A New Yorker Cartoonist Demonstrates How to Draw a City

Jeremy Nguyen discusses how to capture the feel of a neighborhood in an illustration, and how that’s changed during the pandemic.

[soft music]- Hello.

My name is Jeremy Nguyenand I'm a new Yorker cartoonist.- Today we're talkingabout how to draw a city.- I moved to Bushwick in 2011and started drawing this comic stripcalled Stranger than Bushwick.I never really thoughtabout what drawing a cityor a neighborhood was likeuntil I started doing these cartoons.I personally think that a cityis way more than its buildings,you can draw it's peopleand if you're still drawing the city,capturing the details of likethe city has certain traffic lightsor the city has certainbushes and plants in it.I think that's almost more important.- So why don't we lookat some specific examplesof how to drive a city.- I love this cartoon.I think it's one of theweirder ones I've done.This is a sword swallowing cartoonwhere there's a guy in the storeswallowing a swordand the clerks are at the counter saying"This guy comes in all the time,spends hours putting swords in his mouth,and never buys anything."- Tell me about like how you sort ofbuilt this space.- I feel like I really couldn't sell youon the location of this placewithout putting a ton of swords.[laughs]A ton of daggers in it.Even the doormat has asword insignia on it.- I'm curious how often whenyou're drawing cartoons,you turn to like YouTubeand Google images?- I look at reference all the time.I love the jet, obviously Google images.Sometimes if you look uplike a sword swallower on Google,they'll show you like doc imagesbut then go on Pinterest,they'll show you like anactual sword swallowerwho has a blog and an Instagram account.You could go back and forth.Do you want the Halloweencostume version of something?Or do you want to go asauthentic as you can?Sword swallowers arekind of just rare to seeand you might think youhave one in your headbut what does the swordswallower even wear?What is the posture of sword swallowing?Having these arms raised upwas actually a challenge.As I was drawing the sword swallowerand wondering about what he wore.I thought about what if a sword swallowerhad no shirt on?That seemed a little too bizarreto put into a cartoon.So at least I gave him a little vestthat yes, allowed him tostill show off his absbut he was stilltechnically wearing clothesas he's out and about shopping.Then I drew some pants on himand when I got down to his feetI decided this guy,Is not gonna have any shoes on.- So I want to talkabout this other cartoon.That's sort of like the crasherof people inside dining.The caption is"That table is yoursonce that party decidesto move to the suburbs."This is such a complicatedsort of like Renaissance scenealmost with all like movement across it.How would you suggest someone go aboutstarting to try to drawsomething like that?- You wanna stage the characters,reading it like a book like left to right.So you have this setup on the left sideand then you have this punchlineon the right side.So of course I have these couple coming inand that begins this whole narrativeand then they look outinto the sea of what tables can they take?It is a complicated affairto balance this many charactersin the cartoon as well.I wanted to make sure thatthere was a rambunctious,crazy, Asian child'cause that's basicallyhow I was as a child.I think one of my favoritecharacters is this angry waiterwho has to deal with this all the time.So that's why he's like scowling.Then this hostess I mean,she's just fantastic.She's got the best fashionand this is like the first timeI employed gray tones for a cartoon.And it was definitely necessaryjust to delineate what'sin the foreground,what's the middle ground.What I like to do when Ihave a lot of charactersis to use depth to draw the viewer's eyewhere you want it to go.Most of your cartoon will be taking placein the middle groundand for today I amdrawing a restaurant tent.All these restaurantsin New York have these tentsthat are being put upin the parking lanes.In the foreground Ihave some people drawn.What's great about the foreground elementsis that they can helpcreate a sense of depthby having something closeto camera like this.In the background,you can employ something calledatmospheric perspectiveto not have to draw that much.That could be the backgroundis just a few lines.And I'm going to employa lot of grey tonesto create an environmentwhere we're looking past the dog walkerand the bicyclist,into the subjects in the middle ground.And in this particularscene there's this couplehaving a drink havinga little bit of wine.And one of them says,"It's missing the notes of car exhaust,cigarette smoke, and sewagesteam that I'm used to."- I really loved theminutia of everyday life,the mundane of everyday life.That's where I feel like I thriveso for this time to be like so weirdand so strange alreadyAnd so surrealistic.In real life, it's hard totransfer that surrealisminto a cartoon.- But you did make a very surreal version.Do you wanna describe it?- Yes.

So we have two characterswho are wearing masks.They notice that there'sa whole crowd of peoplewearing masks that aremade of different pastriesand different breads.And they say,"everyone's baking and sewing again."- You grapple with something here toothat a lot of the cartoonistshave been having trouble with, which isthe construction of a New Yorker cartoonthere's usually one person speakingand the types captionis what they are saying,but now it feels almost irresponsible.I think for people to drawespecially outside in a crowd,like anyone without a mask on.- Yeah.- And so this guy is beinga little bit of an ass holelike pulling up his mask to make this clip- That was the onlysolution I could think offor someone to be indicatingthat they're talking.So for this bread mask cartoon,I knew that I was going to be drawinga lot of peopleand I love drawing crowds.People are just so much more fun to drawthan a park background.I don't always wanna drawa sidewalk or buildings.Of course I wanted to drawall kinds of different pastries and buns.That was the entire joke for me.Then I drew thesecharacters in the backgroundwho had to be commentingon the scene of course.I filled in one character,the speaking characters shirt black,so that your eye is drawntowards him right away.After I drew out all thecharacters in the sceneand the backgrounds,then I go in and add agreat tone to the back,to sort of give this somesort of framing deviceas well as a composition.And I always liked to framethe speaking charactersin the white,they sort of break the horizon lineand then I just add text and there you go."Everyone's baking and sewing again."- One of the things Ilove about this cartoonis just how viscerally and tasting it is.It's the rare cartoonthat really makes yousuddenly like smell a croissant.- Yeah, that croissant.I don't think I've drawn abetter croissant than that.[upbeat music]