Is the Art of Editorial Cartooning Dead? + Quentin Blake's Latest, & Millennial Snot!
#448: Plus! Come meet me in person, some Philadelphia Eagles News, & Morris returns to living his best life.
Hey again, friend.
Welcome to Issue #448 of New York Cartoons! I’m back in the studio, fresh off a week on the road out West with my sister and her bf in an RV that slowly turned my spine into a stack of Jenga blocks. I’m pretty sure the suspension was made from duck down (which, ironically enough, was what he had to do every time we went under a bridge.) As much fun as I had, I’m glad to be back in New York, where there definitely haven’t been any mindlessly violent incidents things are fine. They’re just fine.
I’m excited to share the sketches and photos from my trip with paid subscribers this week, and even more excited to announce my next guest for the upcoming episode of “Draw Me Anything” below. Scroll down to see who it is— you may already know his work from the New Yorker, including one of my favourite cartoons of all time.
Speaking of the New Yorker, tonight our softball team will be going head-to-head with our longtime rivals, Rolling Stone. I’ll report back on the game after we’ve sweated it out in Central Park tonight.
With that out said, let’s crack on with this week’s edition— including more puppy sketches, a big in-person New York event, an announcement from me about a new official commission from the Philadelpha Eagles (and a new commercial featuring my good pal), a profile on Quentin Blake, a Substack logo illustration, thoughts on comedy in the age of social media as well as the ‘fading art of editorial cartooning’, and of course, as always, you’ll have to scroll all the way to the end to see this week’s picture of Morris. (Be sure to click the title of this post to make sure this email doesn’t get cut off in your email app.)
I always love hearing from you, so please be sure to leave a comment and let me know what’s new in your world. Hopefully, good things.
If you want to support my work and unlock access to exclusive sketchbooks, video replays and diaries, please take out a premium subscription (just $1 per week).
The Sketchbook I’m sharing with you this week are two sketches I did of readers’ dogs in the new book, You’re Not A Real Dog-Owner Until… — Thank you to Dot and Leia for letting me draw them, and for giving me such good reviews! If you’d like me to draw your pooch in the book, you can order one right here.
Attention New York-Based Readers (especially those who want me to draw them for free!)
The excellent New York-based Substacker Alexa Weiser is hosting an IRL meet up this coming month! Join us on August 21st for a happy hour at my old local bar, Porchlight in West Chelsea (w28/11th Ave) from 6—8pm.From City happenings: something fun to do everyday in New York :
Meet fellow readers & lovers of the city, enjoy a drink and light bites, and take home your very own NYC-themed portrait drawn live by New Yorker cartoonist Jason Chatfield.
I thought long and hard about why I was drawn to hosting an event and what I wanted out of it. I, more than anyone, hate an event that feels forced or without a purpose. I realized I really just wanted to celebrate. I never imagined this little hobby would grow the way it has, and my favorite part has been meeting readers + supporting some of my favorite NYC businesses. So join us for a casual hang! Come solo or with a friend. Whether you’re just stopping by or staying for 2 hours, at worst you’ll leave with a cartoon, a yummy cocktail, and some NYC recs. At best, you might make some new friends.
*The $16 ticket just helps her cover event costs — She’s still chipping in to subsidize.
Read more about all the things you can do in NYC in this week’s edition:
I illustrated a logo for writer Michael Estrin’s fantastic new substack Slacker Noir this month. “If the crime genre is a corpse, slacker noir is its funny bone. My heroes aren’t so much anti-heroes as anti-heroism. They have better things to do than get involved in this corrupt world. But whether by circumstance, happenstance, or any other kind of “stance,” involved they become. Naturally, hijinks ensue, and by the end, new shit will come to light, man.”
Michael also had a really fun live stream with Alex Dobrenko` discussing the art of the personal essay, among other things. Highly recommend.
Let me know if you’d like me to illustrate a logo or article for your newsletter!
Coming up on episode #22 of Draw Me Anything: the creator of one of my favourite New Yorker cartoons of all time, and all-round talented cartoonist and speaker: Tom Toro! You can subscribe to his Substack: Undiscovered Masterpieces to see even more brilliant cartoons. We’ll be having a chat next Thursday 7th August at 3pm.
—and if you love New Yorker cartoons, you can see previous DMA guest Liana Finck’s new ‘daily cartoon’ by subscribing to her Substack below:
The Fading Art of Editorial Cartooning:
“A drawing can hit harder, and reach more people, than an editorial or an op-ed. That's one reason why cartoons are a threatened medium.”
Heywood Reynolds wrote this week in the Times Union about one of the reasons Editorial Cartoons, like late-night television, are going the way of the dodo. The ability to digest news through something like a The Late Show monologue or an editorial cartoon is much easier for a populous without the attention span required to sit still and read more than a paragraph of text.
They reach more people, and they do it quicker than a 500-word article on a news site or magazine. For that reason, they have great power— and that power threatens those they hold to account. It’s why so many cartoonists get dropped from newspapers for offending the wrong people; papers can’t afford to lose subscribers, so they prefer to publish milqtoast gags that barely say anything that will upset the apple cart.
That’s why some of the best cartoons you’ll find are on independent sites like Patreon or Substack, where the artist gets free rein on their editorial perspective. If they lose their own subscribers, that’s something they can risk on their own, without the paper killing the cartoon before it even runs.
Reynolds shares an example of a cartoon he had published in an upstate New York paper about the most, er, fervent Trump supporters:
After the cartoon ran, the editor informed me that several people had cancelled their subscriptions, calling the cartoon mean-spirited and partisan. He said the newspaper would need to be more cautious about publishing political cartoons in the future, as the paper was not in a position to lose subscribers.
The conversation left me baffled. I pointed out that the paper regularly published editorials critical of President Donald Trump and other local Republicans. Why should a cartoon be any different?
The editor explained: Most people don’t read.
Editorials require effort and focus, while a cartoon can be consumed in an instant. Even the functionally illiterate can understand a cartoon — that’s what makes the medium so brilliant. But the accessibility of cartoons also makes them riskier. The broader your audience, the greater the likelihood of offending someone.
This cowardice is anathema to not only comedy, but to the art of speaking truth to power in a free society. That is what good editorial cartoons do. The great cartoonists of the 20th century like Pat Oliphant had the capacity and freedom to both inform and enrage, and that was their literal job description. They stirred up conversation between different factions and ideologies (god forbid people who disagree talk to each other). Now, the factions are siloed in their confirmation bias bubbles, and nobody dares engage in an actual conversation without trying to dunk on the other side.
The above stance by editors is completely understandable from the point of view of someone who wants to keep their job, and keep the shareholders of the conglomerates who own their newspaper happy. It is, however, a fucking useless way of operating. Is it any wonder nobody bothers to read newspapers anymore? What’s the point?
It’s why I’m so glad cartoonists like Kevin KAL Kallaugher and Ann Telnaes are here on Substack, still producing some of the best work of their careers without the cowards at the editors’ desks spiking their work before it sees the light of day.
I’ll leave you with a tribute paid to one of the greatest editorial cartoonists ever to do it, presented by Nick Galifianakis at the National Cartoonists Society Reuben Awards in Jersey City in 2023.
Quentin Blake Still Drawing at 92
(Via Air Mail)
Lucy Bannerman did a great profile on the inimitable Quentin Blake in this weekend’s edition of Air Mail. He rarely gives interviews these days, so it was a rare glimpse into what his life looks like these days…
Data mining, screen addiction, the plundering of copyrighted work, the number of children (and adults) who scroll instead of read: how alarmed is Blake by the many threats posed by Big Tech? “If I stopped to worry, I would worry. I think all I, or people in my position, can do is to go on being as interesting as possible.”
…
These days, he wakes early. “Sometimes I’ll start drawing at 4am in bed, almost to cheer myself up. Hardly anybody ever sees these,” he says, reaching for a burgundy sketchbook he keeps by the bed and opening it to show a series of featureless heads in fuzzy red Biro.
Who do they depict? “I’ve no idea. I just make them up. This is what I’m drawing to entertain myself.” He likes the humility of a Biro — “the most pedestrian thing you can find to draw with. It’s what most people have in their pockets and I can’t help liking that.”
Blake was awarded the very prestigious ‘Pulcinella Career Award’ at Italy’s Cartoons on the Bay festival this spring, recognising his decades-long impact on children’s illustration and editorial cartooning.
I love that he’s still drawing every day from the moment he wakes up. He’s illustrated over 300 books, and he still has a bottomless well of work left in him. I hope I’m that excited about scribbling when (if) I’m 92.
Go Birds! Go Anthony!
A quick shoutout this week to former “Someone You Might Like” feature, Anthony LeDonne, whose ridiculous face has been popping up on TV screens every five minutes in the new Sprite commercial with Philadelphia Eagles quarterback, Jaylen Hurts. This is a big campaign, which I assume paid him in ‘unlimited Diet Sprite for life’. In related news… I can now reveal that I’ve been tapped by the Philadelphia Eagles to illustrate an official game day poster! Can’t say much more than that, but stay tuned for updates… Rrrrroll the tape!
“Tough to run a Michelin star restaurant in a food court.”
Matt Ruby nailed a few thoughts I’ve been having about comedy lately— especially that of the online/social media variety.
I really liked this one in particular:
Too many artists accept social media's version of success. Don't let your ability to inflate Mark Zuckerberg's net worth be the measure of your artistic output.
He shared more gems like:
Social media comedy is tragedy of the commons meets tyranny of the majority.
My stuff doesn’t do great on social media. Tough to run a Michelin star restaurant in a food court.
Maybe crowdwork comedians really are modern-day philosophers because Socrates used to just ask a bunch of questions, too.
The worst part of the crowdwork clip movement is that stand-up comedians have stopped hating on improv.
The algorithm favors jokes that get shared with others. But so many of the best jokes I’ve heard are ones I don’t want anyone to ever know I laughed that hard at.
Read more in his newsletter here, including an analysis of why the aptly named “Millennial Snot” has poisoned the discourse among my cohort:
And watch the replay of our wide-ranging discussion about comedy here:
Living his best life…
YES! Come hang at Porchlight :)
Thanks for the shoutout! Appreciate it.