452. Roz Chast Shares Transit Toons with Ellis Rosen, 100 Years of NYer Dog Cartoons, & Drawing New Yorkers' Pups in Madison Square Park this Thursday!
Plus! Ai New Yorker Cartoons, 9/11 in NYC, & Morris gets reeeeeal comfy.
Hey again, friend!
Welcome to Issue #452 of New York Cartoons. Its been another eventful week! Skip ahead to this week’s Around New York section to see stories about Roz Chast, Al Hirschfeld and my new colleagues at !
As I’m writing this, Morris is nudging me to go out for a pee, so I’m gonna crack on before he decides to create a Pro Hart masterpiece on my rug (By the way, stick around ‘til the end today to see a video of Morris, doing what he does best…)
Speaking of dogs: Today at 6pm, my pals at the AKC Museum of the Dog are having a big opening of their new exhibit: The New Yorker in Dog Years.
Plan to visit the Museum of the Dog near Grand Central from today until late October. The 100 Years of New Yorker Dog Cartoons show features covers (by Thurber and others) and select cartoons from the magazine. I have some of my cartoons in the show.
The New Yorker has been at the forefront of cartooning since its inception. In an announcement of the magazine’s launch written by Harold Ross, the importance of cartoons can be seen:
“The New Yorker expects to be distinguished for its illustrations, which will include caricatures, sketches, cartoons, and humorous and satirical drawings in keeping with its purpose.”
Tuesday, September 16
6:00-7:30 p.m.at 101 Park Avenue, NYC (entrance on 40th Street)
Light refreshments will be served, and festive attire is requested.
aaaand STILL speaking of these furry mutts…
Madison Square Bark: Get a FREE Sketch of your Dog This Thursday in New York
You might remember me writing last year about one of my all-time dream gigs— drawing New Yorkers with their dogs in Madison Square Park.
Living in this city has its ups, its downs, and its upside-downs. One of the latter is how it feels here on 9/11. Manhattan has a flavour (and smell) all of its own on a regular Thursday, so throw in a terrorism memorial after an assassination, and you’ve got yourself a pretty hefty stew of emotions.
Every year they blast the giant lights into the sky where the towers once stood. You can see them from pretty much anywhere you stand— which makes it all the more surreal thinking about the enormity of what happened on that day on these streets. Here’s a photo I took of the view from Brooklyn:
9/11 in New York
On the night of September 11, 2001, I was seventeen, sitting on the couch in Perth with my mum. We were watching Rove Live when the program cut away to breaking news. It was 9:30 at night and Sandra Sully was doing her best to remain calm and stoic. The screen showed the towers burning, then falling, and it felt like the world cracked open.
Speaking of 2001…
When I got detention for drawing my History teacher, Mr. Cook, I thought it was a bit harsh. I’d drawn a mean caricature of him in my workbook and he’d wandered past my desk at the wrong moment. It wasn’t until after school during detention that I realised the whole little charade was to get me to draw a mean caricature of one of the other faculty members. The school gardener, Mr Keeling was retiring, and Mr Cook asked if I could do a caricature of him for twenty bucks.
A cartoonist was born.
I mention that, because this past week an old classmate sent me this video of one of my all-time favourite Aussie comedians, Tony Martin, discussing a very familiar story with one of my other all-time favourite Aussie comedians… (click video to view)
When I mentioned the correlation to Tony, he said,
It seems we have both stumbled on a good, if roundabout, way to get into comedy. Although I hope your work didn’t eventually get you expelled, as it did with me.
Speaking of cartoonists…
I read with dismay about the introduction of yet another unwanted ‘game-changer’ landing in the AI cesspool this past week: an AI-Generator for the very specific thing I do: New Yorker cartoons.
When I asked New Yorker Cartoon Editor Emma Allen on stage in 2023 whether they’d eventually be receiving AI-generated cartoons, she said, “We’re already getting sooo many.” That was over 2 years ago. (below). I can’t imagine the slop they’re now going to be wading through in 2025…
One-Click Cartooning: Michael Maslin's "One New Yorker Cartoon Generator Reflects on Another New Yorker Cartoon Generator" AI, and the State of the Art.
I want to point you to longtime New Yorker contributor Michael Maslin's Ink Spill’s latest post on his Substack. It’s equal parts affectionate and sobering, and it’s worth your time:
Sorry to bring the vibe down… Keep scrolling to see
and Ellis J Rosen at the NY Transit Museum talking cartoons!But before that…
The Sketchbook I’m sharing with you this week is a selection of the sketches I did of peoples’ dogs as gifts this past week. If you have a friend with a dog, send me a photo and I’ll draw them into the book for you.
I got to see two of my NYer Cartoonist faves —Roz Chast and Ellis J Rosen—show and talk about their favourite cartoons relating to transit in NYC. The NYC Transit Museum have a great exhibition at Grand Central Station at the moment, so we naturally schlepped to the Brooklyn location to see them talk, and have the audience in stitches with their jokes and pictures.
I guest edited this past week’s edition of Toonstack, themed around this very topic. Click below to see everyone’s cartoons…
On Monday, I got invited to the Al Hirschfeld reception at the Algonquin Hotel, home of the famous Algonquin Round Table. We were celebrating both the new poster book about Hirschfeld’s work on Sondheim shows and the collection of his iconic work. This is the first NYC gallery showing of Al Hirschfeld’s work in over a decade.
I grew up poring over Hirschfeld’s work, tracing his lines with my eyes, learning how much you can do by leaving most of it out. To stand in the Algonquin, where he once drew his peers, and be surrounded by his work alongside people I know—it reminds me this is exactly why I moved here. To be around it, learn from it, absorb it, and (hopefully) get better.
Keep reading below:
I met up with contributors and editorial staff (below) at the
last Wednesday at a German beer hall in midtown. Pretzels were dipped. Steins were drained. Literary beefs and kvetching were had. I’m still their Cartoon Editor— stay tuned for the first print edition coming out later this year.
Comedy Over Tragedy: Austin Kleon's Masterclass On Creative Survival
Thank you The Bob, Brendan Leonard, Tammy Evans, Bill Cusano, Mariana Marques, and the 500 others who tuned into my live video with Austin Kleon yesterday! New York Cartoons is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
The Taste Gap (And Why Your Art Is Trash at First... But That’s Okay)
When I first started out as a cartoonist, I thought I was pretty good. Not, like ‘Pat Oliphant hot shit’—more like ‘Mid-2000s Gawker hot shit.’ Which is to say: confident, under-edited, and mostly noise. Emphasis on shit.
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Getting comfortable for a full day of doing literally nothing.
Your cavorting around NYC at these incredible exhibitions gives many of us solid vicarious thrills without having to actually make a loooong expensive trip. You get to hang with THE Roz Chast?
😱🤯. I would just lose it entirely. 😍
Thanks for sharing your sparkly life and hard work with the rest of us.
And I appreciate that vintage quote from The New Yorker founder about the QUALITY illustrations. That is the key to the personality of the magazine. Hope they don’t forget it!
When I was in my 20s I lived in a building where the entire laundry room was wallpapered in vintage NY covers! It was a treasure to just stay down there for the duration of the cycle just looking looking looking.
Love it. Another nice wrap-up and I'm glad you continue raise awareness regarding AI. Thank you.