{"id":10756,"date":"2017-10-22T14:35:41","date_gmt":"2017-10-22T18:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=10756"},"modified":"2017-10-22T14:36:46","modified_gmt":"2017-10-22T18:36:46","slug":"episode-241-barry-blitt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-241-barry-blitt","title":{"rendered":"Episode 241 – Barry Blitt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 241: Barry Blitt<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/virtualmemories\/Episode_241_-_Barry_Blitt.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“It was nice to have been offered this retrospective book, but I wish it had just stopped there.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>Why is award-winning illustrator Barry Blitt<\/a> so uncomfortable with the flap copy praise of his new decades-spanning compendium, Blitt<\/a>\"\" (just out from Riverhead Books)? We spend an hour trying to get to the bottom of that, starting with his horror at looking back at his work (both from seeing rookie mistakes and from deciding he was better back then). We talk about how his New Yorker<\/em> covers<\/a> shifted from observational to topical illustrations, how he’s become the de facto voice of that magazine, his Canadian roots (and how its attendant hockey fetish got him started as an illustrator), his first Mad<\/em> magazine, his fear of overexposure, the difference between punching down and going for cheap laughs, and how he’s made smartassery as career asset. Also, I bust his balls about his uncanny resemblance to Bob Balaban. Give it a listen!<\/a> And go buy Blitt<\/a>\"\"!<\/p>\n

“Playing piano is an antidote for drawing, where you put a line down and it’s there on the page. Here you play a note and it’s temporary, it drifts away. You make a mistake and it’s behind you in a second. If your next phrase is nice, that’s what’s happening now.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n