Hey again, friend!
Welcome to Issue #471 of New York Cartoons. As I’m writing this, the air conditioners are coming out of the windows, the pumpkin nonsense is going into the coffee, and I’ve just looked up from the drafting table to find an entire summer has slipped past without a proper roundup.
By the way, I really love hearing from all of you - on Notes, in the comments, in email replies. I really do appreciate everyone who reads this newsletter.
This is issue 471, which is a number I look at and my brain kind of melts… the lists started with two people I met on the street outside The Stand comedy club; it’s now 20,000+ strong. Crazy. Thank you to everyone who reaches out on Notes etc., like Deborah Rehmat below…
Things are going well with the Substack. I keep getting notifications like this one:
Not really sure if they really mean much at all, but I’m grateful all the same!
If you’ve been on the fence about upgrading, I’d love you to consider it. it’s only $1 a week, and it makes all the difference.
What’s coming up?
Wellp! The passport is out of the drawer. On Thursday 24 September, Emily and I are performing in Paris at Coucou Comedy, the English-language stand-up night. If you know anyone in France (a cousin, an ex, a pen pal, an enemy you’re pretending to like), tell them to come: bookings are free, pay-what-you-can at the door.
Then it’s on to the Saint-Just-le-Martel international cartoon festival, where a small village in the Haute-Vienne turns itself over entirely to cartoonists, and after that, the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in Kendal: my first time back since 2017, where I’ll be captaining Team Asterix in an Asterix v Tintin debate I intend to treat with wildly disproportionate seriousness.
Full dispatches from all of it in the coming weeks.
But back to the Summer Recap…
So, here it is: everything from the summer in 1 big pile, like the mail that builds up behind the door while you’re away. It’s been a stupidly busy one (a book, a wedding, a muppet, several funerals for entire art forms), and I’d apologise for the length, except you’re the one who subscribed.
Pour something. Settle in…
Since Last We Spoke…
Here’s what went out while you were sensibly at the beach…
Ten Australians (and 1 Long-Lost Perth Boy)
The New York premiere of James Boland’s documentary Ten Australians, about Australian expat life in this city, dedicated to the 10 Australians murdered on September 11. I’m in it, somehow, wedged between genuinely interesting people. I wrote about the whole night (the red carpet, the 2 martinis, the names worth saying out loud) at the link.
The unadvertised miracle of the evening: my friend John Robertson turned up to the afterparty at Old Mates. I hadn’t seen him in 16 years. We started out in comedy together in Perth in 2007; he’s now killing it in London and happened to be touring through New York. 16 years, and we picked it up mid-sentence, the way you can only do with someone who knew you when you were bombing in baggy jeans.
Our Baby Is Here (It Has My Nose)
Scott Dooley and I spent 9 months making You’re Not a Real Parent Until... and this month you finally got to see its face! It’s out in October, pre-orders are open now, and every single one genuinely matters to 2 blokes trying to raise a book in this economy.
The Titanic Wedding (and the Tiny Hot Dogs)
In July I officiated a Titanic-themed wedding in Alphabet City as a doomed maritime captain, because of course I did. The full account is at the link and it remains among the most New York things I have ever been part of.
Epilogue: Billy and Deanna, the newlyweds in question, recently put on a tiny hot dog art show at dba in the East Village. A room full of small paintings of hot dogs. I attended, obviously, because when the people you married on the door of a doomed ocean liner invite you to look at miniature frankfurter art, you go. This city, honestly.
Plus there was a baby hotdog there to hold…
One Laugh, Two Anniversaries
In July I quietly marked 19 years of doing stand-up, over vegan quiche, which is the most middle-aged sentence this newsletter has ever produced. The essay’s at the link.
Pancakes and Pens with a Legend
I spent Labor Day weekend in Baltimore, where I had pancakes and coffee with Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher: The Economist’s cartoonist since 1978, and The Baltimore Sun’s for 31 years, until the Sun let him go last year and, in a plot twist nobody with a soul asked for, started running AI-generated cartoons instead. (If you read The Handwriting Was on the Wall, you already know this genre of story. It does not improve with repetition.)
Negative attention continues to be directed at the editors and publisher of The Baltimore Sun for their use of insipid AI-generated cartoons.
The above article in the Baltimore Brew aptly covers the controversy. The article cites open letters to The Sun from The Herblock Foundation and The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists condemning The Sun’s recent actions.
Kevin KAL Kallaugher gave me a tour of his studio that I’ll be digesting for months: decades of originals, the crosshatching up close, a whole wall of history you can smell the ink on. I gifted him a couple of Hunt 101 Imperial nibs, because he’s one of the last guys I know using dip pens and ink on a daily basis.
Then, because he is not merely one of the greatest living political cartoonists but apparently also a children’s entertainer trapped in a Harvard man’s body, he performed for me with his muppet, Bowzer McSchnouzer. I want to be clear: I did not request this. It was offered freely, and it was magnificent.
Most importantly, I met his dog, Django, who supervised the entire visit like a furry maître d’.
While I was down there, I also sat behind home plate at Camden Yards and watched the Orioles thrash the Guardians. I ate hot dogs at a pace that alarmed the vendor, drank ballpark beer at ballpark prices, and cheered Coby Mayo’s 2 home runs like a man whose citizenship depended on it.
Columbus, Twice
I went back to Columbus, Ohio (scene of this year’s Reubens) for the Columbus Comedy Festival. The announcement is here, and the Day 1 diary is here; its title, “You Always End Up Where You’re Meant To Be,” is doing a lot of load-bearing work.
Thank you to my readers in Ohio who came out to support! It was great to see you!
The Magician, the Bird, & Me
3 performers explain how they actually make a living in the arts. 1 of them has a puppet, which brings this issue’s official puppet count to 2.
Drawn to NYC Stories
My first time hosting and live-drawing the same show, which turns out to be the professional equivalent of patting your head while rubbing your stomach, in front of a paying audience.
Bumping Into Kevin Nealon at the Comedy Cellar
One night at the Cellar I bumped into Kevin Nealon, who is not only an SNL legend but also, inconveniently for me, a genuinely brilliant caricaturist: One of the very few people on Earth qualified to beat me at both of my jobs in the same evening. He was, of course, lovely about it. I’m told I said words, possibly even in order.
2 Friends, 2 Theatres, 0 Co-Stars
This month I also got to watch two friends carry entire shows on their own: my new friend Laura Ramoso at the Beacon last night (as I write this), and my old friend Chloe Radcliffe at Joe’s Pub earlier in the month. Both were amazing, in completely different ways, and both held a room solo for the better part of an hour, which I consider showing off. There is no better feeling than sitting in the dark watching your friends be exactly as good as you’ve been telling people they are.
Buried Alive by CNN
The New Yorker softball team’s evening against CNN, in which we were left (and I cannot stress this enough) literally in the dark. A dispatch from the dugout for those following the season.
The Craft Corner…
The Bloke with the Highlighter
The big free essay on how I learned to write gooder: the books, the highlighters, the copy of Strunk & White currently propping up the short leg of my drafting table. If you go back for one essay from this summer, make it this one.
Drawing Quiet: Susan Cain on Waking Up
Behind the scenes on drawing Susan Cain’s portrait for the Waking Up app, which felt less like a commission and more like writing a thank-you note with a dip pen.
Cigars and Coke with Frasier Crane
An afternoon in Queens in October 2023 that I finally got down on paper. It is exactly the kind of afternoon the title suggests, and also not remotely.
The Robot Files…
The Machines Are Eating My Sketchbook
The one about the black box, the poison pill, and the people trying to hand us a crowbar. Practical rather than despairing: there are things you can actually do, and I go through them.
Everyone’s Tired & Nobody Trusts the Robot
My read on Creative Boom’s flagship 2026 industry survey, in which an entire profession fills out a form to say it’s exhausted. The numbers are grim. The company is excellent…
The Handwriting Was on the Wall
Air Mail stopped buying cartoons. Another market gone, and this one didn’t even have the decency to die first. I wrote about what that does to the maths of this job.
Fool Me Twice
An update on the AI, the shitting horse (long-time readers know the shititng horse), and the tech CEOs grading their own homework. The horse remains undefeated.
And if you want to know where that road ends, scroll back up to Baltimore.
The Quieter Ones…
The Best Day, The Worst Day
The one I wrote for Morris. I won’t summarise it; it’s short, and it says what I could manage.
Sketchbook: Strangers Are Easy
Going back to work afterwards, whatever that means, 1 stranger at a time.
The Man on the Trunk of the Tree
Farewelling Pat Oliphant, 1935-2026: the Australian who crossed the Pacific and redrew American political cartooning. The debt is unpayable.
9/11 in New York
25 years on, the memory is woven into the city’s daily life: the firehouse plaques, the fading murals, the names etched in stone. It pairs, unavoidably, with Ten Australians above.
Is There Something In This?
The Summer Episodes
Scott Dooley and I kept the gag mines open all summer: 5 new episodes of 2 men holding ideas up to the light and asking the only question that matters….
The episode titles are, as ever, the best jokes we made all month.
The Sketchbook I’m sharing with you this week is a selection of the sketches I did of people’s kids at a birthday party this past weekend.
Don’t forget to pre-order our new book about parenting here!
If you want to support my work, please take out a premium subscription (just $1 per week).
The live drawing show rolled on all summer, and the guest list still doesn’t feel real. Each episode is an hour of me drawing whatever you lot request while somebody brilliant talks about how they actually work. Catch up here:
Mindy Tucker, the patron saint of NYC comedy photography, on 20 years and 1 million photos of this scene, and why she’s finally opening the archive.
Rich Sparks, on why getting a dog right doesn’t mean getting a dog funny.
Austin Kleon, returning with his new book Don’t Call It Art.
Josh Gondelman, on how to be funny without being a monster about it.
Avi Steinberg, cheerfully gatecrashed by Tom Toro .
Carly Valancy, live from Spain, on why every good thing in your life started with somebody sending a scary email. (The preview post is here too.)
That Morris video is the best ❤️
Laughed all the way through - that was a LOT of summer!!!
But Morris with you made me cry....(in a good way).
p.s. Safe travel and best wishes for a great time on the Continent!