Comedians Drinking Soap, Morris in Oils, & Art Made With Human Intelligence

#444: Plus! Nude (ooer) Life Drawing Sketchbook, Samantha Dion Baker's new book, & Morris gets

Hey again, friend.

Welcome to Issue #444 of New York Cartoons. I just finished up a great live drawing session with

Samantha Dion Baker

. Thanks to everyone who tuned in and made drawing requests in the chat. The replay will be available to paid subscribers tomorrow.

As I’m writing this, Morris is nudging my elbow for pats, so I’m typing with one hand and scritching his head with the other. Who said men can’t multitask?

Oh! Speaking of Morris, this past week I received the best gift I’ve ever got: the incredible Jerry Scott (Baby Blues/Zits) sent me an oil painting of our favourite little bat piglet! How cool is this!?

Your reviews help me make a living by selling more books:
If you are one of the many readers who have enjoyed the new book, please leave a review, ideally on Amazon (where many people research books, even if they don’t buy them there). It costs only your time and helps me do battle with the algorithms.

And if you’d like a sketch of your own pooch, you can send me a photo of them and I’ll mail it out to you. Click here to find out more.

On Thursday, I dragged

Jessie Kanelos Weiner

back onto Draw Me Anything for round two—my first repeat guest, which either makes her a comedy masochist or someone who genuinely enjoys discussing the twin miseries of drawing funny pictures and trying to make people laugh on stage. Watch the full video and recap below:

Thanks to Baby Blues cartoonist Rick Kirkman for his sketch of my ridiculous face from the above video thumbnail. It arrived in an email with the subject line “Ever see something you just HAVE to draw?”

The Sketchbook I’m sharing with you this week are a couple of 10 and 20 min sketches from a life drawing class I took with

Gayle Kabaker

and

Samantha Dion Baker

last week. There’s no better way to learn how far you have to go as an artist than to try and draw someone from life and realise your foreshortening game is worse than Cuomo’s likeability rating.

I talked with Beth Spencer about the crap associated with people posting finished paintings and saying “Hey, look at my sketchbook— this was just a casual warm-up!”

Kyle T Webster

wrote about it last year, and it’s something I’ve noticed a lot of on Instagram. I get people want to share their work, but don’t pretend it’s just a quick thing you ‘dashed off to warm up’ when it looks like it could be hanging in the Louvré.

You can watch the rest of our chat below:

Vegan hot dogs at Fred’s in Williamsburg. 🤤

I discovered my new favourite comedy spot in Williamsburg this past week— Flophouse Comedy Club. They have mics, shows and a buttload of chess boards in the foyer. What’s not to like? (They also happen to be next door to Fred’s, who have ridiculous hot dogs.)
See their upcoming shows here.

I drew a portrait of

Rutger Bregman

for his conversation on

Sam Harris

’ Waking Up app. I recommend it! He’s a Dutch historian, author, and public intellectual best known for his optimistic and provocative ideas about human nature, universal basic income, and social progress. He draws from history, economics, and philosophy to reframe societal challenges as solvable problems if we rethink our assumptions. Bregman is often compared to Yuval Noah Harari or Steven Pinker, though more idealistic and activist in tone. Great accent, too.

If you’re new here, or you haven’t had a moment to wander back through the archives of profound genius I’ve shared up to this point, take a peek at the following scribblings:

Hell's Kitchen Confidential: Morris Makes His New York Media Debut

The Key Habit of the World’s Greatest Artists

Chatfield X Waking Up: The Most Fulfilling Collaboration Project of my Career.

Back in 2020, when he was at his most attractive…