#361: Morris the Holiday Goblin, Thanksgiving on the New York Subway, & Dracula Sketchbook!

+ NO-vember wraps up, The Poll Hath Spake & Morris gets ice cream!

Nov 29, 2023

Morris the Holiday Goblin.

In a quaint corner of the wizarding world nestled within an enchanted doghouse, dwells Morris, the Holiday Goblin. This diminutive creature, perpetually forlorn, has an unusual penchant for gnawing on footwear. With the right leather delicacy —usually something with heels— his despondency transforms into elation, making him the happiest of gobblie-wobblies. That is until the shredded remains are discovered by their owner…

Hope you had a restful Thanksgiving break. If you’re in a part of the world that doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you ate something bigger than your head in solidarity. I’m still digesting buttery-mashed potatoes from six days ago. (Thanks,

Anthony LeDonne

)

The Poll Hath Spake!

Thank you for taking time to respond to my reader polls this year. Three instructive things I’ve learned from the results are as follows:

1.) The huge majority of you are reading this in your Mail App on your phone/desktop, not on the Substack App or in a browser (where it looks way nicer FYI). That’s Okay— I’ll tailor it for Mail apps going forward. Just know you can always read it on the browser by clicking the title.

2.) You far prefer the shorter posts to the insanely long ones. It’s actually much harder to make them short. I think I might be allergic to the backspace key. I just hired a very mean editor with a small mustache who is helping me with this.

3.) You’re all terribly nice people: The poll was very conclusive about this one.

To that end, these weekly emails and premium posts will be more concise. But better.

You’re busy, they’re busy, we’re all busy— I’ll keep things simple. If you ever see something green, click it. It’s a link.

🎙️ I hosted a comedy show at The Ned (the old NoMad hotel) the night before Thanksgiving — it wasn’t the easiest crowd: a heaving mess of rich old guys getting sauced with tiny models and young crypto-billionaires. Bless.

✍️ Thank you to those of you who came to Picture This— It was nice to meet some of you in person. We expected nobody and got a full house! I got to host the show & also draw for the very funny Griffin Newman.

🦃 You did Thanksgiving in a house? That’s weird. I’m pretty sure we were meant to do it on the Subway… (Why do you think they named the food franchise after it?)

🎉 You’ve been asking for it for literally ninety seconds and now you can officially get it: Morris the Holiday Goblin wrapping paper! Snap it up now in time to wrap your holiday gifts. (Paid subscribers: use your discount code).

📺 Episode #3 of Buddy VS Xmas is out on HBO Max. This episode pits Buddy and his merry crew of bakers against the best Lego Masters ever. They built a robot. A fucking Christmas robot. This one was very hard to judge.

🙅‍♂️ NO-Vember wraps up tomorrow! I’ve sent one email every day this month to help people say NO to shit. You can go back and read them if you’re just learning about this now. Spoiler Alert: The tips also work in Duh-cember.

🧙‍♀️ Sketchbook: The Hats of the Thanksgiving Parade: Happy Turkey Day. Why not put something on your head? (Like this lady.)

🪪 The Missing Wallet of The Lower East Side: The second issue of #YourShout— a feature where I draw up your New York stories.

🎭 The World’s Oldest Comedy Club: I’m reposting now because this story has a happy ending— Dangerfield’s is officially reopening in 2024!

This week’s Sketchbook is from a series of commission requests I received to raise money for the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. The first ones I shipped got lost in the mail (I maintain the mailman just had a vampire fetish) so I did them again.

While I do love the convenience of an iPad/Wacom/Xenselabs tablet… I can’t ever replicate the joy of using analog tools. I’m starting a new Substack in 2024 called “Process Junkie” to explore all of the joys of the Process of making art. If you’re interested in that kind of thing, you can sign up here.