?
LUCKOVICH: What I like to do, normally, is use humor to get my point across. If I can be hard-hitting, but in a humorous way, I think that's an excellent delivery system. So that's really what I try and do.
COOPER: Making people both laugh and think at the same time?
LUCKOVICH: Right. Instead of being hit over the head, if you can use humor to kind of leaven it a little bit, I think it works better.
Mainly, it's just panic. I try to come up with something at the end of the day.
COOPER: Was the war very difficult?
LUCKOVICH: No, actually, it was really good fodder. It was tough because you couldn't be flippant in many cases, and I'm excellent at being flippant. So I had to kind of put that side of myself away and really concentrate on some of the more of the serious aspects.
KAGAN: And just real quickly, I was surfing around before you came on, looking for -- I know of you, but I was interested in how you got your start. If you click enough times under your name you can find your story of when you were trying to get your first break. And it's true you really drove around in a Pinto selling life insurance?
LUCKOVICH: Yes, I did. It had shag carpeting in it, and it was a very sad situation. I still occasionally have nightmares about that, so I'm always so happy that I'm drawing.
KAGAN: So for people going after a dream out there, go after.
LUCKOVICH: Right. Keep doing it.
KAGAN: Mike Luckovich, thank you very much.
LUCKOVICH: Thank you for having me.
COOPER: A challenging assignment well executed.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
