(Are there many other Native American cartoonists?) There are tons, but the thing is they’re drawing for their respective tribal newspapers. I’m the … - Ricardo Caté

My panels are simple. I get to do that. People say, It’s badly drawn. I say, Well, I’m not making an effort to make it great. The thing is the message, not the drawing. And then they said, Well, if you drew a little better, maybe you would get considered for the Pulitzer Prize. Okay. Maybe I’ll work on it.

I grew up in the 70s when Mad was huge, especially for us nerds. Mad was just big at the time and I was in grade school seeing humor for the first time that wasn’t Native humor. Don Martin was my favorite cartoonist at the time and he was just a big influence. The way he drew the cartoons and the sounds were just hilarious. Around that same time was Andy Capp. He also had the big nose and you couldn’t see his eyes. I always thought that was pretty cool. You could still get the point across, you could still get his emotions even without using the eyes. I saw that as a challenge, so in 2010, I took the eyes off my characters.

It’s all we can do. Otherwise we’ll go crazy. It’s a really good time [for creativity]. People will probably look back on these few months and say these Americans were pretty creative during this virus. Some artists are using it to their advantage: making videos and coming up with songs. As a cartoonist, I'm simply on that train.