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Bored Panda reached out to Navied to learn more about him and his comics.
We asked Navied to tell us how comics came into his life. He shared: “I wish I had some moving and inspirational story about how I came to cartooning, but I just decided to do it one day. I guess I can always make up a story. So one day I was bitten by a radioactive cartoonist…”
“Before the pandemic, The New Yorker had a long-standing tradition of open meetings on Tuesdays where anyone could come in and meet with the editor. While visiting New York in 2017, I went into the office on one of these Tuesdays with some cartoons I had drawn and met with the humor editor, Emma Allen. I was lucky enough to sell my first cartoon that week. I’ve been cartooning ever since.”
He added, when answering whether he was always accompanied by art: “Like every other kid who was bored in school, I doodled growing up. But I was an elementary school teacher before transitioning to cartooning and comics.”
Though Navied was not bitten by a radioactive cartoonist to gain his superpower for making humorous cartoons, he sure is talented nonetheless. He shared his process and where the inspiration comes from: “I’ve been making a lot more comics lately, which is a very different process than cartoons. Typically for cartoons, I come up with an absurd premise, like two whales in bed, and then brainstorm what the funniest thing they could say is. Other times, when I’m lucky, I’ll overhear someone say something funny, like 'I’ve become my mother,' and then I’ll brainstorm the funniest set-up for it. With comics, I tend to draw more from my own life, like growing up as an Iranian-American or teaching my daughter magic or being an idiot.”
He shared what else helped him in making his cartoons so funny: “I studied philosophy and classics in undergrad and have a masters in elementary education, which helped in its own way since I learned most of my jokes while teaching 5th grade. If you do something for long enough, you’ll eventually get good at it. Not great, just good,” shared Navied.
Navied has been drawing for The New Yorker for over 5 years now, so we wanted to know more about his work there. “The best part about freelancing for the New Yorker is truly the community of cartoonists. You’d think it would be cutthroat since we’re all competing for a limited number of sales each week (memoir title idea: The Cutthroat Cartoonist), but everyone is so supportive and kind. Selling to the New Yorker for the first time definitely spurred me on to create more, but more than anything, it’s the relationships I have with the other cartoonists that continue to stimulate me to make more. And to be wracked by feelings of insecurity and imposter syndrome since everyone else is so much funnier. I’M A HAAAAACK,” shared Navied.
Being a freelancer sure does sound fun, having a flexible schedule, working from home, and so on. We asked Navied to share how often he tends to create. “Creating looks different on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes, like when I was writing my book, I would draw for 16 hours a day. Other days, I just read in the bath, which is an essential part of the artistic process. I swear! For better or worse, I’m thinking about work all day, even when I’m not at my desk, which may just be the curse of working freelance. It’s hard to separate work from home life since my desk is always 14 steps from wherever I am in my apartment. Generally, though, I don’t have the impulse to create like many of my friends seem to have. They are always drawing and painting, and sketching for fun. I guess I could always be doing more,” shared Navied.
And lastly, we were curious about Navied’s experience in seeing people have fun with these comical cartoons and making people laugh. He shared: “In some ways, I think cartoonists are incredibly fortunate to work in the social media age. Every cartoonist has a story ('that one time when') of seeing someone on the subway reading their cartoon in The New Yorker. But with social media, you get likes (sweet sweet dopamine) and comments (like 'This isn’t funny'). But in all seriousness, I think we get the opportunity to get to see people having fun with our art in a way that previous generations may not have had. Please like my cartoons.”
