#387: NancyFest, Manhattanhenge, Scholastic Debut & NY Review of Books Scandal!
#387: NancyFest, Manhattanhenge, Scholastic Debut & NY Review of Books Scandal!
+ Quentin Blake, My art on a baseball, Tote Bags, Fancy Book Party + Morris gets his morning face on just for you.
…I hope you’re having a tornado-free week!
I’m typing this having just got back from coffee with Tom Gammill, who is passing through New York for 26 seconds on his way to CT. He’s in his after-show glow from his major stage debut at NancyFest. Despite the insane weather this past weekend, I had a great Memorial Day holiday in Ohio full of cartoonery and buffoonery. If you haven’t read my dispatch full of sketches from the weekend (and you like cartoons) give it a read here: 👇
Totes?
I keep seeing people walking around with dreadfully designed New York-themed totes with the Statue of Liberty and other stuff on them. They look kinda tacky. I’m thinking about doing some that look more stylish, but also maybe a bit fun. Question— Would you want one if I made some?
Last night was 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. Then, it poured with rain and the whole city was buried alive in a wall of water. Fun!
I did an interview with fellow New York Substacker, Anne Kadet of Café Anne about the #Manhattanhenge phenomenon last year which you can read here.
📘 Larry Ingrassia’s Book Party
I went to a book party in the Flatiron last week for the launch of Larry Ingrassia’s incredible new book. Anyone with a family history of cancer should give it a read. He has quite a story.
🎨 My Scholastic Debut
My first cartoon in a Scholastic publication ran last week— Upfront, a New York Times magazine has cartoons on the back page in full colour. It was nice that my chatGPT cartoon finally found a home somewhere after being rejected everywhere else because they didn’t get it. (I did it in 2022…)
Blooged
I was very touched to get a mention in a blog I’ve been following for as long as blogs have been followed. Thank you to Mike Rhode for the inclusion.
🎨 The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration has just found its perfect home
With the help of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration is set to move into London's historic New River Head buildings. I’ve been reading Jenny Uglow’s great book about his work for the past couple of weeks and learning a lot!
Read more by clicking the article from Dom at Creative Boom below:
⚾️ Drawing on a baseball!
Talented musician and subscriber Ryan Burns asked me to design a logo for a band logo that could go on a baseball. He pitched me (heh) the idea of the ladder and cheese in a rough sketch, and I think the finished thing turned out pretty good! I’ve designed album covers for Ryan before. You can hear Ryan’s excellent music here.
Each week the New Yorker softball team meets at the softball diamond in Central Park and plays against Vanity Fair, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and other magazines based in New York. The tradition goes back decades…
06/28 — The New Yorker VS New York Review of Books: A Scandal in Central Park!
On Tuesday night, The New Yorker softball team was pitted against the NY Review of Books in Central Park for a surprise match. Read the full report on the Dispatches from the Dugout page tomorrow… (Paid subscribers will get an exclusive first look on Friday. This one is a DOOZIE!)
This week’s Sketchbook is from my scrawlings at NancyFest. Read the whole post here.
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 launching a new Substack 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.
“I wok up like diss.”