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Keith Knight: "All That Crack and Nobody to Smoke it With"
A journey into the mind of one of the most
controversial cartoonists today
By Victor Vazquez
 I recently
got the chance to talk to cartoonist Keith Knight about his strip The K Chronicles
and about comics in general. He's put out two collections through Manic D Press
and also is doing a new one panel comic called Think for Africana.com. He is crossing his fingers for an animated series
on Nickelodeon.
Youth Radio: What makes comics different from other art forms?
Keith Knight: To me, it's funny 'cause comics are like super low brow
art, they're like the Rodney Dangerfield of art forms, it's not taken seriously,
but on the other hand it is taken really seriously. I mean it is like one of
the few forms of art besides photography that you see in newspapers every day,
that millions of people have access to very easily, and very quickly, people
see it constantly, yet they take it for granted.
A lot of people, the first thing they turn to in the newspaper is the comic
strip, but editors are also the first ones to cut the comic strip — especially
on alternative weeklies for ads. Y'know "sorry, we can't pay you 25 bucks, it's
just too much." It's like they don't understand that cartooning is like, such
a great combination of drawings, of art, and text, it's like a perfect combination
of it. It does something that books can't do and it does something that films
can't do. A film takes time and money and a lot of stuff. All it takes is a
piece of paper and a pen to do a comic strip. And you just start with a blank
page and you can do anything with it. Anything, which is really amazing.
YR: You hit on subjects like racism, especially in this new Think
strip, or square thing, so how do you make yourself funny and still be socially
relevant?
KK: I'm still trying to figure that out. I think my most humorous stuff
is when I have conversations with people and we work that stuff out. Just talk
with people. My strips just come out so many different ways, it hard to describe.
Like, the Amadu Dialo strip, which I think is one of my favorite ones, is when
the four cops got off for killing Dialo. I was furious, but I simply just thought
of the image of 41 shots, like when does shooting go from defense to offense.
Is it ten shots? Is it 20 shots? Is it 30 shots? It has to be somewhere there.
So I just thought of the image of this little girl asking the police officer…
well first of all I thought of the Tootsie Roll Pop thing, you know the thing,
it's an old commercial…
YR: Oh yeah, how many licks does it take…
KK: How many licks, yeah… so it's like, "Mr. Police Officer, Mr. White
Police Officer, how many shots does it take for police officers to defend themselves
from an unarmed black man?" And he's like "Unarmed black man? Well, let me see…"
and the shooting begins: BLAM BLAM BLAM and all through it is BLAM BLAM BLAM
and at that point I didn't know how to end it… I didn't know what to say but
after the shots are done he's like "41" and she's like, "Well, Mr. Officer,
don't you think that's a little excessive?" and then… I walked around for a
day to think of how I would end it. You can't really do it out of reaction,
out of anger cause it's not going to be very effective. But, God, I was sitting
on the bus and I was just like, the words "if you folks would just lighten up,
this wouldn't happen to you." That line was such a perfect, like, "yeah, lighten
up" perfect. I don't know, that stuff just comes through, I don't know, meditation…
and talking to people.
YR: So do you ever get censored and get angry letters and offend people?
KK: I'll tell you this, it's so funny you asked me that because I just
did a strip about, I was just saying how I've gotten a lot of freelance jobs
lately so I'm finally able to afford medical insurance so it's like a big thing,
so… the strip was about how I was flaunting my good fortune to woo the ladies.
 So I'm in a bar and I'm like, "Oh, (cough, cough) oh, I seem to have
a cough I think I'll go down to the hospital and use my new medical insurance."
Y'know and I'm flickin' and flashin' my new card, and I'm going through all
these goofy things. I'm buying an albacore tuna and stuff, but the final thing
is, I'm standing on skid row, and I draw myself with this big thing of crack
cocaine, and I'm like, "Whoo! Lookie here! All this crack and nobody to smoke
it with!"
And so then, my editor calls in a newspaper — I won't name the newspaper
— and she's like, "Well… uh… the publisher has a problem with this final
thing." And I'm like, "What? What's wrong with it?"
Well, you know, we have a lot of liberal people who might have a problem with
blacks being associated with crack cocaine." And I'm like, "Whu-? A black man
wrote it! Who cares? It's just a joke!" And it was funny because she wasn't
worried about black people being bent out of shape, she was worried about white
liberals being bent out of shape seeing it, and I'm like, "Well, why don't you
just run it and see what happens?" and she's like, "Well, people are going to
think like we let it happen" and I'm like, "Who cares?"
If people — whatever the reaction is — write to the paper, if they
are moved enough to write to the paper, whether it's positive or negative, I
think it's a great thing. If people write to me and they're like, "Hey! Blah,
blah, blah…!" and they have a legitimate thing, and they're not saying "Oh,
I'm gonna shoot you!" or anything, but they have a legitimate problem with it,
and they voice their opinion, I think that's the greatest thing in the world;
for people to participate.
It's like voting — whether it's positive or negative, it's a good thing.
God, I just got into it with her… I always say this all the time: newspapers
are there to entertain, inform, and challenge people, and she goes "Where's
the challenge there?" I said, "Well… first of all the challenge is letting the
readers see it. That's the big thing. Don't make their decisions for them. And,
two, how do they react to that? Are they so caught up in PC that… I can't joke
about me going and buying a big thing of crack?" You got me ranting now, I'm
sorry.
YR: No, it's alright.
KK: People are more uptight here in the Bay Area about that stuff than,
my strip runs in Salt Lake City, Utah; Fortworth, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina.
People are more uptight in the Bay Area about that stuff than anywhere else,
so if you think you're all… all you clowns out in the Bay Area, it's just [laughing]…
I don't know, I'm sorry… You folks are too uptight! YR: Lighten up!
KK: Lighten up! Yeah… that's my strip again: lighten up. YR: Okay…
What about angry fan letters?
KK: I've gotten death threats before, for my anti-gun strip. And they
were all from the East Bay. But they were like, "You watch your back, blah,
blah, blah." I made these jokes that the right to bear arms were about grizzly
bear arms, like back in the day, you could collect grizzly bear arms and then
hippie activists started saying "No, no! We have to save the bears! Let's just
change it to guns." And people were writing back like, "That will never hold
up in court! You're nuts! Blah, blah!" and just stuff like that.
Lately, the bad letters that I get are people that just don't get it. This letter,
I did this one about Clinton had approved all these jobs, like requirements
for handicapped people to be hired in all these jobs on like a quotas type of
thing- gasp! And so I had this angry white male saying, "You see this? This
is quotas! Blah, blah, blah… that's wrong! I'm not going to get a job because
somebody in a wheelchair is going to get a job, y'know, blah, blah, blah… those
people got it good anyway, they get all the good parking spaces, some of them
get to sit down all day!" and then he goes (whispering) "Hey, I know, it's not
like I have anything against them, my cousin sat next to one of them in the
second grade." All this stuff… and the final thing is: now black people will
understand how we suffered for 30 years under affirmative action.
So this… disabled advocate wrote in and was saying- she thought it was really
done by a white guy, an angry white guy- and she was like, "I can't believe
you! Blah, blah!" She didn't see the sarcasm in it, and it was just a total
missed thing. And that happens to me a lot. People miss the gag and they write
to me and they're all mad. And then they don't write their return address, like
for me to try to explain to them and…
YR: Who are your favorite cartoonists and why?
KK: Who are my favorite cartoonists? I can't say I have any super favorite
favorite favorite cartoonists, but there are so many different influences and
stuff, people who are working right now, Aaron McGruder, is great, the guy who
does The Boondocks. I love the stabs he's taking at things and people,
and I love his style. More power to him. The stuff jumps off the page, it's
way different than anything on the page and it's great to see him there.
Doonesbury is a big influence, just the mixture of fiction and nonfiction,
and just the fact that he's been doing it for quite some time. His early stuff
is what really inspired me. He used to do this Black Panther stuff that was
really cool.
Just going back, um, Gary Larson, who did the Far Side, and Bill Watterson,
who did Calvin and Hobbes, and Berke Breathed who did Bloom County,
way back in the day.
Mad Magazine, big influence, Pedro Bell who did the cartoons for P-Funk,
all the P-Funk albums and stuff. I used to buy P-Funk albums just for the cartoons.
And, uh, jeez, Warner Bros. Cartoons, those were a big influence, uh… there's
more, I just can't think of… oh, Charles Shultz, Peanuts, he was a big
influence when I was a lot younger.
YR: What are your least favorite ones, then?
KK: Oh, jeez, that can't be started… It seems to be the ones with like
one single name I don't like. Like Cathy.
YR: Oh, I hate Cathy.
KK: Yeah, Cathy just kills me. I can never make it through the
third frame of that. I am like, the wordiest cartoonist in the world, but I
can't read, like… her stuff is just… I mean, God bless her, she's one of the
early women cartoonists, whose paved the way for others, but God, that's a downer.
Curtis is another one that I can't stand…
YR: Actually, I kinda… I've read it for so long that I… but it's not really
entertaining…
[I'd like to interject here that I once saw a thing on Reading Rainbow
about Ray Billingsly, the creator of Curtis and I always had a soft spot
in my heart for it, despite the fact that it wasn't too funny.]
KK: It's horrible… It's horrible. Luann is another one that I
can't stand. That guy, I think I got something against that guy more than the
rest of them cause it's a guy doing a girl strip. And I think that's even more
insulting. At least it's a woman doing Cathy and it's a black guy doing
Curtis, but it's like a guy doing, like, girls just wanting to get laid.
Ah, it makes me sick, anyway… I think those are the three that bug me the most,
but um, there's a few more out there the bug the hell out of me, a lot of the
older ones, like Blondie, put that to rest, give me a break, it just
goes to show you how great Charles Shultz was.
Charles Shultz in the end, maybe he wasn't, y'know "ha, ha" funny, but it never
pissed me off to see it there… It never bugged me to see his stuff in there.
I'm never like, "What the hell is this guy still doing in here?" It's just like
his drawing style was just cool, and I'll tell ya, if you look at cartoonists
before he existed and cartoons, comic strips after he existed, he really did
so many amazing things. I mean, he incorporated religion into his strips without
pissing me off. It was never a preachy thing. It was amazing. He was great.
And he did it for 50 years, like non-stop. Y'know, he might have taken like,
one break. I can't even do a weekly strip, it drives me crazy. But a daily strip?
And the rest of these guys who've been doing it for a thousand years and they
die off and someone else does them? Screw it. Put 'em to rest! And put some
new people in there.
YR: What perks are there about being a cartoonist? And what are some of the
bad things?
KK: Well, all the drugs and the hookers are reeeally cool… no, I don't
know, it's like doing your own little film, you have your own page and you can
do whatever you want. Pigs can fly, you can go to Mars, you can shrink real
small and go into some one's body and no one's going to sit there and go, "Hunh!
That's not real." They don't sit there and question that and that's the greatest
thing about cartooning. That's a great opportunity for me to just do what I
want to do. One of the goals in the K Chronicles was to be a voice that
people could relate to but also just anyone could relate to, and I just try
to kinda like be the every, every…
YR: Every woman?
KK: Yeah, every woman… I let the woman out. No, it's just…
YR: Well, what about the least favorite things?
KK: The least favorite things, well… wait, there's still a lot of good
things.
YR: Okay, continue.
 KK: Self syndication. I've been asked to do a daily strip
version of the K Chronicles, but I know it would be horrible because
the daily thing would drive me up a wall and it wouldn't be funny it would be
horrible, but, everything that they find funny about my strip they would take
out because, y'know, I couldn't do "Hey look at all this crack and nobody to
smoke it with." That would not make it. That stuff wouldn't fly.
So it's good that I'm able to do whatever I want, I sleep till 10:30 and I wake
up and go play tennis before I do anything. So that is a great thing. That's
probably the best thing: sleepin' late.
And as far as bad things, I'm my own boss. That's a bad thing. You know, I sit
around, you know, watch some Digimon, instead of doing work, I'll look
at the ceiling and count the cracks in the ceiling or whatever before I actually
get stuff done. You know, so the fact that I'm my own boss is probably a bad
thing.
And, you know? I would say the pay. The pay is completely outrageous. Cartoonists
don't get near enough… Us and school teachers should get paid what athletes
get paid, y'know?… Heck yeah. And that's a sad thing. But like I said, I've
gotten a few freelance jobs so, I've just got medical and dental insurance,
so I ain't too shabby. I know I'm doing "okay", I don't have to have a real
job.
YR: Okay… this is a kind of asked question but how do you get your ideas?
KK: I get ideas just by what happens to me and if I did a daily strip,
I would have no life because I would sit and be drawing all the time, so I wouldn't
know what to write about… yeah just what happens.
YR: So everything in your life is funny?
KK: No, but everything in my life should be a tax write-off because I
write about my life. Yeah, but the IRS doesn't share my views. No, no, believe
me, I make up most of my stuff, you know, all that supermodel girlfriend stuff.
YR: I was actually going to ask you about that.
KK: No, no. I lead a sad and lonely life. Solitary life: that's the cartoonist's
life did you know that?
YR: No, well I'll prepare myself. Do you think you're a funny person. Do
you laugh at your comic strips?
KK: No there's very few that I'll laugh at. Like the ones that I know
will make my editor wince, those make me laugh. There's one I did about a dad
talking to his kid about guns, but at the beginning, you think he's talking
about sex, he's like, "Son, I think it's time you and I had a father-to-son
talk."
And you don't notice at first but there's a big bulge in his pants and he points
and he says, "Do you see what that is? Do you know what that is?" and he points
to the bulge in his pants. And when I was writing it, it totally makes me laugh.
I was watching one of my editor's read it and when it got to that panel, you
could see her face all drop.
And what happens is, he points to his bulge and he goes, "You know what that
is? Well, let me reach in here and show it to you." So he reaches down his pants
and he pulls out a gun. You could see the relief on her face when he pulls out
the gun for the kid instead of his genitalia, which really says a lot about
our society, doesn't it? "Oh, it's only a gun. That's not bad. He's talking
about guns instead of sex."
So that's pathetic in itself, and the bulge thing made me laugh… I've come to
the conclusion that adults are far more uptight than kids are. And they'll sit
there and say, like, "This is a family newspaper, we don't want our kids to
see that." But they don't want to see it. Anything I do in my strips,
kids have seen plenty of times before and have heard far worse and the hoity
toity attitude that editors have, just amazes me, "No! Our readers, they're
heads will explode, they can't handle it." Give me a break.
There you have it folks: Keith Knight. Give him a break.
—Victor Vazquez is a writer and artist for
Youth in Control. He does his own comics and various written
things.
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