Noth Things Considered

Paul Noth joins Draw Me Anything live this Thursday at 12pm ET

I learned this week that the state of Wisconsin has a Cartoonist Laureate.

An actual one: 3-year term, a museum behind him, official recognition at the State Capitol. I’ve been president of two different cartoonists’ societies on two different continents, and neither job came with so much as a plaque. His name is Paul Noth, and this Thursday he’s my guest on Draw Me Anything!

You know Paul’s work even if you don’t know you do. He’s been in The New Yorker since 2004: more than 400 cartoons, several of them among the most widely shared the magazine has ever run. Last year he won the Thurber Prize for American Humor in Cartoon Art, only the 2nd cartoonist ever to receive it. Before that, he made Pale Force, the Emmy-nominated animated series for Late Night with Conan O’Brien, in which he and Jim Gaffigan recast Conan as the snivelling sidekick of a superhero whose powers were paleness and nipple lasers. He’s developed shows for Adult Swim and Nickelodeon, written a kids’ trilogy that opens with a boy selling his family to aliens, and drawn comics for the Federal Reserve that teach children financial literacy. His, in other words, is the only CV on Earth listing both the Federal Reserve and nipple lasers.

Next month he publishes his first-ever collection of cartoons, I Am Going to Eat You... and Other Awkward Truths: 200 of his most popular gags, more than 50 that have never been seen anywhere, and a foreword by his old Pale Force co-conspirator Jim Gaffigan, who credits the whole thing to “the same twisted mind”. (It comes out on 13 October, the same day as You’re Not a Real Parent Until..., which I’ve decided to read as a good omen rather than a threat.)

Meanwhile, on his Substack, Noth Things, he runs Cartoon Combat: 2 unpublished cartoons face off each week, readers vote, and the winner advances to a monthly Tournament of Champions. Democracy, but for gag cartoons. It’s the only election I’ve enjoyed in years.

On Thursday he’ll draw live while I ask him about all of it: the 3.5 years he spent trying to get a single wordless cartoon into The New Yorker, what a Cartoonist Laureate actually does, and whether the Federal Reserve knows about the nipple lasers. Then it’s your turn: lob requests into the chat, and he’ll draw those too. That’s the whole point of the show.

Draw Me Anything with Paul Noth. Thursday, 17 September, 12pm ET, live on Substack at drawmeanything.com.

‘til next time!
Your pal,