If you’ve been online, and especially on Twitter, then you probably know the name Eli Valley and his brushy drawings that use the grotesque and absurd to make larger points about life, culture, and politics. But it wasn’t until the Trump administration that the New York City-based cartoonist was propelled into the public spotlight. Valley was attacked by a wide range of politicians, particularly Republicans, including Meghan McCain, who called the comic he drew of her “one of the most anti-Semitic things I have even seen.” McCain is not Jewish, and Valley is, not to mention that his father is a rabbi.
Hrag Vartanian, for Hyperallergic, interviews cartoonist Eli Valley
about how he got his start in comics, how he builds on the long history of satire and graphic humor in the Jewish American tradition, and how he copes with the public spotlight while he struggles to survive as a full-time artist.
This podcast is accompanied by scholar Josh Lambert’s article,
which explores the art historical roots of Valley’s art.I wouldn’t wish Eli Valley’s job on my worst enemy.
Picture yourself scrolling through your social media feeds and coming across a news story that makes your stomach turn. Not just something absurd or sickening, but something that gets deep under your skin — that fills you with rage and disgust, or makes you feel personally complicit in the grossest hypocrisy and venality. I assume that, like most people, this happens to you from time to time, and, in response, you do what everyone else does: You watch a cozy baking competition to distract from the distaste.
Valley digs right in.
