Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Adam Zyglis dishes on drawing NY's biggest politicians

He grew up in a small town in Erie County watching Buffalo lose jobs and residents. Now Adam Zyglis is the editorial cartoonist for The Buffalo News, drawing the city’s resurgence … sometimes. He’s also the reigning Pulitzer Prize winner in editorial cartooning. Zyglis talked to City & State’s Jeff Coltin (just before this year’s Pulitzers are announced) about life as a Pulitzer winner, disparities in Buffalo and which New York political figure looks most like a caveman. The following is an edited transcript.

C&S: What's changed since you won your Pulitzer Prize?

AZ: I guess the best way to put it would be I sort of have a larger megaphone in terms of my work. The reach I have with my audience has grown. Other than that, just a ton of travel, and I can consume less news these days. I’m just excited to pass the Miss America crown to the next Pulitzer winner. It’s exciting, but it’s very exhausting, the year. In a good way.

C&S: Do you have official obligations as a Pulitzer winner, or are more outlets like us coming to you to chat?

AZ: Both, but I think it was the timing too. This was the centennial of the Pulitzer – 100 years – so they had all these things planned for the year in advance. There are documentaries, they’re doing these “Campfires,” these sponsored events to celebrate the Pulitzer. A lot of people, I’m assuming, would just go to the website and see last year’s winner. It was really wonderful, I was invited to tons of events. (There were) some cartoon shows of mine at different places around the country.

C&S: This year’s awards are being announced on April 18. Do you have a Pulitzer betting pool with your fellow winners?

AZ: (laughs) Each year I follow all my colleagues in general, and this year I’m president of the AAEC, the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, so I keep extra tabs on people. So I always have – even before I won – my three guys I thought should get it. It’s not always three, and I can’t really get into it this time around because I was actually a juror for my category this past year. I’m not really allowed to divulge any details other than I was part of the process. It was an amazing process. It reaffirmed my faith in the prestige of the Pulitzer and the scrutiny and work that goes into selecting the finalists.

C&S: How long have you been in Buffalo?

AZ: I grew up in Alden, which is about 40 minutes outside of Buffalo. I actually didn’t consider myself from Buffalo because it was a very rural area and I had the same outsider stereotypes. I went to Canisius College starting in the Fall of 2000 and that’s when I moved into the city. It’s been about 16 years. I’ve really grown up with the city coming back. The resurgence that’s been happening kind of started when I moved into the city for college. So the timing has been great.

C&S: Your Feb. 28 cartoon touches upon the disparities in Buffalo. It’s a homeless man sleeping on the street underneath newspapers touting all the good things happening in Buffalo – reminiscent of our own “Beyond the Billion” series. Do you see these changes overall as good? Do you see it as your job to be a critic of this positive press?

AZ: I think both. Growing up in the area and having my parents see the decline – seeing things genuinely come back in a really inspiring way, to ignore the amazing things that are happening, I think, is pretty ignorant. You have to celebrate them. But as journalist, my job is really to look with a critical eye at everything that’s happening, especially from government. Long story short, with Cuomo and the Buffalo Billion, you can’t deny that Cuomo has paid far more attention to Buffalo than previous governors. And because of that, you have to like him to a certain degree as a Buffalonian. Part of that could be self-serving. You know, he could be like, “This is my project to show the world that I can turn around this city.” The skeptic in me knows the seeds of the resurgence were placed decades ago. So if he saw a good opportunity – the public sector helped nurture this but it was ripe for revival anyway. The artist community has started that along with nonprofits. And the local economy has sort of set the stage for it. But the Buffalo Billion focused on some of these big projects, like getting IBM in or SolarCity. You need some of those larger things, but I would like to see more money earmarked specifically for poverty projects. Things that will help the East Side. They’re doing some of that. They’re doing job training centers, but I would like to see a little more.

C&S: You mentioned the artist community. Do you make art besides editorial cartoons?

AZ: I used to do book page illustrations for the Buffalo News which is editorial in nature, like the David Levine caricatures. I would do a little bit of freelance illustration as well, but I’ve been so busy the last couple of years between my full-time editorial cartooning job and my family life – I have a second child on the way – and with my role in my professional organization.

I think down the road I would like to get more involved in the art community because it really is an incredible place to be an artist. The cost of living is low enough that you can follow your dreams in an urban setting. The culture around here – and I have a lot of friends that are artists and in the local art community – it’s very different than in New York or Chicago. There’s competition here, but there’s really this community mindset where what’s good for one artist is good for everybody else, so there’s not as much infighting and backstabbing that you’ll see in some of these other larger cities.

I was just nominated to be a finalist for artist of the year by a Western New York arts council. We find out who the winner is in May, and the other finalists are this amazing painter and this musician, so I really feel honored to be considered a part of the art community here.

C&S: How do you stay informed?

AZ: It’s a part of the job that doesn’t stop. I always am consuming news. I get ideas often at different times. In the car, at the gym, wherever. It’s just like anything creative. The more I throw at myself in terms of content, the more I can actually mine some ideas out of that, so the goal is to consume as much as I can. Social media has been a great source of news. I follow all these news organizations on Twitter and that’s really helpful for breaking stuff. In general, I’ll consume The Buffalo News, some local sources here, local blogs and then a variety of stuff around the country. The New York Times and the Washington Post, you can’t not read them because they often create a lot of news in terms of international stuff with the Times and the Post on a national level. Politico is great. I always consume stuff at Politico for a lot more detail in terms of the campaign. NPR is always on the radio in my car. And I do look to The Wall Street Journal for sort of a right-leaning perspective. I look at The Hill in D.C. and The Guardian is my favorite international source as well. Really the first part of my day is tons of consuming, and then at night too.

C&S: Do you have a preference for drawing local, national, international news?

AZ: I think it really depends on the issue – it’s not the scale of the topic, it’s the issues close to my heart. Issues like social justice, equality. Things that are close to my generation as well, like gay rights, the environment. A lot of those things that are close to my voice as an artist, whether it is local or national, those are the cartoons that I like drawing the most.

But the response locally is extra special. Because people in Buffalo really pay attention. It’s a small enough community where you can really wrap your head around it. There’s definitely a collective conversation happening that’s easier to identify than New York or Chicago, where there’s more voices.

C&S: Who’s your favorite New York figure to draw?

AZ: Sheldon Silver is wonderful to caricature. The jowls, his expressions, he looks like Eeyore or something. He’s always been almost too easy. Cuomo I love, because of the challenge. I’ve grown to really enjoy drawing him. Spitzer was one of my favorite all-time New York figures to draw. He just has a very caveman-like geometric face. You can break it into shapes easily.

C&S: Did you read the comics as a kid? Where else have you found influence?

AZ: I think it’s important for artists to draw influences from all kinds of areas away from their actual field. That’s what makes an artist original, that they’re not trying to mimic somebody specifically in their field. So I think an advantage I had was that I didn’t follow Tom Toles or Jim Borgman and say, “This is who I’m going to emulate.” And you will see certain editorial cartoonists who will look very similar to Jim Borgman or MacNelly, and that’s sort of a disadvantage as a cartoonist. You want originality. So I grew up with David Levine, New York Review of Books. I love Toles for his creative thinking, but in terms of my artwork: MAD Magazine, comic book artists, Calvin & Hobbes. Even caricaturists like Krüger, who was a German painter who’s incredibly talented. I try and draw from all kinds of stuff. And as I grew into an editorial cartoonist, I really admired the work of Matt Davies, who is at Newsday right now and worked in New York for the Westchester Journal News before that, I believe. He’s a brilliant cartoonist. And Clay Bennett and Steve Sack, those were some of my mentors early on.

C&S: Western New York has seen a lot of sexual harassment scandals lately. What’s the best scandal of your career?

AZ: The Spitzer scandal was great for everybody. And it was equal parts sad and terrible. You don’t want to see your sitting governor do something like that, but as a journalist it was a gift. Being on the newsroom and having that break, I remember just the commotion in the newsroom. And because Spitzer was such a big character in my work, that became a memorable part of my editorial cartooning on the state level. Locally, there’s controversy, but nothing like that compares to Spitzer.