A zoology major turned cartoonist on the pigeon mustache that has scientists baffled, and how to make a cartoon mouse look like a jaded Broadway star.
“Shall I have a look through my rat/pigeon archives?” is not a question one is asked often in life, but when Will McPhail agreed to film this very handy tutorial on drawing vermin, such was his chipper query. I mean, the man owns a keychain that’s just a preserved pigeon foot. (Be comforted: the pigeon died of natural causes—well, maybe not that comforted.) If you’ve ever started drawing a wave of rats and just given up, this is the video for you. Maybe if enough penguins watch, they’ll finally figure out how to fly. . . .
—Emma Allen, New Yorker humor and cartoon editor
Do you draw with your left or right hand?
Right.
What art do you have hanging on your studio walls or above your drawing desk?
Lots of stuff, but right above my drawing board is a thing that Liana Finck did for the magazine about the work/life landscape.
Do you snack while you draw? If so, on what?
I eat miniature pork pies like they are going out of fashion. Which I think they did, in the seventeenth century.
Do you listen to music or podcasts while you draw? If so, which?
Absolutely, I can’t work in silence. Current podcast: “POOG,” with Kate Berlant and Jacqueline Novak. Current music: Phoebe Bridgers’s second album, “Punisher.” Both masterpieces.
What object or setting do you absolutely hate drawing?
Trump.
What’s your favorite New Yorker cartoon trope or cliché (e.g., desert island, Grim Reaper, Rapunzel tower, etc.)?
Mouse holes.
If you could have dinner with one cartoonist, living or dead, tonight, who would it be?
Tonight!? A little late notice to spring a dinner party on me but O.K. Jason Adam Katzenstein. I don’t feel like eating with a ghost right now, and Jason is a fun time.
What would you serve?
My famous miniature pork pies.
What was your favorite cartoon (strip or animation) as a kid?
“Calvin and Hobbes.”
What did you spend your first New Yorker cartoon-sale check on?
Electricity.
If you had to get a tattoo (or new tattoo) right now, what would you get?
A single pistachio on my lower back.
Dogs or cats?
Cats.
