I’m writing to today you from inside a tin can full of farts 31,000ft in the air, hurtling towards California…
My elbows are squished into my ribs on account of 9A and 9C hogging the armrests. They can see me typing this and I do not care. Oh, they just moved their hands. Now I’m hogging both the left and right armrest. That worked.
The baby behind me just shit his pants, and after eating airport sushi I’m about to follow suit.
Ready to Get Comic-Conned
As I wrote last week, I’m headed to the world’s biggest comic convention and four-day wall of unbroken crowd noise: San Diego Comic-Con. I will be selling the bookand shilling the benefits of membership of the National Cartoonists Society, at booth #1307 at the above times. For more info on what I’m getting up to, click the story below:
I jumped on the train to Bayside with my fellow scribblers Saturday to draw cartoons for the kids at St Mary’s Healthcare System for Children. The organization that ran the event is called the Inkwell Foundation:
We played a game where I drew a line, then he drew a line, then I drew a line...
It was so beautiful to spend the day creating with the kids at St. Mary's Healthcare System for Children! Together we made loopy-eyed SpongeBobs, Harry Potter in his full wizard regalia, as well as many portraits and caricatures. The children were brilliant in their additions of props in the background scenes, coming up with details that could really develop the characters they were working on, and most importantly they were really supportive of one another, building trust and confidence as a group. We’re so proud to have partnered with this special center focused on making sure children going through severe medical challenges have every opportunity for joy, bonding, and creative self-expression.
You can make a donation to the Inkwell Foundation (which is a 401(c)(3) non-profit) by clicking the link below:
Howl at the Sun! On the first of this year’s 2 occurrences, New Yorkers and tourists piled onto the streets and vacuumed up as many pre-dusk pics as their iCloud accounts could hold. For some, it was a nice surprise. For others, it was one of the biggest nights of their professional year.
Aw, Man! (hattan) Tuesday was a bit of a letdown. Pollution and cloud cover meant a lot of people were staying at the La Quinta on the Belt Parkway for nothing…
(Videos from Kelly Kopp on Twitter. (Elon won’t let us embed tweets anymore, but you can find and follow Kelly here.He’s great.)
Back in the before-times, I used to sit in the front window of a little French place called Papilles on 7th street, by Tompkins Square Park, and draw people walking past. It was a truly bizarre symphony of humans shuffling past. They would let me sit with a glass of something cheap and cheerful until they had their first diners for the night. They hung the sketch above in a frame in their loo, which for a cartoonist, is a pretty big deal. Sadly, they closed during COVID. But I heard they opened a new place upstate.
Each week the New Yorker softball team meets to play writers, cartoonists and staff who work at other magazines based in New York City. I am probably the least valuable member of the team, with the pitching arm of an old chair and the knees of a septuagenarian. That said, I do bring the warm beer…
07/17: The New Yorker VS. New York Magazine
On a steaming July evening, the New Yorker softball team dragged ourselves to James J. Walker Park in the West Village to face off against long-time rivals, New York Magazine.
They were tough. They were fast. But, damnit, so were we! The hits just kept on coming: In a single inning we got 4 home after 3 home run hits out of the park (onto parked cars).
Here’s the problem… the unofficial Softball rules in James J Walker park are such that you can only have so many home runs before they start counting as “outs”. As it turns out, there is such thing as “being too good at hitting home runs”, because we started racking up the Outs.
The park was once the Burying Ground for St. John's Chapel of Trinity Church. It was in use from 1799 to 1858, with over 10,000 burials there… and I’m sad to report we added one more: We were buried in the final inning.
If you enjoy my work, there’s a hefty chance you might like the people I enjoy too. Each week I share a new person who tickles my fancy. This week’s special Comic-Con Edition features artists that are appearing across the week. Take a peek at their stuff, watch their panels, and say hi!
#344: Inkwelling in Queens, Manhattanhenge was a bust & Bastille Day Sketchbook
Love the St. Mary's photos! Sorry to hear about Tuesday's non-henge! Have fun in SD!