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Judah Friedlander: I used to make my own cartoons—some comedy and some political—when I was a kid—around ten years old. I started doing animation in the ninth grade and got pretty into that for a few years. I did a little animation in my early 20s too. Then I kind of stopped drawing for years, but would pick it up again here and there. I started doing some drawings and paintings again in 2006. And the past couple years, I started drawing again as a way to combat anxiety.
Yes—there's something about how a pen feels on paper that relaxes me. A lot of the drawings in my book were done with a stylus pen on my phone, and some with a stylus pen on a tablet—and I even enjoy the feeling of the digital pen and screen.Which cartoonists do you like? Are there any in particular who you feel informed your work? I see similarities to Shel Silverstein and David Shrigley.
As a kid, I definitely liked Shel Silverstein (I still like his work now too). I think the biggest influence were the cartoon books of B. Kliban which came out in the 70s. My parents had some of his books; I must've been seven or either when I first started looking at them—and I just thought they were hilarious, wild and great. Looking back, I'm glad my parents didn't censor those books from me. I like Shrigley's work, but didn't become aware of him until recently when my book was mostly finished. In the 80s I liked The Far Side, and a lot of political cartoonists—as a kid I didn't always understand the political cartoons—but I loved the drawings, and my dad would explain to me the meanings of the cartoons. I'm probably going to forget to mention other cartoonists, but I also liked John Callahan. And recently I've gotten to know Lalo Alcaraz, because he writes on Bordertown (in which I voice one of the characters), and I like his work too.
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Several years ago, when i was just doing a few drawings here and there—not that often, I might've taken a pic of the drawing and texted it to a few people. But I would say a couple years ago, I started posting some of my cartoons and drawings on Instagram—and that was a cool experience to get people's reactions to the drawings.Check out Judah Friedlander's website, Twitter, and Instagram and go see him headline on April 12 at the Village Underground in NYC.Buy If the Raindrops United.
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