#395: A Process Junkie Sneak Peek, Thailand, NYer V. Financial Review & More!

+ Vietnamese Honeycomb Cake & Morris gets a pup cup

…from a beach somewhere in Koh Samui, I hope you’re having a great week!

I turned the book in at 2am, then moments later was on a 16-hour flight to Thailand to wind down. I think this is the first time I’ve gone up and over the planet to get somewhere— we flew from New York via Hong Kong, via the top of the world.

Getting a violent stomach bug for the first three days wasn’t in the itinerary, but maybe I missed it in the fine print. 🤢 Either way, I’m taking a week away from the studio to collapse into a heap and pass out while drinking from a coconut.

For those of you interested…

My mobile sketching kit is a little faux leather zip-up number, containing:

• A small tub of waterproof ink

• A rubber suction cup that holds it in place

• A thin eraser

• A Kuretake Disposable Pocket Double-Sided Brush Pen (Fine & Medium)

• A box of my little nibbley dibbleys (Hunt 101 Imperial and 102 Crow Quill)

• A Crayola Marker ( I have an 11 year-old nephew I’ll be scribbling with on the trip. I use these for live caricaturing gigs also.)

• A Pentel water brush (with a drop of non-waterproof ink in the water for a grey wash)

• Staedtler Mechanical Pencil Night Blue Series, 0.7mm (I know, I prefer real pencils too, but these are more practical on the road)

• A Bic Mechanical pencil. Same deal. Just lighter lead (photo blue leads)

• Hunt 102 nib in pen holder

• Hunt 101 Imperial in Pen Holder x2 (They don’t travel well, you see…)

If any of this geekery interested you…
you’ll enjoy my new Substack, launching (finally) in August called Process Junkie, where I disect the creative process and everything therein. Thank you to those of you who have already signed up— I’m excited to share what I’ve been working on for the past 9 months. I think you’re really going to enjoy it.

You can subscribe early here, and take an early sneak peek below:

I can’t officially tell you what the book is just yet, but I’ll be doing a big cover reveal for you in the coming weeks, with all the details on how you can preorder, and some fun sneak peeks of the pages ahead of publication. The book is due out in Spring 2025. I nearly killed my drawing hand turning out these pages. (I did it all by hand with dip-pen and ink like a crazy person.)

Bánh Bò Nướng (Honeycomb Cake)

I’m very proud of my good pal and weekly pickleball cult leader, Hannah Pham, for getting her honeycomb cake recipé ito the New York Times. She brings slices of it to the games sometimes, and it vanishes in seconds. It’s pretty wild. It also makes me a much better pickleball player…

Hannah went to get a hard-copy of the paper which ran the whole recipe as a full page feature (above). You can see the full recipe at the NYT here.

Each week the New Yorker softball team meets at the softball diamond in Central Park and plays people who work at other magazines and media organizations based in New York. 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 beer…

06/18: The New Yorker VS. The Financial Times

I arrived late to the game on account of it starting earlier than usual, but within earshot of my apartment. I stumbled across the street after downing a burrito with Mort “The Fort” Gerberg to be pummelled by the FT team in short order. An ‘errant’ ball was flung at my right shoulder, improving my drawing skills immeasurably. There have been two matches in the interim, but I’ve been overseas. I’m sick about missing them both.