Richard: How did you make your start in drawing cartoons?

Kit Lively: I've been drawing cartoons for as long as I can remember, but I began assembling them into magazine format and giving them away to friends and family members from about the age of eight or nine. This went on until high school, when I finally ran out of friends and family members who didn't walk briskly in the other direction when they saw me coming. I finally gathered up the gumption to start sending cartoons to other folk's magazines a year or two out of high school. The first places to publish me during this time were a handful of indy humor magazines, as well as Joe Bob Briggs and some magazines from Hustler's line (Hustler and Hustler Humor).

Richard: What is " Favorite Cartoons of the 21st Century"?

Kit: It's a National Lampoon collection of single-panel cartoons, most of which involve tasteless and offensive antics of some form or another. I have a couple of cartoons in there, but please don't let that deter you from enjoying it.

Richard: What can we expect to see in the pages of "National Lampoon Not Fit For Print"?

Kit: This one can be pretty much summed up by the line on the cover: "Tasteless Jokes, Cartoons and Essays That We Probably Should Have Kept to Ourselves."

It's the same sort of dark, irreverent humor that the Lampoon has been know for for the past thirty years or so. It's a great line-up of really funny writers and artists, and one of the projects that I'm proudest to have been part of (not counting my two seasons as Reverend Potter's disfigured twin Oliver on "Party of Five").

Richard: How does it feel having your art in such magazines as Hustler, Swank and Just 18?

Kit: It feels great, actually. I'm very comfortable with it, although I've had the fathers of girlfriends over the years take a slightly different view.

And on that subject, a bonus of contributing to girlie mags is that my girlfriend can't get mad when I have them in the house. The bloodied girl scout uniforms are a different story entirely. But she's so cute when she's angry, so I can't really complain.

Richard: Are a lot of your cartoons geared more towards adults?

Kit: A lot? I guess. But at the same time, I've contributed to a lot of PG or PG-13 type humor mags over the years. It's probably about half and half.

Richard: How would you describe the humor in your cartoons?

Kit: I always feel weird about describing my own stuff, but the words that other folks usually use when describing it would probably be twisted, and dark. I just try to do what's funny to me.

Richard: Can you tell us about "Dammit I Swallowed Another one"?

Kit: Absolutely. This is a self-published collection of my cartoons, many of which were originally published in the aforementioned publications. Troma studios president Lloyd Kaufman wrote the foreword for it, but he still never remembers me when I see him. Perhaps the fact that he doesn't ever remember me is the exact reason he was so easily convinced to write a foreword for my book? Perhaps.

Richard: Would you or have you ever worked on a comic book?

Kit: You mean like a super-hero book? I haven't really done anything along those lines, but I don't think that I would be averse to it. I have just written a super-hero spoof comic strip for Hustler Humor that my frequent collaborator Noel Anderson is currently illustrating, and I'm in the beginning stages of an illustration project that will ultimately be collected into a graphic novel. This last thing is being written by another Lampoon guy, but won't be affiliated with the Lampoon.

Richard: Who has influenced you the most in your life?

Kit: Cartoonist and humor wise? Almost too many to mention. The first really significant influences on my cartoons and sense of humor would have to have been MAD and National Lampoon. National Lampoon is what made me want to be a gag cartoonist, and a lot of the cartoonists there that influenced me, like Tom Cheney, PC Vey and Sam Gross, are still big favorites of mine.

Hustler cartoonist Dan Collins is my all-time favorite, though.

Richard: If you weren't a cartoonist what would you be doing?

Kit: I'd probably be doing even a worse job of answering these questions than I already am. Also, probably something involving yodeling.

Richard: What projects are you working on?

Kit: Well, in addition to the graphic novel with the guy from the Lampoon, I'm continuing to bother the poor folks at MAD with my submissions on a regular basis. Noel Anderson and I collaborate on a lot of stuff for Hustler Humor, including Gross Gags, a regularly featured page or two of single panel cartoons that I write and he illustrates. Besides that, I spend time looking into finding a publisher for "Dammit! I Swallowed Another One!"

Oh, and I have a weekly cartoon on the site www.humorousmaximus.com . I also write movie reviews for www.popsyndicate.com , but I hope that no one really bases their decision to see a movie or not on my opinion. That could possibly lead to needlessly watching a bevy of really crappy movies. And every now and then I contribute something to the popular dark humor site, superawesomewow.com.

Richard: What comics did you read as a child and do you read now?

Kit: As a kid I mostly read humor mags and horror novels, and I actually picked up the comic habit as an adult. I try to read a little bit of everything, from superhero stuff to horror and humor comics.

Richard: How can someone contact you?

Kit: The best way, for me at least, would be for people to go my web-site, www.kitlively.com , and click on the word "Contact" (it's near the top of the home page).

Richard: Any last words of advice?

Kit: For who? You? Hmmm... Maybe try harder to find a more interesting interview subject next time?