Meet the Artist: P.C. Vey
The New Yorker, December 6, 2004, by P.C. Vey
P.C. Vey (second from left) and some of the TCB licensing team
(A reprint from the April 2009 Cartoon Bank licensing newsletter.)
Art runs in Peter Vey’s blood. The longtime New Yorker contributor’s father was a painter, and his mother was a photographer and did watercolors. Peter grew up under the influence of his parents’ professions, and of The New Yorker itself, which he’s read steadily since he was a teenager. For the past 16 years, his droll, occasionally mordant quips on modern life have appeared in the pages of the magazine he grew up with.
Our sales team sat down to lunch with Peter to find out who his cartoonist idols are and just why he started going by “P.C. Vey” in the first place. Read on to learn the answers!
TCB: How did you first encounter The New Yorker?
PCV: I had to have an operation when I was a kid, and when I was in the New York Children’s Hospital gift shop, I saw a copy of The New Yorker and sort of fell in love with it. I had to go back afterward for check-ups, and every time I would always go back to the gift shop and pick up The New Yorker.
Later, my dad became an art teacher at a school in Brooklyn, and I went there on a full scholarship. The scholarship required that I have a job, so I worked in the library, shelving books and periodicals, and so I was able to read The New Yorker there, too. I remember kids coming up to me saying, “Did you see the new story by Woody Allen?”
TCB: When did you start cartooning, and when did you start submitting work to the magazine?
PCV: I started drawing at a young age, and started doing cartoons as a teenager. I submitted my first cartoon to The New Yorker in 1978, during my senior year at the School of Visual Arts. I sold some ideas to them for a while, but my first cartoon was accepted in 1993.
Peter's first New Yorker cartoon, published in the November 22, 1993 issue
TCB: Where do you do most of your work?
PCV: I have a studio – literally an 8’ x 10’ space in my apartment, filled with boxes of cartoons, everything crammed into one area. And no window. But I’m used to it.
TCB: Why did you start signing your work “P.C. Vey”?
PCV: When I was a kid, I signed “Vey” to my work. Then my father took me aside and said, “Kid, only I sign my paintings ‘Vey.’” So after that, I became “P.C. Vey.”
The New Yorker, February 2, 2004
The New Yorker, August 25, 2008
TCB: Who are some of your cartoonist heroes?
PCV: Charles Addams and George Price were big inspirations for me. Gahan Wilson is another. In the younger generation, I think Zach Kanin is one of the most interesting cartoonists of all time. I love his ideas – like the “Please take care of my brick” cartoon.
The New Yorker, March 3, 2008, by Zach Kanin
