The Truth In This Art: Stories That Matter

Rob Lee: Welcome to The Truth In This Art, your source for conversations connecting arts, culture, and community. These are stories that matter, and I am your host Rob Lee. Today, I'm excited to welcome my next guest onto the podcast. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He's a cartoonist, an author, and a comic creator with 13 books to his name. His work has been featured in The New Yorker nearly 100 times, and Playboy once. Please welcome to the program Lonnie Melsap. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you.

Lonnie Millsap : You don't have to say great, but I appreciate it.

Rob Lee: Look, look, I mean, we had the real conversation a couple months ago, and you know, I was joking with my partner. I was like, yeah, I'm interviewing Lonnie soon, and finally making it happen. And she was like, you've been trying to get this interview for a while. I was like, yes, and I've been derelict in my duties. So yeah, I'm chasing you down.

I'm chasing you down. Okay, well, I thought with you anytime. So, you know, starting off, you know, thank you again for making the time because it's that part of your record in December. And you know, time is at a premium right now, you know what I mean?

So I definitely appreciate it. And people have called you a cartoonist, an author, probably a handful of other titles. If you had to pick your favorite one, you know, what's the title that you value the most because you kind of bespurched the great piece. But you know, which title do you prefer the most when talking about yourself or presenting yourself as a chief cartoonist officer? How do you describe yourself these days?

Lonnie Millsap : Oh, you know, I really like to say that I'm a cartoonist. There's a time people will say, well, you know, are you an illustrator or do you do memes or, you know, that kind of stuff. I'm like, no, just cartoonist.

And I saw a description one time, I guess, that Charles Schultz calls himself a cartoonist and not an artist or whatever. And I, you know what, I can go along with that. It was good enough for him.

It was good enough for me. I think there's others that are a little more lofty, but I'm, you know, I'm in my lane, I like to experiment a little bit, but, but I love doing cartoons. Now, I don't want to be, I don't want that to be my middle name or anything like that. You know, or, you know, I just want to be, yeah, Monty does cartoons.

Rob Lee: That's the next, that's the podcast you'll eventually start. You know, featuring the great Lonnie cartoonist.

Lonnie Millsap : Right. Right. I don't want to, yeah, I don't want the title, you know, because it becomes a little gimmickish.

Rob Lee: And there's a few people who do that and it's not what I do. And I think I did it earlier, probably earlier in my career. Yeah, I think I was a cartoonist in parentheses, sort of after my name or whatever. But they speak for themselves. I mean, you can tell what I do.

Rob Lee: And I think that's a good point. Like I think one of the things that happens, like as a, as a term becomes a little bit more deprecated, or maybe you're seeing yourself, perhaps is a more of a humorous, a more of a, a cultural critical happy when we get loftier with some of the titles.

I think, you know, it's important that you have like a context in who you are, which values are, how that, and how that works. I've had instances because I've done it for, for so long in podcasting. Oh, that's Mr. Podcast right there.

That's like, proof. And now in some ways I struggle with the word podcast because everyone is just doing it and they're different. These are sort of what's good, what's bad, what's done is purely a commercial contribution, what's done with the creative intent. And my work when I'm around other podcasts feels more journalistic and intent, but it has to be presented through a podcast. Yeah.

Lonnie Millsap : Well, yeah. And it does feel kind of like that. And I guess with, with my cartoon, you know, um, kind of if you go by the title of cartoonist people expect kind of a yuck, yuck jokes every time you say something or whatever. And I think what I do, I try to be funny on everything I do. Wouldn't I try to make sure it's humorous?

It's not always a joke. Um, there was another cartoonist that he used to do the, or he did a cartoon to neighbor and he would talk, he would say they took cartoons or, or more like observation. Yeah. And, and I feel like maybe that's more what I do. I mean, they're really sort of out there sometimes, but you know, it's just sort of a snapshot in time, you know, about something going on at that place at that time. Yeah.

Rob Lee: And, you know, I, I, I 100% agree with it. I have, I think two or three of your, what a dozen plus books at this point. We'll talk about that a bit more later. Um, but definitely observational is there. Definitely the humor is there.

The sort of critique, but also it's relatable in that way. But, you know, I'm just going to bury the lead a little bit. Um, so let's go back a little bit. Could you, could you take us back to some of your like, maybe earlier days and how that creative path for you was set? Like, what was that baby earliest experience that you'd look back on when you're sort of experiencing cartooning, you know, or cartoons generally as a viewer or as a person that's drawing, you know, what was one of those earlier experience that you look back on? Like that's the beginning right there.

Lonnie Millsap : Well, you know, I would say that I was always wanting to have the cartoon books when I was young, you know, so it would be, you know, early on, I think my first, probably the first book of pure cartoons was like, for me, we're like those Charlie Brown books, you know, before that, I know my parents had sort of political cartoons, books and cartoons by like Ron Cobb and, and, and, uh, you know, some of those sort of Vietnam era kind of cartoons, whatever. But, um, I remember starting drawing Snoopy in fifth grade from those books.

You know, I never really did anything. I would just scribble before that. And then I remember trying to seriously draw Snoopy. And I remember laughing out loud at those books.

Um, they, you know, they would make me laugh out loud. And so, sort of going on from there, uh, so at the end of high school between college, I went to Otis Art Institute just for the summer. My teacher was Gary Pantor as the cartooning class. My mother made me go there because she didn't want me hanging out, you know, over summer.

She's like, you got to go to this eight week class or whatever it was. And then I knew I wanted to be cartoonist after that class. Um, you know, uh, he was such an inspiration.

Did the teacher with Gary Pantor, he was, he was so inspirational. Um, but I did not know where to go with it. So I just had sketchbooks over the years where I just drew sketch, sketch of the cartoons and stuff. Um, this was pre-computer, you know, so, um, and then, you know, I would submit. Uh, to that inquirer, maybe, uh, uh, the New Yorker, maybe when I was like 20.

And of course I got rejected. If, if I looked at that work now, if I could find it, it would be terrible. You know, but, but, um, there were things that happened back then that, that still made me want to do it. You know, I remember there was a time where, uh, when I was in college and my sketchbook was out or something and then everyone was gathered around it.

You know, in, in class, it was a college class and, and it disrupted the class because everybody was laughing at what was in my sketchbook. And, you know, you have little things like this that happened over time. Uh, even now, there's like still sort of revalid, validates what you do.

You know, so, but those were the scenes that were planted. I didn't know how to get to where I wanted to go, but I knew that I wanted to do it. So it was always in the back of my mind. And then at a certain point, I was able to figure it out.

Rob Lee: That's good. That's good to have, to have that, to have sort of that, um, that, that reference of being able to look at it. Like, I know what happened. You know, I know what happened with some of the earlier works. Oh, that's, yeah, that's not what I would make right now.

Speaker 3: That's something different. And, you know, I think spending most of last year or this year is just, you know, going back to the beginning of our career, you know, we're in December, but most of this year, going back through, you know, bringing guests on that had been on the podcast before I'm like, I hope this interview is better than the first one, you know, a bullet point is like, yo, Rob, you're not as good on this one as the first one. I was regressed.

Rob Lee: Um, but also having, you know, I was one of those kids who, you know, I was one of those things I wanted to be an illustrator. I was always drawing the little test to do for you. And, you know, it was cool, but ultimately it turned out to be the past that I was going to do, but I still enjoyed sketching.

I still was, I think now at 40 compared to what else, probably 12 or 13 then. Looking at sort of what I was perhaps drawing was a means for telling story. And I'm doing that now. So it's like always been this through line of telling stories. And over the last like six weeks or so, I've been interviewed a few times and folks will ask like, why did you get into storytelling? Why was that interesting to you? And I say something which I think is witty and smart.

It's like, I'm a gentleman liar. I used to make a book when I was a kid. And, you know, but I can pinpoint a specific thing. It was a old, it was an old Mark Hamill movie, you know, a big Skywalker movie. It was a movie called Guy Ver. And I had, like we used to get me, my dad used to get videos from like blockbusters or old videos I have, you Hollywood video here locally.

And we would watch that with these different movies. And this was the one weekend. This was the weekend thing. This was one weekend where I didn't watch the movie. And my classmates always expected me to basically like a book report come and tell us about the tell them about the movie that I watched. But I love the attention, right?

Yeah. And I didn't watch the movie. So I lied about a movie that I didn't watch based purely on the cover.

Yes. And it was like maybe two years later, I think we're getting close to like graduating from a, they're like, yo, do you lie a lot about that movie? I was like, I did. It took you guys a few years to realize this. I just looked at the cover right at the back of the jacket. And it was like, Oh yeah. And now turn it into a podcasting empire.

Lonnie Millsap : Wow. Oh, that's incredible.

Speaker 3: So I'm always playing with the process. You know, I was sharing with you earlier before we got started that, you know, it's 900 plus interviews, you're I think episode 903 or four that I've recorded.

And you'll be 901 when this episode drops. So it's a lot of processes. And it could be very simple.

You know, it's very simple with you already had these questions. And we've talked before. So I was like, Oh, line is going to be great. I'm not going to be nervous.

Why isn't it talking to one of my boys? So the process, you know, changes the what have you and it shouldn't be the same as it was in 2019 when I started it should progress, it should get easier, it should be right. So talk to me a bit about your process. Where's the ideas come from?

How do you capture them? Is it a, you know, the notepad is a sketch? Are you even using like the iPhone to put down maybe the seeds of an idea? Where do your ideas come from in the beginning of your process? And if you could just break your process out?

Lonnie Millsap : I do a little bit of all that, you know, you know, in an ideal world, I would sit down with my sketchbook and just make stuff happen, you know, but sometimes I run dry, you know, and so for the most part, I will, if an idea comes, I will, I will, you know, test it to myself, you know, in writing, you know, because if I say it, it's still going to sound crazy, you know, so I actually have to write it out. And, you know, you're probably, this is probably happened to you. I lose more good ideas in 10 seconds, you know, then, you know, it'll just happen. I'll be like, this is the best idea I've ever had. And then 10 seconds later, I will not know what I was talking about, or even remember that I had the idea. And then remember later is like, Oh, I had an idea, but I don't know what the idea is.

So testing it works for me. I have little sketchbooks that I write, but a little squiggles down with sort of the idea of what the joke is and what the cartoon might be. You know, I don't, you know, my cartoons aren't very complicated. So, you know, it's more about kind of, but a formatting them in the space, you know, trying to use the space correctly and everything. From, you know, my early career till now, you know, because my first book was like 2000 and, and versus now there was a point that I transitioned to what I do now where I sort of learned how to format the pages better.

And, you know, as far as even the wording, you know, not being too wordy and getting all, all of that in just trying to get the punch in, like really quickly. I, there's a, I think my cartoons started to look like they do now, probably back in like 2015. So it's been a long time.

So if I go back and look at my older work, I'm actually kind of pleased with sort of the sense of humor and it holds up and stuff. I'm not very topical. That's part of, you know, what I try not to be because there's other people who I feel do it much better. You know, I will at times, but, you know, I can relax and enjoy Keith Knife's work if I want to. And I don't have to do, you know, the jokes like he does, you know, but a worse version of his jokes.

Rob Lee: But that's, that's a shout out to Dr. Keith Knife. So in that, and still kind of, I guess, building on that, you're, you're, you're in LA, right? And so, you know, I think this is sort of an interesting question around this, this idea or this conversation around ideas. In this era of IP and sequels, what is the value of an idea? Like you're, like you said, you know, you're touching on this, like you got them and then 10 seconds later, what was that idea?

Right, right. And how precious are you of your own ideas of like, I'm good with that, or that's not going to fit right now. So sort of ideas and sort of the value of them and sort of how precious are you as it relates to your own ideas?

Lonnie Millsap : I am, you know, there, each book is sort of my way of composing its own theme, you know. So I have cartoons that will not belong in one book, that will belong in the next book or the one after that, you know, that kind of thing.

You know, you talk about, you know, when I lose my ideas, you know, like in the shower or when I'm driving or whatever. They're precious at the moment. I think the preciousness, the preciousness for me comes in the reaction I get from when people see it and knowing that, you know, like if I'm at conventions or they're seeing it in some other setting, that they'll remember that forever, even if they don't get it.

I mean, as far as buying it, I'm saying, you know, for the most part they get it, they understand what I'm talking about. But so it's very rewarding when, you know, you get someone who comes up to you who says, you know, you know, I pass you, you know, and I saw you one of your cartoons like five years ago and I've been looking for you ever since. You know, I mean, I've gotten a lot of people like that because of that cartoon right there.

And now I found you and I'm going to buy your book, I'm a fan forever. You know, there's a sort of a fair amount of that kind of stuff that happens. There are people that will sort of recognize, when I put out the work, you know, I kind of do it for myself, I guess, because, you know, it's my sense of humor.

And, you know, so I get surprised when people see it and it's in sort of an out of context situation. You know, like, oh, what do you do? You know, oh, I do cartoons. Oh, really? What I've seen, I don't know, I do this comic strip called Bacon.

You know, oh, or I do stuff within New York or you do what I've seen it. Sometimes there's dogs, you know. So they're precious more that way.

So I'm not really composing. I'm thinking, you know, that every cartoon, I guess everyone is special to me, but not in a way that is, you know, where I think they're all diamonds. And, you know, I got to hold them and, you know, mold them and people will see them, they're going to fall all over themselves. You know, they're not like that yet. There's a preciousness to them, but not in the way that, you know, that people sort of read it and enjoy it, I guess.

Rob Lee: That's precious to me, I guess. That makes sense. That makes sense. And I think hearing this notion as you've touched on a few times of, you know, knowing your lane, being in your lane and knowing sort of what you're doing with your work. And I love that piece where you said, well, doing it for me, and kind of our paraphrase, but if people get it and they like it, that's really cool. That's really good. That really matters.

Lonnie Millsap : And I do, I tell a lot of people, you know, I tell a lot of artists, you know, a lot of newer artists and stuff that, you know, like my cartoons are sort of basically me and my friends joking around, but me getting it onto paper, you know. Everyone has their group of fans that they have, they share a sense of humor with, you know, or most people do. And if your cartoon is, and you can sort of capture that, the stuff that makes you and your friends laugh will make other people laugh too, you know.

Rob Lee: It's a term that I know that's making the rounds in the podcast space to purse social relationships. And it's a version of, oh yeah, I'm peering in on the sort of private distance with the person is through their work. And I think, you know, I go back to when I started podcasting in 2009, just basically having conversations with my friends.

And I see people are doing the same thing that I was doing then, but doing it now, but not as good if I was a stroke my own ego right there. And so people have a, I guess, an appreciation and a taste for that. It's a voyeurism a little bit, but I think it's, if it's done artistically, you can mask that, you're not, you know, feel like you're giving too much. It's like, oh, I'm drawing silly dogs, or I'm drawing these really funny observations that I'm making, but it's with a pickle for sake of it.

Speaker 3: I got to go into a specific work. I got to go into, you know, my pockets are juicy with my pockets are juicy being your 13th collection. Yeah. So where, where do you feel that it's, it's gone now in terms of style in terms of sensibility in terms of, you know, maybe the evolution from collection 12 to collection 13 and perhaps collection 14. I know you're always working man.

Lonnie Millsap : I'm working on it. I got to have something, you know, really by summer, I think. You know, ultimately, you know, my goal at the beginning was to be the guy that does the cartoon books that turns them into a comic strip and a newspaper and then all, you know, then all of a sudden has animated movies and then comes a movie star, you know, in, you know, that hasn't quite happened, but it has in a way, you know, because, you know, the first books, I mean, you know, I mean, they're sold out now, but back then you would sell 20 and you would be like, wow, you know, I sold 20 books, you know, you know, and I don't sell a million books an hour or anything, you know, I sell, I do okay at conventions and stuff, but it's open the doors to other things, you know, and so always see me continuing to do this is opening doors, like it opened the door to be able to get the top of you right now, you know, it took time to get here, but so, you know, I'm working on the next book, you know, but, you know, the comic strip bacon opened the door to me doing cartoons for the New Yorker magazine because they were aware of my work, you know, so I didn't, you know, it was a long time to get there, but it wasn't, the submission process for me wasn't particularly long because they already knew what I did, you know, and so once I got into that, then now, you know, we're looking at possibly animating some of the New Yorker stuff and we're going to see where that goes, you know, and so there's people that kind of reach out and say, hey, you know, have you ever thought about this? It's not anything I ever thought about before, so, you know, my life before was just drawing cartoons and just having it on the page. I never thought about animation and now I do, you know, never thought about, you know, graphic novels. Now I do, you know, sort of in my own hand, not changing the style or anything, you know, maybe more, you know, autobiographical, you know, but still humor is at the same time, you know. So in some ways, it's

Rob Lee: kind of the thing, like, you know, I've gone to a a few different events, some podcasts related and such, and you'll see folks up there kind of, like, waxing on about this is what it takes to be in a podcast and all of this different stuff, right? And you finally, you got two episodes out, like, what do you, how are you giving me advice, you know what I mean?

Right. And then hearing, like, what you're describing, what I'm taking from it at least is sort of some of the work speaking for it, the work having enough of the work that's there that leads to these sort of opportunities, because I mean, I see what about a hundred, if not over a hundred features of your work in the New Yorker, 13 books coming up on 14, you get the T-Boy thing that we talked about a little bit and, you know, and then numerous, like, posts on IG and just a whole litany of stuff, but really big, monumental numbers. And, you know, as I shared the sort of 900 episodes we'll have, you kind of lead with the thing that's outrageous. So the point when that opportunity comes up to say, hey, I want to look at animation, hey, I'm going to look at maybe this or that's a potential thing there, you have a backlog of work and a backlog of experience that kind of shows that you have the capacity to do this on a high level in a very, in a very, like, large pace and large scale. And, you know, I look at the same thing, like, I've always rebelled against the idea of video, but I have some ideas that I want to execute on, but at the root of it, it's still something that unifies all of it. And you touched on it. It's still going to be the same style. It's still going to be very much you, your ideas, your insights, your humor, but perhaps moving that needle a little bit to the left or a little bit to the right, because you already got people.

You already got them on the Noseap Gateway Drug of your work. It's like, yeah, you seen Bacon? Check out, check this stuff out. First one's free. Well, all of them you on Instagram, but buy my books.

Lonnie Millsap : I'll say this, you know, to think about, you know, I always thought about my stuff in one way. At the beginning, it sort of, it cost me a little because I think I was newer. I mean, as a old, I began a little older than other people, you know, like doing this stuff, you know, professionally. And so I was inflexible initially. And, you know, I was open to certain things that got me to where I was at that point.

But I remember like being approached by someone from Mad Magazine and, you know, you should probably have to like change the eyes, or, you know, not make the eyes like they are in Dear Cartoon. And I was so arrogant. It was like, you know, my first book, I was like, I didn't call him back. I was like, oh, he wants me to change my stuff.

But over time, you learn, you can be flexible and still, it can still be you and not look exactly like what you do. I would speak into the cartoon of Shannon Wheeler. He's a New Yorker cartoonist. I'm friendly with him. I've known him for a little while. I remember he was probably the first one that told me that I should send my cartoon into the New Yorker. He explained it in a way like, you can change it.

It can still be yours. Jazz musicians do that all the time. It's still the same song.

You can improv and it's still, let it be yours. I never thought about it like that before that. Before I was just steadfast and making my stuff, this is how it was. Once I listened to that, it opened the door to all these other things.

Rob Lee: It's part of that Gen X thing of, man, we don't sell out, man. We don't do that at all, man.

Speaker 3: I think it was, yeah.

Lonnie Millsap : I think it was. You're going to accept me for me.

Rob Lee: Here's the thing. I'm at the very front half of the millennial thing and I always get along with the Gen X's because I'm like, nah, man, integrity is so important.

How much is that bill? Yeah, man, integrity. Right. Whereas you see the other end of the spectrum and maybe the Gen Z, it's just like, yeah, my goal is just to be a content creator and I'll just have it and the highest better. It's like, right, right.

But it is a thing. Like I had a thing a couple of years ago because podcasting is one of those things that is very independent, the way that I do it at least, and raising funds to do certain cool things is more than just a notion. And as you remember, it was like maybe 2022, I had like a bunch of like I-9s or W-9s, what have you. And I was like, oh, right, because I did a lot of contractual work for a little series here or series there. And the one that stuck out that's kind of was indicative of the, not quite selling out, but I didn't have a lot of juice to put my name on it.

Right. It was like a ghost podcasting thing. I definitely didn't put on a fake voice or anything, which you can do with AI now. But I was very reticent and reluctant to put my name on it just because this was literally they need someone that can do this. I only wanted to produce so I can feel like I'm detaching my creative, artistic and credibility from it.

But the check isn't bad though. So how do I navigate that? And they weren't asking me to do this podcast or a podcast that really I want to have my stamp on. It was like making original podcasts for us.

And I was just like, I just want by Rob. I think I want by maybe my actual government name and did that. And it's still a part of sort of this incremental process of getting better and getting those reps in, but I don't know if it was part of my, would be part of my portfolio.

Lonnie Millsap : Oh, yeah. And I have some things that I've been part of that I've distanced myself a little bit from. And not to say that the standards were that I did substandard work or anything, but just not quite right for sort of my curve of career, I guess. Yeah. Nothing I'm ashamed of or anything like that. But, you know, there's, you know, I can say that I did it. But there's things that I'm like really proud to be part of it.

I've been included in this. But I feel like I didn't do as much work as I could have. And I'm just happy to be attached to it, you know. So, you know, I mean, I did a the character design for Donnie Hathaway's Christmas music video.

It's about three or four years ago. And, and I was getting like all the glory for it. All I did, you know, my friend who owns the animation company did the video. You know, his name is David Calcano. He was, he's great, you know. And, but people were contacting me like I was the animator and everything. All I did was do a few drawings, but I was very lucky to just be involved in that project. And I, but I, I claim it, but, you know, it's a team effort sometimes, you know.

Rob Lee: So, you know, I, I talk about it in doing this. It's like, you know, it's only as good as the dance partner. You know what I mean? And I put it this way. I've done a podcast where I sat here by myself. He happened. It's called Rockervations. It was Rockervations.

Speaker 3: Rockervations, yeah. Dad jokes puns. That's 90% of my background. And, and I prefer having a conversation with someone. It's not the, the end all be all conversation. It's not the four hour exclusive tell all, but it's a snapshot, you know, kind of how you, you do your work.

It's a snapshot in many ways. And there's a few topics we're going to cover, but hopefully it's really to, you know, have something that feels like it's a conversation that folks can peer in on and maybe get some insight from, whether about the guest or whether about sort of the guest thinking or specifically about certain things in the guest work. And I try to keep it as open as that because that's the intent behind it. Um, but you only really get that based on the rhythm of how that conversation is going. So you probably notice in the conversation, there's some improv, improvisation that's happening here at times. And there's other times when I'm sticking directly to a certain question. Yeah. And, and that's just to keep it interesting and keep it fresh for the guest because you've probably asked, been asked these questions millions of times.

Lonnie Millsap : I'm always here to answer.

Rob Lee: So I got a couple more that I want to move into sort of the, the, the, the life, the life segments that we have here. Okay. Um, so I want to hear a bit about maybe from the, the, your work, but also the work that you enjoy consuming reference Dr. Knight earlier, um, you know, many people think cartoon is about being funny, but often like your work, uh, surprises folks. Cause like a, I think I mentioned when we were in CXC that I was on a flight reading, you know, my pockets of juicy giggling and Gafari, short of shortling, some might say. And you see a giant six foot four black man just giggling on a flight. It's like, what are you doing, sir?

I mean, I mean, there's no sap right here. Um, and there, there are jokes that stick out that are memorable. So from your perspective as both a maker and a consumer, what makes a cartoon truly memorable?

Lonnie Millsap : You know, it has to be sort of the combination of the, the, the drawing and the words just hitting, right? You know, I, um, uh, you know, and talking with, with Keith Knight about it, um, you know, uh, when I was new and he was sort of giving me advice a little bit, he was like, you know, even if your stuff isn't funny, it looks funny. You know, so part of it is like, you know, it kind of looks funny. You know, that's half the battle for me. You know, um, I do, you know, part of, you know, I guess it's hard to define what I think is funny because you may have, you talk about what's funny and it makes it less funny. You know, but, but I think that, um, uh, I do try to be kind of unpredictable or if I'm predictable, this, some tagline that sort of twists that a little bit, you know, um, uh, I think I told you before, uh, I think in Twitter, there was some feed that was in England that was going on. And I, for some reason it popped up in my feed. Oh, there's Lonnie.

He's done it again. And they were showing my cartoons and I was like, Oh, there's some fans. And I was like, I went to it and it was like a feed. It was hundreds of people thinking I was terrible. And so they were being very sarcastic. They're like, Oh, he's done it again. Actually, yeah.

Rob Lee: So it doesn't hit to everybody. It doesn't get, you know, but it was being seen. So I had to, I had to see it that way. So, uh, but I think, you know, and yeah, what makes this funny is this sort of the, the,

Lonnie Millsap : uh, I mean, you know, you can not know how to draw and have good captions and still make it funny. You know, like finite and happiness was like that. You know, um, just mind-blowing, you know, so hopefully my wordplay is the thing that is the thing that really pushes it over. Makes sense.

Rob Lee: And one of the things that I definitely want to highlight in the energy you touched on, I think it's, it's the intent. Like, you know, as you, you mentioned from, from, from Dr. Knight, so it was like, well, you work, it looks funny. So that's part of it.

That is going to be, yeah, just this. So bringing it to what I do, like I try not to be overly serious in it. I'm serious about what I do. My job is to guide this conversation and to have the proper framework and all of that.

And the parameters within me hitting the record button and me ending that record button. It's almost like a football game. It's like, whatever happens on the field is fine. Right. But, you know, getting to the game is sort of the important thing.

So I presented, I tried to give the guests as much to try to be accommodating and all of these different, I try to be a professional. So in it, when folks encounter me in real life and they're like, oh, you're a goofball. I'll say, no, yeah, for sure. 100%.

Speaker 3: But then it's a thing that's a switch that is hit. It's like, oh, but then you're really good at how you go about this stuff. Yeah, yeah, because it's my thing. So I carry what I do with a certain integrity and a sort of rigor, I suppose, but not something that will scare off someone who's just like, hey, I want to talk about cartoons for like an hour. Right.

Rob Lee: So I think that there, you know, is something important of how you present and how you want to be perceived and then sort of the work perhaps backfilling into it. It has to be good. It has to have something about it. And also the consistency is a thing too. Because I mean, look, you said what 2010 was the first book.

Lonnie Millsap : 2010 was the first book. And, you know, you know, it's funny. I was at a convention a couple of weeks ago and there was a guy that told me, he's like, well, if I buy this, I'm going to go through it in like five minutes.

You know, and I was like, yeah, I mean, I wasn't trying to push the book on him or anything. But this is the thing. Like over the years, people keep coming back and getting these books so they can go through them in five minutes and then go through them again and again and again, you know, the same book over and over again. So I would say that the jokes and the whatever I do has some staying power in there, you know, and, you know, that's satisfying, you know, because, you know, the cartoons, like this cartoonist that I follow, like this guy named Jim Benton, you know, I think he's incredible, you know, he's just, he's funnier than I will ever be, you know.

There's a couple other ones out there that are kind of the same way that I just love seeing their work. And, you know, I can just keep, you know, I'm not trying to look at the line quality or anything like that. It's like, that's a funny joke. I'll just look at it and it's like a very funny joke, you know. So, there's one to stick with you and I feel like I just try to, when I put out the first book, you know, it was a reaction kind of to against what I saw in bookstores where there would be books like mine, but I could get through them and not have one left, you know. So my goal was to get like six laughs out of 140 pages, you know. And the volume is a little higher than, you know, of laughter. So, you know, I've sort of stayed along that line the whole time, you know.

I just sort of want, you know, at some point in the book is going to make you laugh and then it'll make you laugh at like the next five or something, you know.

Rob Lee: We should make that a metric, you know, a last per page. It should be the metric.

Speaker 3: You could use that last per page. It's like, well, I'm going to have at least 20, you know, out of this, you know, 100, it's going to have 20. That's like a 200 percent, that's a 20 percent bad average. Is that going to keep in the major leagues? You coming in and playing defense?

Lonnie Millsap : Well, in the in the cartoon major leagues, they will though, because like I said, there's so many books that are humor books that you won't laugh at, you know, or laugh with. And that's what got me with Keith Nye's work, you know. You know, I was brand new. I was doing a book signing, but nobody knew who I was yet.

So nobody was there, you know. So I had time to roam the comic book store and I kept coming back to Keith's book and or one of Keith's books and I kept laughing, you know. Then just magically, I met him like two weeks later, you know. So, you know, there's, you know, I feel lucky and hopeful that I'm one of the people that can sort of maintain that and have people sort of laugh at my work. I try to even bring that into the New Yorker stuff. But, you know, the drawings might look different, but I try to put the same sensibility in that I have in all of my other work, you know, which means that the jokes might not be as, as, you know, I flew Luton is some of the New Yorker cartoons. Yeah. But they should be able to make someone who opens a New Yorker magazine in Shuckle.

Rob Lee: It's like, I know this is coming from the same source. Oh, he's stretching his wings a little bit. He's moving in this direction and this is a different feather on that wing. It's the same bird. Right.

Lonnie Millsap : I got three different crowds now. Yeah. They're like the same.

Rob Lee: So we've touched on Dr. Knight a couple of times. So I think that this is really, really a good point to use this as sort of the closing piece of it.

Right. So, you know, I met you briefly at SPX a couple of years ago through Dr. Knight. I just did an interview with him. It was like him and James Spooner I had in like the previous two weeks. And I was like, stop, Keith, just out of the random. And, and, you know, we were chit-chatting, I don't know what have you. I think I bought him maybe a book or something. And he mentioned you in, you know, like, yeah.

Speaker 3: Did you have on a suit then?

Rob Lee: I did not.

Lonnie Millsap : Okay. Okay.

Speaker 3: I'm excited, you know, but it's not a very... That'd be really funny. It's like, yeah.

Rob Lee: But he mentioned it and, you know, I think I popped over there briefly and it's just all so many things that are, are happening at SPX and CXC. And over the last three to four years, I've gone to SPX all but one year is like a regular thing that I look forward to. And the last two years, I've done CXC and it's very interesting. The first CXC that I did, I did a panel interview with Ben Passmore, who was the guest at the end of last season.

And this most recent CXC, I did that interview with you and you're the guest on this, the first guest on this season. So it's this community thing. And I see sort of the, the results of it through, through my work. So from your standpoint, it's community building. It's relationships and it's crucial. Why is it important, you know, your opinion to be involved in sort of this independent, this, this indie comic and cartooning scene? Why is that important and crucial to you and your, your career? Well, you know, I feel like, like

Lonnie Millsap : by being involved in that actually gets to show people that there's different avenues. Like, the, the, like Spooner, She's Night, Me, or, or we all cartoonist, we all do different things, you know, we're not pigeonholed into, you know, maybe doing superhero comics and stuff.

You know, there's a lot of people sort of focused on, on one thing. You know, there's a sort of a rainbow of different directions that you can go to, you know, as far as, as what I do, you know, and joy. Sort of being, you know, if I'm out there, you know, sort of peddling the book, I prefer being out in bookstores and less comic book conventions, but more kind of CXC kind of events and SPX. That's where I feel like I belong a little more, kind of like an outsider in a way, but then all of a sudden I fit in with everybody needed to, you know.

So, so I think it's just important to keep that going. I think the creativity that comes from those people that are mixed into all that is, is on a higher level and, and sort of less, I don't know, I can't think of the right word. There's a less of a sameness to it, you know. It's just more, yeah, just more vibrant, you know.

Yeah, if you go through like a regular comic convention, you just see a bunch of very high quality work, but it's all very kind of similar and, and there's not really as much of a place for some of the independent artists there.

Rob Lee: I, I save my book dollars, as I call it again, another metric of my book dollars. I save that for the CXC's and for the SPX's and literally what I do is, you know, quietly, I'm an advocate for folks reading more and I've said it before in this podcast that graphic novels, indie comics, they're gateway drugs to people reading more. And, you know, I'm looking at it right now.

I have a stack of probably 20 books that I've gotten between those two conventions this year. I mean, yours has been as powerful as well, just for the context. Right, right.

But again, it's definitely super important and I'll close on this piece before moving it to the rapid fire and the sage advice. I, yeah, I feel the same way, like, you know, I'm not of that crowd, but feeling accepted in that crowd and such that I'm able to bring folks into my work and they're like, absolutely, I'll do your podcast. Why didn't you ask me sooner? I was like, I didn't know you did podcast. So it's, yeah, natural and it feels accessible.

Lonnie Millsap : I feel lucky to be honest. I mean, I, you know, I don't do a lot of podcasts or it's just, yeah, thank you.

Speaker 3: This is, this has been a treat.

Rob Lee: So I got these, I got these rapid fire questions. I got three of them. So with the rapid fire, try to answer in one sentence or the shortest way you could possibly answer one sentence, one phrase, something like that. You said something earlier. So I gotta ask, who is your favorite Charles Schultz character? Snoopy. See, here's the, I knew it was going to be that, right? Because this is running bit.

This is purely a question I put in there. I added this for my girl because she's a big Snoopy person. Yeah, like, look, back in the day, she had this like Snoopy stuffed animal and I ended up finding that Snoopy stuffed animal and got it for her.

So that's like one of those things. She has like a bunch of stuffed animals. This is super embarrassing, but also this is her. She has a bunch of different stuffed animals and the Snoopy one has like precedents over all of them. And Snoopy is her favorite character.

Lonnie Millsap : Yeah, yeah. But I don't think you should just put that in there. I like Franklin too, you know, so my friend Rob Armstrong produced the Franklin cartoon that's out right now. And, and Armstrong is Franklin's last name because of Rob Armstrong who draws, draws his cartoon, you know, it's amazing. Here's the next one.

Rob Lee: What is your favorite setting to work? I like to lay on the floor. Before I got on here with you, I was laying on the floor writing questions. So what is your favorite like setup for working?

Lonnie Millsap : There's a don't have to keep it short laying on the bed. You got it? Yeah.

Rob Lee: Now this is the last one. This is the last one. This is the, this is the most binary of the three. Isle or window seat? Window.

Lonnie Millsap : All right. All right. See you. Well, because you get bumps. When they're bringing the things up and down the aisle, they hit my leg or my arm every time. I can't make myself narrow enough to not get hit, you know. I hear, yeah, people's hair gets on you and you know, there's all kind of, you know, all that stuff going by.

Rob Lee: It's all time.

Lonnie Millsap : And you don't get to see the, yeah, it's beautiful outside of the window.

Rob Lee: It's extra traffic. You know, someone's like trying to hand you, you know, they're, they're terrible, un, unflavored cranberry juice and it's on your white shirt. You're like, damn, what?

Lonnie Millsap : And airplane ice is about the dirtiest water there can be.

Speaker 3: Oh, no. Oh, that's who I'm sick every time. I say, oh, everybody has a cold from airplane ice.

Rob Lee: Please make that into a thing because that's all right. Here's the last one I got from you. It's the new segment. I'm kind of workshopping called Sage Advice. One more topic as we close out here. So from your perspective, as, you know, cartoonist and just with a wealth of knowledge and experience and doing all the types of just, just different work, but also rooted in a certain identity that you know what you do.

You know your lane. What's one common topic in comics that or in cartooning rather, that doesn't get discussed enough and you would like to like introduce it like just something that's behind the curtain, like inside baseball, if you will. Like I've gone to these podcast conventions recently and I mentioned the thing earlier of the new phrase that people are trying to work through is parasocial, you know, relationships and your average person that's listening to a podcast may not get that that's what's happening. That's how people are framing their work and making their work seem more personable. So from perspective, what's something that maybe a reader or someone that's not in the industry needs to know?

Lonnie Millsap : I would say this, you know, if there's a reader or someone who's not in the industry who wants to be in it, to not be intimidated by it. You know, I think nowadays with print on demand and everything, and I get a lot of people that come up to me saying, oh, there used to be a cartoonist and, you know, I didn't know what to do and now I've had my life and my wife, I've got grandkids now but I always wanted to be a cartoonist. Well, I started kind of late, you know, and I found out through with print on demand that you can make one book or you can make a thousand, you know, and you can make it out of vanity just to see what a book of your own stuff looks like and it doesn't cost anything, you know. So you just go to Kindle Direct Publishing and, you know, I think there's so many people, like if they knew that, there would probably be even, you know, there'd be a lot more bad content there but also good content, you know, there'd be people like, oh, you know, I didn't know I could do that, you know. So I kind of think just the, you know, advice, the debris, you know, they're going do it on your own and it's not as hard as you think it is, you know. That opens the doors to other things.

Rob Lee: That's really good, you know, some, some message advice right there. It's just you can do it, you can make it happen.

Lonnie Millsap : I can, anyone can. So that's it.

Rob Lee: We got it. We got the full thing in. So there's two things I want to do as we close out here. One, I want to thank you really for coming on to this podcast and spend some time with me. It's truly been a pleasure. It's been a lot of fun to reconnect.

Yeah, yeah. And secondly, any shameless plugs you want to give out, social media, website, any of that good stuff that you want folks to check out to engage with your work, the floor is yours.

Lonnie Millsap : I'm nominated for a thing called a James Berver Prize right now and that's for, uh, uh, I'm nominated for one of the, one of the cartoons that are nominated for the award. To me, it's like the Academy Award or cartoons. I don't know if I'm going to win, you know, if I don't, it's fine. I'm nominated.

I'll find out in February. So, you know, when this comes out, all you people, you know, just keep your eye out. Also look for my work in the New Yorker magazine on Instagram and I don't know what the title of my next book in, but my comic strip is called Bacon. It's on gocomics.com, but if you just type in my name plus the word bacon online, you should be able to find it and get a couple of free laughs.

Rob Lee: Those, uh, those, those last per pages and, um, yeah, you know, soon to be, you know, next award winning Lonnie Mills. I'm putting on manifesting it.

Lonnie Millsap : A manifest. Let's, let's, uh, manifest that. Yeah.

Rob Lee: And there you have it folks. I want to again, thank Lonnie Millsap for coming on to the podcast and spending some time with me. And for Lonnie Millsap, I am Rob Lee saying that there's arts, culture and community in an around your neck of the woods. You just have to look forward.