Who are the major Jewish comic artists working now?

Among the people working, there is certainly Joann Sfar, Ben Katchor and myself. It’s not a primary area of concern for me. I’m equally interested in the work of Chris Ware, R. Crumb… I’m more interested in intelligent versus stupid, as opposed to Jewish versus not Jewish.

So – would you rather consider yourself a political cartoonist?

There is a healthy history of radicalism that’s led to some great political cartooning that ranges from Herb Block through Jules Feiffer. There’s a tendency, at least amongst diaspora Jews, to gravitate towards things dealing with disenfranchisement – people who are under the gun, so to say. I understand there are a lot of weird neo-con Jews who have created this policy that led us into the mess we’re in right now, but I can’t really think of any important neo-con Jewish cartoonists right now. Again, I’m not that sure how fruitful identity politics are when applied to art. When you talk about it being autobiographical and self-reflective – that’s not a monopoly that my people have.

You were really outspoken against censorship of the US media in the post-9/11 arch-patriotism of the Bush era. You resigned from The New Yorker in protest. You even talked about exiling yourself to Europe. Are things better now with Obama?

Yeah. I don’t want to move to Europe right now. It’s a nice continent, but I’ll stick to my poor beleaguered country because we’re all poor, beleaguered countries now. At least there’s someone intelligent in charge. I wish he would be more radical than he is, but I’m so grateful to be out of the malignancy of the Bush years, so I give Obama a lot of slack.

So if you had a work like In the Shadow of No Towers, you wouldn’t have to publish it in Die Zeit anymore?

I would love to publish it in Die Zeit, but I wouldn’t have to.

You’ve called the political cartoon a “disappearing species”. Is that more to do with the political climate or the economic climate of our times?

It’s the technological climate! The newspapers are an endangered species. Although they’re beginning to appear on the web, for the most part political cartoons are the product of newspapers and magazines, and those things are very wobbly at the moment, as we move into a revolution that’s as big as Gutenberg’s. So the category is in great danger. I never considered myself a political cartoonist. I was drafted several times by world events back in the heyday of the Vietnam War and in the run-up to the Iraq War. It’s not my primary focus. It just happens when I can’t avoid it.

What is your primary focus?

I am a Talmudic scholar of comics.

What do you mean by that?

I am interested in what happens when words and pictures are put together to narrative ends, and most of my work in one way or another is focused on that category.

So now you’re not a Jewish artist, not a political artist. Now you’re a Talmudic scholar.

That’s bullshit! I didn’t say that “now”. I said that I am and I always was… None of the work came out of some agenda to make political art or Jewish art. It came out of a need to express myself and make art, and that art is informed by a lifelong engagement with comics. So it makes a nice headline, but it’s not trueto say NOW I’m a Talmudic scholar of comics, I was always a Talmudic scholar of comics.

You won’t be coming to Berlin. Too bad – Germans really like you.

I like Germans too… I’d love to be there if I could figure out how to make time for it. My Protestant work ethic has kept me busy.

HEROES, FREAKS AND SUPER-RABBIS | Through August 8. For more information, visit www.jmberlin.de