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Cartooning Interviews Magazine cartoons

Roz Chast and Grant Snider

Published: March 23, 2026 1 minute 6 comments

Françoise Mouly on Roz Chast’s new New Yorker cover and Bob Eckstein interviews Grant Snider.

Roz Chast Block Printing

Roz Chast, The New Yorker – March 30, 2026

Françoise Mouly calls it “block printing,” I have always called it “woodcuts,” I guess it is also called “wood engraving.” It there a difference?

Anyway here is Roz Chast‘s New Yorker cover for March 30, 2026.

Bob Eckstein Interviews Grant Snider

Books Are… by Grant Snider

I, like Bob Eckstein, am a fan of Grant Snider‘s comic strip pages. So this interview entertained me.

This special edition is a conversation between cartoonists Grant Snider and Bob Eckstein to celebrate World Oral Health Day (Grant Snider is also an orthodontist. Bob Eckstein wore braces.).

Bob: Grant, when was your first big break?

Grant: Later on I became a regular contributor to the NY Times Book Review. After over a decade of being published in the Book Review I’ve wrapped up that engagement, but I’m very pleased with the work I did there.

Now I seek out publication mainly in the book world. I have countless ideas for picture books, poetry comics collections, visual essays, and even the occasional novel. But I let the idea dictate what form the story takes.

Bob: Were you formally trained?

Grant: Yes—but as a dentist, not an artist. Not much help when it’s time to put pen to paper!

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Comments 6

  1. Re: block printing vs. woodcuts vs. engraving, it depends on the medium. If Roz carved them into wood then yeah, woodcuts would be correct. More likely she carved her designs into pads of rubber like rubber stamps are made of or, even more likely by the look of them, sheets of linoleum specially made for the purpose. Those are called “linocuts.” I’ve been doing some linocuts myself lately!

    I’d say that “woodcut” and “linocut” are specific techniques that both fall under the block printing umbrella.

    1. I agree that the marks left in the art make it look more like linoleum (rather than wood), but there were a few details (such as the signature) that made me suspect that the artwork might have been made with modern technology, expertly fashioned to look like a block print. However, The New Yorker’s website contains the following description of the cover (emphasis added):
      … Roz Chast has been obsessively working with block printing, taking as much pleasure in the physical act of carving as in the creation of a reimagined city assembled from what she considers its most iconic elements. “I looked at many water towers to get an idea of their variety,” Chast said, about her cover for the March 30, 2026, issue. For the rest — be it pigeons, standpipes, sewer-dwelling alligators, people, rats, subway cars, or buildings huddled together — she used her imagination….

  2. in engraving, whatever the medium, the ink is in the cut away bits and the surface is wiped clean. with a wood or linocut the ink is on the suface not cut away. wood engraving: dore drawing craftsman engraving. woodcut: massereel doing both art and craft of it.

    1. Yes! I agree and meant to mention this. “Engraving” is an entirely different technique–almost the opposite of block printing–and isn’t Chast is doing here at all.

      1. “…isn’t WHAT Chast is doing here….”

        Sure wish the Daily Cartoonist had an edit feature. Again!

      2. Could be worse. Due to interrupted editing I sent a multi-recipient email with a mangled sentence on March 8 (National Proofreading Day).

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