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Life and Art from FT Weekend

Liana Finck, New Yorker cartoonist, on finding confidence and creativity in quarantine

Life and Art from FT Weekend

Forhecz Topher

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture

4.6601 Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2020

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Lilah talks to Liana Finck, a graphic novelist and New Yorker cartoonist with a fan base on Instagram that’s half a million strong. Liana is known for her funny and astute explorations of what it means to be human. She talks about how to free yourself up to be creative in quarantine, where confidence comes from, the most interesting human expressions to draw and what it’s like to have Ariana Grande slide into your DMs.


We also share some of your Netflix recommendations, which we are still collecting to publish! Let us know what we should be watching that the streaming algorithms are hiding from us. Fill out our short form at ft.com/culturecallout, or email us at [email protected]. If you want to get social, we're on Twitter @FTCultureCall and Instagram at @griseldamurraybrown and @lilahrap.


Links and notes from the episode:

–A special gift from us to you: sign up to the FT's Coronavirus Business Update newsletter and get free access to our journalism for 30 days https://www.ft.com/newsletter-signup/coronavirus?segmentId=0d92d58c-2c7d-178e-6aa8-81529dd53b1b

 

About Liana Finck:

–Liana's Instagram: https://instagram.com/lianafinck/

–Her graphic memoir is called Passing for Human

–Some of Liana’s New Yorker cartoons about quarantine: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/some-drawings-from-week-three-at-home

–Unpopular likes and unpopular dislikes: https://www.instagram.com/p/B8pSyMMlHcG/

–Me/you/us, plotted: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_Yy65xlYQB/

–Liana’s recommendations for which graphic novels to start with:

  1. Everything is Flammable, by Gabrielle Bell
  2. Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast
  3. Wendy, by Walter Scott

 

–Lilah and listener Martha O’Neill’s film recommendation, Three Identical Strangers, is on Netflix

–Martin Wolf video: How might the world be different after the pandemic? https://www.ft.com/video/dafc3578-5c76-412a-8ba3-016495031bd1

–Martin Wolf column: Maintaining the lockdown and saving the economy are mutually compatible (paywall) https://www.ft.com/content/e486590e-8539-11ea-b872-8db45d5f6714

–Apps about trees: Tree Talk (London) and Leafsnap (US and UK)

–Gris' film recommendation, 120 BPM, is on Hulu and available to rent

–Listener Victoria Amico's Netflix recommendations are 13th (Ava DuVernay's documentary on racialised mass incarceration in the US) and The Great Hack (on the Cambridge Analytica scandal)

–Listener Kana Kamagae's Netflix recommendations are Never Have I Ever (Mindy Kaling’s TV series) and Tigertail


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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello, you're listening to Culture Call, a transatlantic conversation from the Financial Times.

0:11.3

I'm Griselda Murray Brown in London.

0:13.4

And I'm Lila Raptopoulos in New York.

0:16.2

Coming up on today's episode.

0:19.9

For some reason, I like to draw greed.

0:23.4

I think greed is very, very funny.

0:25.8

Like, it's the scariest feeling to me,

0:28.4

maybe because I was such a good little girl

0:30.2

who tried to never be greedy.

0:32.3

I think stupidity is really funny.

0:33.9

If you expected something and your expectation was foiled,

0:36.9

that's a really

0:37.5

silly place to be. And I like the facial expression that comes with it.

0:45.8

Today's guest is the New Yorker cartoonist, Leanna Fink. Yeah, you may recognize Leanna Fink.

0:51.1

Her work is all over the New Yorker. She has this very simple, fast style of line drawings that kind of perfectly articulate the awkwardness of being human. She's just very good at that. She also has a monthly New Yorker illustrated advice column from the point of view of her dog called Deer Pepper, which is excellent advice, actually. As a testament to her

1:13.5

ability to articulate the things that we feel but can't ourselves, she is extremely popular on

1:19.3

Instagram. She has about half a million followers. Arianna Grande got in touch with her because

1:24.5

she really wanted her to illustrate her single that came out during quarantine with Justin Bieber called Stuck With You.

1:30.9

And honestly, most importantly, she's just an very original person with a very unique and delightful mind.

1:37.1

And it was a pleasure to speak with her.

1:43.4

Lila, I can't believe it's now our penultimate episode of the season.

1:48.2

I know. There's a part of me that wants to say, like, it went by so fast, but, and it did go by so

...

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