Philly Librarians, Independence Day & Christophe Niemann on A.I. & Drawing NYC

#445: Plus! The Gift of Fire, An Unfortunate Comedy Photo, Pickleball, Manhattanhenge, & Morris finds his new happy place

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Hey again, friend.

Welcome to Issue #445 of New York Cartoons. I’m still shaking off the buzz from my weekend in Philly at the American Library Association conference, where I got to meet not only the most enthusiastic book lovers on Earth but also a buttload of fellow authors and artists with books out!

(You can order mine here.)

Fellow cartoonist and NCS Member, Jason Platt

Humor Writing Panel, feat L-R Editor and author Shamika Mitchell, Colbert and New Yorker writer/cartoonist Asher Perlman, yours truly and my writing partner Scott Dooley.

We had a great time hanging out with our fellow New Yorker cartoonist and comedy writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,

asher

Perlman, who just started his own Substack this week. Subscribe early so you don’t miss his great work. I wrote about him below in an earlier edition of “Someone You Might Like”. - Subscribe to

The asher Newsletter

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#20: Asher Perlman

David Ma’s ”Tower of America.”

July 4th was a big day this year

— not just because of the insane fireworks and ridiculous food (thanks, David Ma) but because it marked over 10 years since I moved to this crazy country. I posted about it below if you didn’t catch it on Friday.

The Sketchbook I’m sharing with you this week is of a few dogs I drew into the new book. If you’d like me to draw your dog (or your friend’s dog) you can order one here.

1. I did a guest spot at Gotham Comedy Club last week and had some friends in the audience. One of them took a photo of me on stage, which may well be the most unfortunate composition I’ve seen…

   

   I’m performing there again tonight at 7pm if you’d like to come. Book your tickets here!
   

2. After being buried alive in book deadlines or months, I finally returned to my Wednesday Pickleball addiction habit in Brooklyn. Even in the stinking heat, it’s the most fun you can have with a paddle. And bad knees.

   

   

   One surefire way to ensure nobody steals my pickleball paddle…
   

3. This coming Friday, July 11, at ~8:20 pm, the sun will perfectly line up with the West→East streets of Manhattan for what is locally referred to as Manhattanhenge. You can still get a glimpse of it before and after that date, but technically the 29th May and 11th July are the official dates the sun lines up perfectly. The excellent photographer Dan Martland always seems to capture New York in all its ridiculous wonder. Here’s a pic he shot from the other day— Go follow his Instagram for great shots of New York at @dantvusa

   

   
   

Hat tip to

The Bob

for pointing me to Christophe Neimann’s incredible peice in the New York Times about his changing relationship to Art since the introduction of AI-Generated Art. Well worth a read.

You can read the whole thing here. He also did a great piece in The New Yorker below about trying to capture the spirit of New York in art. The man is a treasure. I can’t get enough of his work.

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 this one: