Latest / Draw Me Anything with Jason Chatfield / DMA#55: Paid to be in trouble with Avi Steinberg

Transcript

DMA#55: Paid to be in trouble with Avi Steinberg · Draw Me Anything with Jason Chatfield

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: We're doing another episode of Draw Me Anything.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Jason Chatfield.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is my Substack, New York Cartoons.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: And today I am with a friend and fellow New York cartoonist and author, Avi Steinberg.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Avi, welcome.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's so great to be here.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: I just saw Matt Lassen just join.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Matt Lassen from the New York High School of Art and Design.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: I see we have a lot of really good people, familiar faces and names in the chat.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone who has seen the show before knows about halfway through.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've hit the camera and we draw together.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you start thinking now about suggestions of things that you would like us to draw...
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Feel free and throw them in the chat.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I want to,
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: first of all,
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want everyone to kind of understand that you are of a school
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: of New Yorker cartoonists and there are schools of New Yorker cartoonists
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: that I knew about before I was in the New Yorker.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: About, I want to say like 10, 11, 12 years ago, something like that.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: I got a random...
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like a commission request from a teacher saying, hey,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: I need you to do a caricature of my friend is a teacher,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: but he's a New Yorker cartoonist.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, amazing.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: I know a whole bunch of New Yorker cartoonists.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I did a caricature of you and I hadn't met you before.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: And this was the first time seeing your face because you don't see cartoonists' faces.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: You have no idea what they look like.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's a sign-up sheet.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Which is amazing.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: No one has to know what I look like.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: No one bothers me.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's perfect.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the perfect crime.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: You can be famous on paper.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember when I was submitting in person in the New Yorker,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: there's like a sign up sheet and everyone would write their name and it's like
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: in their font.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: I remember
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: that list.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: I would always take a photo of it.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I don't know what anyone looks like.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: I know their work.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: I know their names.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: I have no idea what they look like.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I take a phone and I'll be like, all right, I know that Sam Gross is here.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I know that Avi Steinberg is here.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Where is, which one is he?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's Tom Tora.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it's such a funny thing, like,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: to know someone's work so well and then never, have no idea what they look like.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's such a cartoonist thing.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's nice and it's fun for people to go, oh, I know your stuff, but I don't know who you are.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I like, Thanks for letting me know you don't know who I am.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's infamy.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone should also know that previous guest Tom Toro,
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: New York cartoonist and author Tom Toro, he is going to join us.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: He's already in the chat roasting us.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: He said you guys look like a before and after, but which is which.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: This is the caricature, by the way, that I did about it.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was so good.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I saw it.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, how...
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: The beard was in its nascent phase.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I know.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is the first time I was intimidated by you, I think, by your skill.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I got this and I was like, I can't do this.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is incredible.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you have one of my favorite cartoons.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love that cartoon.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Which, this is great.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of my prized, treasured possessions.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm glad it survived.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I wouldn't have been offended if you threw it out.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: I was always, every time I look at my work, all I see is mistakes.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Before anyone asks,
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: there's some things that I want to make sure to tell everyone that we're going
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: to cover today over the next hour.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: The first one is that you have a new book out called The Jumble.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's coming out on the 6th of November.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: You have a previous book out.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's already out.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: It came in 2023, I think.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: A story no one has ever heard before.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: The Jumble is available for pre-sale now.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: So before you do anything, go...
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Pre-order it.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Go to bookshop.org.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Go wherever you buy books.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Pre-order it.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Get it done.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: It helps authors, apparently.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: People go, oh, they like the book.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: It really does.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen the book, but they like the book.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: They don't know you, but they like the work.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I remember talking to you a long time ago because you and I both came in
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: under Bob Mankoff, the first New Yorker cartoonist, like editor that I really met.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: I never met Lee Lorenz.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And, um, I, I remember it being like a hazing.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: He would kind of, he wouldn't take joy in it, but he didn't hate.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like kind of making sure that you were serious about this thing.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember you took like 10 years of pitching before you sold.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a big commitment.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's like David Cypress level commitment.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was a while.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Did you get to like year seven and be like, should I still be doing this?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't wait till year seven to feel like that.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I started submitting
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: after high school.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: The short story is I was not good and I didn't deserve to be submitting to the New Yorker yet.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was not ready to be submitting.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I think everyone starts with the New Yorker not realizing that they,
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: for the most part, that like, what am I doing?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why do I think I can even be?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: In the pages of The New Yorker.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I got introduced to The New Yorker Cartoons when I was younger.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time I was in high school, I started submitting.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't submit consistently.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I drew a batch of cartoons.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, that's it.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's all I can come up with.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's all my funny jokes.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I sent them in.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And back in the day, we would send in a little folder, a little envelope.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we had a little return thing.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we just waited months.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually they sent a little...
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: The little rejection slip?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I put it up on my wall above my
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: computer for years.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I wallpapered my wall with those.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So once I got it, I threw out the rest of them.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, come on, come on.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I submitted on and off.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: I submitted on and off for 10 years.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I say 10 years,
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: it was a long time of submitting and it was a great process of learning.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And about seven years into it was when I started showing up at the New Yorker.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes a big difference.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And...
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the most intimidating thing was when I realized that the cartoonists
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: that are really in the New Yorker,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: that are really submitting,
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: the ones that they know, the greats, they drew a batch of 10 cartoons every week.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And when I really learned that, my heart sunk.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: How do they put that much work into it?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't fathom.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to teach myself that you can do that every week.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I told myself I would do that for a year.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: No more of these up and down roller coasters of emotions.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: For one year, I would do 10 cartoons a week.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then I could either do it or I'd quit.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: This was after I sold my first one.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: When I got rejected many, many weeks after that for a month or two.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought I was in.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I'd done it.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then it got even harder in a way.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, I'll give myself one year and then I'm done.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that was a big learning process.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not the 10 years of submitting before where I kind of got the hang of what a cartoon was.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Really drawing every week.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Having 10 amazing cartoons that you love and just getting blasted by Bob May God.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Building like that amadillo shell.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: He was never mean.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: No, he was constructive, but he was direct.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and if you asked him a question, he would teach you something.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Every time you teach me one thing.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: I learned a lot from him, and I gave him all the credit.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, don't give him too much credit, come on.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: I give him enough, but I appreciate him.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it was that from that first cartoon to maybe the second or third was
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: when I really learned the process of you have to work hard.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's hard work.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the consistency is as valuable as the quality.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can have an intensely like, oh,
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: great, I've got a really strong batch of 10 and then have nothing for six months.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's the consistency that builds that muscle and trains your brain.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you're just constantly vacuuming up all these ideas and writing them down.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it becomes like a rhythm or a ritual or like just a habit after a while.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you, in that year, I mean, I don't know, was this you?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me if I'm wrong.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: I had someone I admire very much as a friend.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Austin Kleon had a book out that just came out and it's got a picture
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like a stack of cartoons in there.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: It might have been you or Drew Dernovich or someone.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember which.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just like a stack.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was this fucking high.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was like hundreds.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then there was like sold, pitched.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the sold was like four.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the stack was like off the page.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Was that you?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: That was Drew, I think.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was Drew.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I did take that same photo.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I just have like a stack.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have my own version of like that stack of rejections.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone should post that stack.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: That you become really proud of in a way because it just kind
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: of shows you like you did a lot of work because if you draw and then disappears,
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: you don't feel like you did anything in a way.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you know,
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: as a teacher,
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: when you learn a little bit each day,
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: it becomes invisible, I guess the growth in a way.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: So to see the stack of physical,
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: I can swipe through my iPad now and see all the things that I do.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: But to be able to pick something up that's heavy,
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: even if it's a heavy pile of rejections, it's good to have.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a done list.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like you can have a to-do list, but like a done list is also very productive.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Ken Grimstein is in the chat.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Ken just said, hello, my compadres.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Ken, I'm a big fan of Ken's.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: I always get very nervous.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you felt this because I...
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think you and I had the same kind of introduction to the New Yorker in that,
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was reading it in my dentist's office and stealing copies out of his reception.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: I would, like, make excuses to go to the dentist to get New Yorkers.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then someone gave me that big collection.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I just, like, I just went through the whole thing.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was learning about,
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Saxon and Arno and, like,
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: all these,
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: and Roz and, like,
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: just all these cartoonists and, like, figuring out, like, There's something to this.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's an art to it, but there's like a science to it.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm reverse engineering.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: How are they doing these gags?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And Larson and Watterson were like my,
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: as far as like panels and strips, because I did a comic strip for 16 years.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was like obsessed with Watterson.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you and I have the same pedigree in that sense.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like those were the things that informed like,
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: oh, this is a really, this can be done really well.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that's exactly my trajectory too.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think I grew up on the far side and Calvin Hobbes
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: and also other great cartoons too comic strips back in the day.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to be a syndicated cartoonist before the internet came.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was a nice kind of,
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say that golden era, but after internet, before AI was like a lot of fun.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: A little sweet spot in the 2010s.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I grew up on that and then I got a copy of like the 75th anniversary collection
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: of Signed by Bob Mankoff.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: NPR, she donated the money, and they sent us this book.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: I flipped the whole thing in high school, and I said, I can do this.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was wrong.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Did you get the CD-ROMs with it as well?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think so, yeah.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have no more way to play it.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: I can spin it on my finger.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: We can turn it into an art project, but I think the same thing.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was just so inspired.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you,
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: but I'm the type of person,
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: if I see something I like or I think is really cool, I want to do it too.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, 100%.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm immediately disappointed that I can't.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Just the amount of work that it takes.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I saw that.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I want to do this.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was already drawing.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was already trying to become a syndicated cartoonist in my mind.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, drawing a lot of Ninja Turtles and Batman and Spider-Man.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I did a lot of Spider-Man.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it was just kind of a matter of time, I think.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how it happened.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, mom.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I mean, it's always mom.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny,
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: my mom and my grandma,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: everyone was very supportive because that's all I ever did growing up was drawing.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't have any friends who had…
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a job.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: In my head as a kid, I was like, well, it's a hobby.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a job, is it?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, well, what am I actually going to do?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was like 15,
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: I was doing a really mean caricature of my history teacher, Mr. Cook, in my file.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And he walked past and he saw it and he got really angry.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: He gave me detention.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then that evening when I was in detention,
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: he like quietly sidled up to the desk and said,
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: hey, listen, the school gardener is retiring next week.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: I need you to do a mean caricature of him.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'll give you 20 bucks.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, wait, you can make money doing this?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: What the hell?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it like broke my brain.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I never went to college after that.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: I just left high school and became a cartoonist.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, and my mom was thrilled.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's something magical about that story where being a cartoonist is a balance
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: of being in detention and getting $20.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like both at the same time.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not quite enough money, but you somehow always feel like you're in trouble.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Paid to be in trouble, a little bit.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Paid to be in trouble.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, maybe that's the title of this episode.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: There is something also that I want to talk about your books.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And there was something I was hearing you talk about recently where it's like,
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: and I talk about this a lot with other cartoonists,
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: is no one's really just a gag cartoonist anymore.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: There was a golden age where you could stomp around town with a portfolio
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: of cartoons and go to The Saturday Evening Post and Playboy and Esquire and
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: The New Yorker and all these places.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you'd like sell and then you'd have lunch at that pergola visit.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: He's all hanging out and then going back to your Connecticut houses.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can go buy a car and a house.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're placed on...
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I had this idea in my head based on Mort Gerberg's book,
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: which was like cartooning the art and the business,
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: that that was like a thing that people did.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was just one job.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't know there was an option to not...
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Do something other than cartooning.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just got obsessed with like, all right, I got to figure out how to make this work.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then as the years have gone on,
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think I know a handful of people that only do gag cartoons.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like a small, it's like a, it's an amputated hand, really.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I do, I mean,
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: you and I probably make more doing like books and other stuff than gag cartoons.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: But that's still our like primary like passion and the thing we do.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like, that's not, if you were to stack it by income, it's nowhere close, you know.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's really interesting.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I feel like for me, I don't know if you feel the same way, but if you draw a circle, right?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yes.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: The middle circle is gag cartoon.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yes.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Not even for the comic strips, although I love the telling.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like, it's like everything else in a way.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, if you can get that one joke, then you can use that to like do bigger, longer.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the nucleus.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a nucleus.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it's jokes.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Jokes is the whole thing.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And whether that becomes a gag cartoon or a comic strip or a bit on stage,
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: the joke is the nucleus and then it just kind of
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: divides.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Even a gag cartoon is often storytelling.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're drawing the picture, but it's all about telling the joke.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: So if you do that, then it can feed everything else.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Crimson's great at sequential stuff as well.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: The people that I watch doing these sequential things or even just in
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: a single panel drawing your eye around the image,
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: like how they make you see the certain things at a certain time, it's such an art.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's something I'm still learning.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always thinking about, well, where are people going to look first?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what's supposed to be there?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And what's not?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Bob Mankoff actually taught me a lot of that.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: He actually took one of my cartoons,
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: held it up to the window back in the day, back in the old buildings in the 40s.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: And they had windows.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they had windows.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he showed me what it looks like,
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: almost like a mirror image, because we were seeing the reverse of it.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he was saying how things could read from left to right.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And don't put something in a cartoon, just to put it in there, a little thing.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it has to pull its way.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: There has to be a reason everything is there.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Unless you're Tom, you're doing this amazing background.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just like the wallpaper I was telling you.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: All the backgrounds.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: We had a question in the chat relevant to this, which was like staying curious.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Are gag cartoonists less a threatened species than political cartoonists,
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: especially given the heightened fear of retaliation norm we seem to be in now?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're asking me that?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I've written about this a bunch, but, you know.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, is a political cartoonist, is that just like a subset of being a gag cartoon?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's a type of gag cartoon?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you consider it something totally...
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're different skill sets.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: The daily cartoon on The New Yorker is often political.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I consider that political cartooning.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I think more like the editorial cartoon is the Pat Oliphant's of the world,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: the kind of Antelmays and,
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Patrick Shepard and these people who are like freedom fighters,
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: basically, in the trenches of free speech.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a skill I don't have.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: I love the challenge of a daily cartoon and trying to take something that's going on
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: and make something funny or capture some truth out of it.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's a whole thing.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're all kind of in trouble.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think who is in trouble at any given moment
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: and how your career is doing it might go up and down.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I was growing up.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't always understand the political cartoons that was in the newspaper,
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: but I was always wildly intimidated and impressed with the art.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't understand enough.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now I understand the storytelling involved and the captions and what they're trying to say.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Metaphors and
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: stuff, yeah.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but back, I was just like, how are they drawing this?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was so alive.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think,
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: thinking about it now,
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: talking to you, that did leave a big impression of not something I can really draw.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how I draw.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I'm at that kind of place,
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: but just informed a little bit how I capture something on the paper.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was always, I was always, wow.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right, right.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: The realism versus the cartoony element, the consciousness of all of that was very, very...
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was some of the best work going on when I was growing up.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, me too.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: I got very lucky that I grew up in Australia where political cartooning was kind of
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: the only cartooning that was.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there were three comic strips and everything else was political cartoons.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: And they were really like...
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Australia is like a place where a healthy disrespect for authority is like
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: the whole...
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's the whole assignment.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so to be a political cartoonist was just like you were capturing the zeitgeist
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: of what everyone was thinking and like, you know, thinking about what was happening.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: There were journalists writing about what was happening.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then the cartoonists were drawing about what people thought about what was happening.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that was like such a skill to like get a sense,
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: like keep your finger on the pulse of what people are thinking,
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: but then also give your perspective, give your own take, you know?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's a tough thing to learn.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you have to both absorb and give back a little bit.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: You have to know what's going on and have an opinion on it.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of work.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of multitasking.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot, yeah.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have to draw it.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then cop all the feedback that inevitably comes with it, which is not always fun.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: You have to have thick skin.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever had,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: because I'm going to get to the books in one sec,
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: so I want to talk just one more thing about the living in this era where now it's,
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: you know, internet with AI with trolls and algorithms.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, have you ever gotten in trouble for a cartoon?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever had a cartoon,
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: like, shared or taken out of context or recaptioned or misinterpreted or...
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I've definitely had cartoons taken and recaptioned and turned into mini memes
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: and taken away my punchline and put something else in.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: People have gotten annoyed at some cartoons.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've never gotten, so far, in a lot of trouble, which I'm happy about.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: But...
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite things is to read comments.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like when the New Yorker shares my cartoon.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God, I can't do it.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I hate it.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: The New Yorker used to
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_03: be so funny.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, I know.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: What are you going to do?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can't make everyone happy.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's life.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I like seeing the range of reactions to my cartoon.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think anyone's wrong usually.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: You get it, you don't get it, you like it, you don't like it.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to hope the right people like it and that more people like it than don't like it.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: What are you going to do?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: I never understood the people who say, I don't get it.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, why would you tell people that?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: Why would you tell people you don't get it?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's the pride in that.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to talk about books because you have a book coming out.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Just like look it up.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: November, it's November 3rd this year.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: You have a new book coming out.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's based on a kind of almost true thing that happened to you with a bunch
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: of your students bumping into a dog walker with all the dogs.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to talk about the book.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's called The Jumble.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is your second book that I've seen come out.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you've done, is this your second book or you've done other ones?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is my second picture book.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Second.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And picture books are hard.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, everyone thinks it's,
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: everyone's got like an idea for a picture book,
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know, because they've read to their kid and get, I can do this.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then they try it and they're like, oh, it's actually really hard.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I thought.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I read picture books all day as a kindergarten teacher.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I can do this.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is my second book coming out.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is not the second book that I've written.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I was thinking.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the premise is great and the images look amazing and the color and the style.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Everything is really fun and energetic.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to ask you, everyone has kind of a different process for this.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I was talking to Tom Toro about this as well with his book.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Books are such an interesting thing now because they used to be something else.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now books are this...
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's a product.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's a thing you have to market yourself.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I hate self-promotion, but no one else is going to do it.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to do it.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're promoting a book,
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: it's like, It's this thing you poured all this time into and energy and effort.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's such a long lead.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's like such a long wait before you can actually even enjoy the dopamine hit of,
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: hey, my book is out.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: People like it.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, oh, I turned that thing in like a year ago.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm done.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: I have to switch it back on to go, oh, yeah, I'm back in this book I did a year ago.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: How is it for you?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: What's your process with this?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: You pitch to a lit agent.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: From beginning to end...
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: I had this idea and I had a bunch of ideas after my first book.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Are we talking about a specific book?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Just put your book process in general because both are different
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: publishers.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Both are very different.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I got rejected by everyone else.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: We sent it to all the publishers.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone rejected me.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this one place, FSG,
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: under Macmillan,
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: was like,
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: we love it,
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: but I don't know if they said they love it, but they said, can you redo it?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I redrew it, rewrote it, sent it in.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, great.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Here are some more issues with it.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I submitted it again.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's very familiar, yeah.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: We can chop it around some more.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've never seen them go back and forth so much without giving a green light
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: or saying, no, thank you.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: But my philosophy,
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: and I think I got this from trying to send it to
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: the New Yorker, was like, until they tell me no, until Bob Mankoff says, don't come back.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be precious.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Until they tell me no,
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: if I have someone who at least will look at it again and hasn't said,
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: no, I'm going to keep on trying.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And, and eventually we kind of landed on, I think that worked out, became this book.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I still love my original idea,
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: but this book,
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: the way it came out,
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: a story no one has ever heard before with the characters and the people there,
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: um, inside just, I'm very happy with that.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very happy with how it worked out.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be the original idea to still be a great book.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I still have that original thing.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: I have those files, but, um,
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: But the funny thing about that is when I was becoming,
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: when I wanted to become a cartoonist,
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: a syndicated cartoonist in the newspapers, I had this little alien character.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a few comic strips and I shipped them out to all the syndications.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And they, of course, rejected me.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, what, 12, 13.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I used that character,
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: this alien that I had that was sitting in my files and like in my pile of rejection.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: I used that as a character for the book that appears
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: in this book.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was rejected like 25, 30
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: years ago.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: So nothing is ever totally gone.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: You work on something,
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: sometimes it doesn't physically come back,
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: but it was very nice to see that work I did as a 12-year-old wasn't a waste.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't just like spinning your wheels.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's good that it stayed with you.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: You kept it and it kind of came back and told you what it was years later.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: I had that character.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: But otherwise, I ended up working out in this book.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was covered with a bunch of ideas.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: A bunch of things had been rejected by my agent.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Not by agent.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: My agent, too, actually.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Publishers, yeah.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Agent and then the publisher.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And once we landed on this dog-kid idea, it just kind of went.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, I love it.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I love it.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, work on this.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I worked on that.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: We pitched it.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: They said, let us think about it.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, okay.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: But after a little back and forth, they went for it.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of like we went through a lot of ideas that didn't work.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this idea seemed easy, but it took a lot of work to get there.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: But once it all kind of came together, it happened that, which was really great.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: But now it's been months, like you said.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And now you have to kind of return to it.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I am excited about it.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I try to do is all those little milestones when they,
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: when the cover came out,
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: when I got my proofs,
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: when I'm going to get my first,
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know, the copies of the book before it gets them.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to just take all of those little milestones that no one could take away from me.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, whatever, however the book sells, whatever the reception is, those things are yours.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, those things are yours to celebrate and hopefully people will celebrate with you.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: It is intimidating.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: No one teaches you.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't go to market.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't major in marketing.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was an English lit major.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: The most I write are captions.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: How do you feel?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: You've had some books out too.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Have you managed?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're asking, I want to learn from you.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm asking you because I don't know.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like I have had,
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: so I have one of three books out and it's called You're Not a Real Dog Owner Until.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: I bang on about it all the time because I just like,
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: you say like,
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: you can't just post,
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: you were saying earlier,
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: like you kind of post about something and then just assume everyone's going
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: to see it.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: You have to keep posting and keep drilling it and being like, hey, here's my book.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Here's my book.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Buy my book.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: I've got your book here somewhere.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: You do.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's like, it's a series.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm kind of learning as I go that like, oh, you're selling a book for sure.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: But you're also kind of selling the brand like you're selling the series.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I have one coming out in October.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is You're Not a Real Dog Owner Until.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: This one is You're Not a Real Parent Until.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next one is You're Not a Real New Yorker Until,
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: which was the original idea we pitched in 2022.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's 2026.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the book isn't coming out until 2027.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's coming back, though.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: See, nothing you do is totally lost.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: You always have to hope.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: My mother told me, you just got to keep drawing.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, true.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Keep on swimming.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good one.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: The only way not to sell a cartoon is if you stop drawing.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes things will happen or not happen, but the for sure way to have it not to stop.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm happy the original idea is going to come out eventually.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it came out of a bit.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was on stage and my writing partner, Scott,
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: saw me do this bit about you're not a real New Yorker until and he was like,
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: you know, that'd make you good daily shouts for the New Yorker.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, yeah, let's do like 10 and pitch it.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then we came up with like 100 that night.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, maybe this is a book.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Took it to my agent.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, you guys are idiots.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh, yeah, you're right.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's been done, right?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, no,
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: it's you're not a real teacher until you're not a real golfer until you're not
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: a real lawyer.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Parent, dog owner, cat owner, blah, blah.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, oh, of course.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then we pitched it as a series rather than a book.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: But it had 10 different pitch decks with different iterations.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: We had different samples that we drew for the book.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: We had different characters.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: We did like world building with like characters and types and dogs and people and parents.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like we put...
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: Tons of work in there.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's all spec.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's all spec work.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: No guarantee.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Squares and arrows and all the Chris Boston stories and a picture book.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I don't think you need this.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: But that's incredible.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's incredible.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited about your book.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: I want to get it.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: So everyone needs to pre-order.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Pre-orders are so important.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to kind of impress upon people just how big the pre-order thing is
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: because the day it comes out,
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: that's when all the pre-orders tick over and it shows your numbers.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's your rankings and all that bullshit you have to look at.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you pre-order,
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: it really,
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: really helps the author and it really helps give the publishers some confidence.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, pre-order the jumble wherever the hell you buy books.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, hopefully like bookshop.org.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, buy one from each place just to spread it around.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Amazon is this weird now benchmarking thing where
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: the New York Times bestseller list used to be.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it sucks because it's like, I don't want them to buy it from Amazon.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want them to buy it from Bookshop or something.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: And they don't count.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Apart from your sales numbers, they don't really count.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're stuck in this weird place as an author and a human.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: You want the best for your book and for the world.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be tied to one specific area or locked into one specific thing,
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: but we're all in it together.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Maggie Dehir and Bob Eckstein in the comments,
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: in the chat, were just saying like, this is why a lot of people still publish now.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like the traditional publishing is like,
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Someone asked what doesn't count.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Lynette, bookshop.org numbers don't count on the Amazon sales list.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: The Amazon rankings, they don't take into account...
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of this is a learning process for me too.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: The first book I learned a bit,
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: the second book I'm learning even more because I thought you posted about it once
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: and everyone sees all your followers by and you're done.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the opposite of what happens.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you just got to keep, I guess, pushing it.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just the thing.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: You have to get used to yourself hearing yourself say the same crap over and
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: over again and be okay with that.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: Do you like dogs?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: Do you like kids?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Literally every time I see a dog, I'm like, ah, no, just the book for you.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, like Roller's getting.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to flip the camera because I'm going to sketch while I talk
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: because I want to keep talking to you.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome to join me.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: I would love you to join me in live drawing.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to try.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: Also, Lynette, yes, give it to me too so I can push it when I'm in chats.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, Lynette.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: The Jumble, if you look it up, it's available for pre-order.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: Go through whichever place you buy books.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's like plugging podcasts.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's like wherever you listen to podcasts.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wherever the paper is sold.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to ask you,
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: because you're a kindergarten teacher in New York City and you have been for
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: a long time.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: And there's something,
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: when I teach kids, I go into school sometimes and I will teach drawing and stuff.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: I get so jealous because they're so uninhibited.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: They're so like, you say, draw a castle.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, got it.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then they're just like so happy to just draw.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, You didn't even hesitate.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see that all the days and just be like, wow, I love how free you are?
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: My students are the best artists in the world.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: No one told them how not to draw something.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is what it's going to look like.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not second guessing this.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: They are incredible at just going with it and they all have their unique style.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when I'm teaching them and I'm drawing with them,
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: one thing I don't do is draw and give it to them,
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: but I'll draw with them and show them how I draw it and then they'll take it
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: and make it their own.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's been amazing.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: I know you do a lot of live drawing for comedy shows.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: I do a lot of live drawing to teach kids how to read and all that stuff.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: So let me also set up here too.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, yeah.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: While you're setting up,
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: I want to kind of talk about a few things because there is something about,
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: is it the Feynman technique?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what it's called, Richard Feynman?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you learn something better when you have to teach it, I think.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I might be wrong with the name on that,
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: but it's like when you teach things,
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: you're able to comprehend them better,
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: you're able to understand them better,
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: but you also, I don't know, it goes into your brain differently.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: A hundred percent.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think once you're able to teach it, it shows that you actually know it.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like there are times where you can think you know something and then you try
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: to explain it to someone.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, wait a second.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: I do not understand this.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I did.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of good because I find that when I'm trying to teach something
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm like, I realized I thought I knew how to explain this or the why.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like they'll ask a question and I'll be like, actually, I don't totally know why that is.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then I have to go back and go, yeah, why is this?
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like why...
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: You get questions,
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: especially from kids,
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: that you wouldn't necessarily ask yourself when you're working,
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: so it's kind of nice to get that.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: They don't assume anything either,
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: so they'll ask you a little bit about everything,
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: and you just have to be ready for anything.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is my video sideways now?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's perfect.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: I can see it.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Just, I mean, it looks like, actually, it is sideways now that I see your hands, yeah.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: I see, I see.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it needs to be like up and down, straight up, like portrait mode, I think.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: I got it.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you're around kids all day.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: You have this sort of exposure to these tiny minds who were just uninhibited by
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: the strictures of what they think.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you have to do something like this.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is the way to do a thing.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: They just do it the way they want to do it.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and sometimes they'll say, I don't know how to draw this.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll say, well, think about what it is.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then you get to kind of understand how to methodically go through What it means
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: to visualize something, what it means to try.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Kids are different.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of kids will just go for it.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes kids will say, I don't know.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting to me that there's an age when a kid will see another kid next
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: to them drawing and make the comparison and go,
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: oh, I can't draw because so-and-so next to me can draw better than me.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: I can't draw.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: What age is that?
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: That happens a lot with all the subjects because you don't realize,
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: even in kindergarten,
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: students can start to understand when they have a challenging time with something
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: and their friends don't.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: So part of being a teacher is not just teaching them the content,
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: but teaching them how to be learners and how to think about themselves
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: when something is hard.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's kind of, what do they call them, those soft skills?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, soft skills.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think it really helps them as they kind of keep going.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's good.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so they'll compare to each other a lot unless you can teach them how
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: to do self-talk and think about it.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: How do they think about themselves as people and as learners and what it means
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: to not be good at something,
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: what that says about you as a person or about you technically about that thing.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's so important to teach how to learn.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: Just to be curious.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think kindergarten,
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of kindergarten is kind of,
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: yeah, just be curious, have fun learning, and don't be too hard on yourself, right?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's hard because they see what they see,
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: and then they'll make their introduction,
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: and then you have to undo the assumptions they've made.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes,
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: and they
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: make more assumptions than you realize because they have still more context
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: than you realize.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: So the Substack that you do, I've been watching a Substack for a while.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: You jumped on earlier than I think a lot of other cartoonists,
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: which I liked that you, because no one really knew what they were doing.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: None of us really knew.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: It was like making it up as we go.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I was looking at you going, what are you doing?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: And just like, it's such a learning curve because...
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we had Patreon,
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: we had MailChimp,
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: we had WordPress,
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: we had all these different things, but no one mushed them together before like this.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're just kind of all making it up as we go.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I like what you've been doing with yours.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: You're very engaged.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're great on notes.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: You have a great community.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've been really lucky to be able to use kind of Substack to experiment
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: a little bit, to share my work a little bit more with more people.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: I just had fun.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can say, you can feel that.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: You can feel that coming through the having fun.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: When I started Instagram, I didn't know anything about that either.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: And this was a while ago too.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I just used it to experiment and to play around and like draw things
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: that weren't strictly for something.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think Substack has been a little bit of that too.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: I could do some more long form.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: I could even do some writing.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: Do you find that easier?
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're an English lit major.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: You actually know how to write.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I majored in it.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: But it's been a lot of fun.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned a little bit about the editing process and a little bit
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: about taking your time with it and returning to something before you post it
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: when it's long form.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: And every time I edit a piece, I find a new mistake.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: So it makes me very anxious, I would say.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how come I missed that the last time?
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: My dream one day is to write a short story or something like that,
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: but I can barely make it into a paragraph.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know what you mean.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I have anxiety about it.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like such a dilettante when I write anything because I'm not a writer.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't study it.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: I would never call myself a professional writer, but I love learning.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: I love learning how to write.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: I read everything from strength.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: Brunk and White to Anne Lamott and all these different teachers like John McPhee
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: and trying to figure out like, it's a puzzle for me.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, writing, people say, oh, you know, you write so much.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, it feels like passing a kidney stone.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's so difficult for me.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: It feels really uncomfortable.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I edit so much.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've never read one writer talk about the joys of writing.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: I know one.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: I know one.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: Ever.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: Ever.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or they're like, yeah, I do this because I enjoy the process.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was a journalist.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm impressed.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think that what I've learned from becoming a cartoonist is if you want
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: to do anything, it takes a lot of work.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to be good at it, you don't have to be good at it either.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can write and not be good at it.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: Just enjoy it.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to get better at something, it just takes a lot of work.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like,
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: that's why I started stand up,
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: but I didn't continue stand up because I'm like, oh, this is going to be hard.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, not everyone has to be.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: I got this advice a while ago from a road comic because everyone,
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: like when they start, they think, oh, I'm going to be a big famous comedian.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to get a Netflix special.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to get on late night.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to have a sitcom, blah, blah, blah.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: And everyone has a different goal, I think, starting out.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're new at standup,
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: you're like,
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: you're so fresh and it's so exciting and you're getting up,
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: you're doing open mics, you're writing material, you're editing, you're recording.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: It sucks.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: You're bombing, but you're also like meeting other comedians, you're talking sharp.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: But then Over time, people fall away because it's a really difficult thing.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's really hard to do, really hard to do well.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: And like you said,
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: you don't have to be the best ever at it to enjoy doing it and to make a fist of it
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: where you can at least enjoy being a comedian and working.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: And not everyone has to be a world famous comedian, you know?
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many headliners aren't famous.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it does.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I know several world famous comedians
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: and their whole life is this relentless just cavalcade of just like commitments
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: and things.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Anything but writing jokes, it seems like they're just doing all this other stuff.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, are you right?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, when do you write jokes?
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, when do you have the time, you know?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't understand it.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, thank God for them.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone's got to do something,
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: work hard in some way to make this world fun to be in, I would say.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's, but it's good advice.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's good advice.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like the, for me,
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: when I heard them say like,
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: oh, not everyone has to be like the big world famous best ever at the thing.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: It kind of, it's not that it lets you off the hook from trying.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: It just stops the pressure of you, everything having to be perfect and like the best, you know?
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, what if it's just good?
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's like pretty good.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: And pretty good can lead to great.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: If everything has to be the best each time,
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: if every one of the cartoons I drew had to be the best,
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: I would never feel successful.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: No, we would throw it away and become a bus driver.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's no way we'd ever commit to this if every cartoon...
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Which also is really hard to do.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: I know, I was just going to say, I feel like I just threw bus drivers under the bus.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's really difficult to be a bus driver.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sometimes I feel like I do what I do because everything else would be harder.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: When I was thinking about making English lit, it wasn't because that was the easy way out.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's because I don't think that I can do business or be mad.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: No, I have a lot of friends who do very impressive jobs that I have no idea how they do it.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't even begin to fathom the process of how they came to learn what they do
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: and do it at the level they do.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I never think...
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I wonder if I could do that.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: I just go, I know I could never do that.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm never even going to imagine doing that.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'll let you be the talented cardiologist.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're right.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: Literally, there was a surgeon friend and I was like, I couldn't even begin.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: Even the language used, even the day-to-day language just changes.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: You're completely different.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: You're on a different spectrum of understanding, of reality.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: Even the finitude of existence.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: You're seeing death every day.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: You're seeing life being made every day.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's like this crazy, intense lifestyle.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I'm drawing jokes.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to handle the pressure that I feel like other people.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then people will tell me, I don't know how you teach kindergarten.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I don't know how to do anything else.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's funny.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I say about cartooning.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I have no other skill.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: This is all I can do.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: I can write jokes and I can draw them.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's a performance.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's about it.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: Parents are thrilled.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: My fallback is comedy.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like the least reliable fallback.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but so your Substack,
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: I noticed like when you write, you draw, you show some of your process.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's my favorite thing is just like seeing other people's process.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a junkie for it.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's like really fascinating to me that everyone just figures out their own thing.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know,
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: do you look at other people's stuff and then just go like,
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: oh, that's an interesting thing.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'll fold that into my rituals and see if that works.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think totally.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: When I look at other artists,
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: I always assume they know exactly what they're doing and they've got it down.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, how are they doing that?
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I need to learn from them.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: So first of all, I love the process.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: I love the behind the scenes of artists.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: I love that growing up.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: I love hearing about how the artists do what they do.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's been fun to be able to meet some of these amazing artists too and just learn from them.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't even remember the question.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to draw a robot.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's just like the process.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone, you know, like Bob famously wrote like books about drawing cartoons.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like he wrote The Naked Cartoonist and like these books about like,
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: all right, well,
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: there's a process coming up with ideas and being open and available to things
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: that might become jokes.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the structure.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the mechanics of a joke.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the word economy, blah, blah, blah.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: But like,
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: then you see other cartoonists working and you go,
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: oh, they're doing something interesting.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: I've never heard of that before.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're like,
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder where they learned that or if it was an accident that they just happened
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: upon that thing.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: I always find that really interesting just seeing like what other people are doing
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: and then going, oh, maybe that would work for me.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then sometimes it does not work.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: They came up with it because of who they are.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: I have to stop myself from saying, I need to do it that way because clearly that way works.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: I see what they're doing and clearly that's the way to do it.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: I just made this up because I didn't know how to do anything else.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a middle ground of learning from someone and just putting the time in.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: What you're doing works.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: My routine does work.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: It serves me well.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's really good advice.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I still love hearing how other people do it.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: No, same.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm obsessed with it.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's so fascinating to me that someone had to sit down and figure out that that was a thing.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's a book by Mason Curry called Creative Rituals, I think.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it's nothing but the poets,
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: artists,
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: writers,
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: composers,
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: painters of the past 250 years and what their daily ritual was, their day-to-day.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so fascinated by it because they all figured out that there's no magical...
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just wait for inspiration to strike.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: You're just...
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: Just have the rigidity of a ritual to reinforce that you need to keep writing
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: and doing the thing or composing or whatever the thing is.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: I feel you get that a lot when you read about the behind the scenes of writers themselves.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: Wake up 4am,
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: write for three hours,
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: go have breakfast, go on a run, come back, write for five more hours.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, this is why I'm not a writer.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because not all of us can be Murakami.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's right.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: I like to wake up late, go get a coffee.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sit and stare out the window.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: Come up with three ideas about Mary Poppins.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell that to the New Yorker.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's like Hunter S. Thompson's Day on a Plate thing.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's like every second thing was cocaine.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to,
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: anyone who's joined us since we began,
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: just reiterating, this is Avi Steinberg, author and New Yorker cartoonist.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: He has a book coming out on November 3rd called The Jumble.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: And this month is...
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: I've been doing San Diego Comic Con.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: I went for 10 years in a row.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is the first year in a long time I haven't gone and I've done New York Comic Con.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think I missed one New York Comic Con in like 12 years.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: I don't love Comic Con.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very stressful time.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of have to have something to sell, like a book or something to sell when I'm there.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: And this year I didn't really have anything out yet because the parent book comes out in...
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so our good friend,
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: Tom Toro,
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: previous friend of the show,
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: previous guest, he has decided that he would like to Jump in on this.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: Elbow his way in to your DMA.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: But what I actually want to do when he comes in is I've got, you gave me your favorite cartoons.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: Some of your favorite cartoons.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: And they actually overlap with some of your favorites or some of my favorites.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about them when Tom jumps in.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to add him in to the chat, the stream.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: Is that how you say it?
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to add him in to the...
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, whatever that is.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm adding him in as a co-host.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: I love that drone by the way.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's very, very Searle-esque.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: I love the nose overlapping that lip.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's very old-school New Yorker.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I own both of this type of face from you, honestly.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just the...
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: Watching what you're doing right now.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my God.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm learning it from like Arno and Saxon and like Stevenson and all these other cartoons.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're all just passing things down, which is nice.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think so.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking of which, hey Tom, how you doing?
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: Am I audible?
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_03: You are audible and visual.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: Visual?
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_03: You're double threats.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_03: I kind of, I wanted to be, this is my pitch to be, Jason, your official Comic-Con correspondent.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_03: Correspondent?
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: Love that.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Big fan of that.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I'm still wearing my bag.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't taken my bag.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to say, where's your lanyard?
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: There it is.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: Are you still in San Diego right now or are you back home?
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_03: I'm back home.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_03: Got home 1.30 this morning from San Diego.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_03: How was it?
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_03: It was great.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_03: It was my first con.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, really?
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_03: I had no idea what to expect.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_03: That's why I decided to jump off the deep end and go to the biggie.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_03: That's amazing.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was great.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's expensive, but it's worth it.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: I got this amazing picture book right here, Tom.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, thank you.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_03: All right, job's done.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_00: See you guys later.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is a great idea.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing better than having picture books from people that I know and admire
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: in my own classroom.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell my students,
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: I know who did this.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: And like, we don't care.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_03: That's so cool.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_03: So you actually, so, so you passed your kindergarten students test.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_03: They enjoyed it.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_03: You're also an extremely talented children's book writer.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_03: Of course.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I know good stuff.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_03: I like to,
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_03: I like when your first one came out,
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_03: you were like, I've been teaching kindergarten for so long.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_03: Like, why did it take me this long to do a children's book?
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because it's really, really hard.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's really hard.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_03: No, Comic-Con was great.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_03: It was, you know, we went for all four days.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, okay.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: You did the whole thing.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, through and through, through and through.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_03: The excuse for going was my cartoon collection was up for an Eisner.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_03: Congrats, that's amazing.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_03: Did you win?
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_03: My collection of cartoons, and I think we started as a book club.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_03: You know what?
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_03: You know the funny thing?
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_03: So...
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_03: I went there and I was full of anticipation.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_03: And then I started getting text messages from, I have a good friend from high school.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_03: I went to high school with the great graphic memoirist, Brianna Loneson.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: Here's her book that was also up for 90.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: Raised by your kids.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's a great book.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_03: Check it out.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's fantastic.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_03: If anyone wants to know what it felt like to be a T-major in the Bay Area in
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_03: the 90s, this is your guide.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_03: I started getting text messages from her and she was like, did you hear how the winners leaked?
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_03: How they leaked?
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_03: They leaked.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the day before Comic-Con had accidentally posted the winners on their website briefly.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_03: There's still an investigation ongoing to find out how this happened.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_03: It got taken down, but not before someone had screenshotted it and then posted it on Reddit.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_03: So the Reddit thread was blowing up over who the winners were.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_03: There was some speculation that maybe it wasn't accurate,
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_03: but since it appeared on the website, people sort of assumed that it was.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_03: So I tried to resist.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_03: So then it put me in a moral quandary.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like, do you look?
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, would you?
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_03: Would you?
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_03: Did you?
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_03: I tried not to.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_03: I tried valiantly.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but you failed.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_03: But that's...
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_03: I waited until the very end.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_03: I waited until the very end.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_03: And then I was getting ready for the award ceremony.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, you know what?
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_03: I'll probably enjoy this a lot more if I just know I didn't.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_03: That's true.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_03: Or if I did, then I could actually prepare a decent speech.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_03: Prepare a speech.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_03: Or not be nervous.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_03: So I looked, and alas, I didn't.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_03: But it did go to someone who has the flawless first name of Tom.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_03: It went to Tom Gould, whose book of Physics for Cats.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_02: I saw that.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_03: Beautiful, yeah.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_03: So it was funny, but it was drama.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_03: It was drama.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_03: Like, people were really...
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't even hear about this.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_03: Not since the Will Smith slap of Chris Rock has there been such a scandal at an award show.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, since Jersey in 2023.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: You are now the Ryan Seacrest of Comic-Con for us.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: You're my...
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: Gossip monger.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know any of this stuff.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_03: It was wild.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, Reddit.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_03: Well, what would you, so let's use this as a Rorschach.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_03: So what would you, would you look?
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_03: Would you look?
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I would.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for the same reasons that you did was that There's this denomination phase to me.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've always had this,
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: because I've been nominated,
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: I've been lucky enough to be nominated a few times for the Rubin Awards
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_01: and I always have this feeling like this is the best feeling I'm probably going
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: to get.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: Realistically, the nomination is the most exciting.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's already flattering.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm already like, it's ridiculous that I was nominated.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, Enjoying the, it's like this nice feeling of potential, right?
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a first date.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, this could be anything.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then- The future stretches out ahead, yes.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: Precisely, precisely.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: But then if there's an opportunity to know,
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I would resist it as long as I could to sustain the nomination phase
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: until the practicalities seep in.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, listen,
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm either going to sit with a knot in my stomach at dinner all night Or I'm going
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: to be able to actually relax.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'd rather know that I lost than to be sitting there and being like,
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: oh, what if I have
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_02: to get
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: up?
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like in rehearsing my speech in my head that I'll never get to, you know, say or I don't know.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'd be like you, Tom.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think I would have done the same thing.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_03: That was a very similar thought process that I went to, yeah.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_03: Because also, like,
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_03: people knowing that it had leaked,
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_03: if you got up and gave a clumsy speech, it would almost be even worse.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_03: Because, like, you should have prepared.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, absolutely.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_03: Did you not rehearse?
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_03: Do you not know your lines?
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like, what's going on?
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_03: But it was cool, man.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_03: So you were different for four
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_01: days, right?
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, four days.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_03: Four days.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_03: I was hanging out mostly at the National Cartoonist Society booth with my... Great.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_03: I realized that I got to up my Comic-Con game.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_03: I was sitting there with a pile of books and everyone else had the elaborate displays.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_03: I wandered by Lonnie Millsap, the great Lonnie Millsap.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I love Lonnie Millsap.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: He's got a whole setup.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_03: He's got his branding down.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_03: He's got his infinite number of cartoon collections.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, I felt a little unprepared.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_03: So now I know for next time, but I really,
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: I enjoyed it.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: Was Luke McGarry there?
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_03: Luke was there.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_03: My table mates were Jeff Keen.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, wow.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_03: Jeffy.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_03: Luke McGarry was there.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_03: Hannah was holding down the sales of the t-shirts.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_03: I sat next to Lisa Rosen.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_03: It was just really good.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_03: I was wandering around a lot.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_03: It was funny.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_03: I was there with my kid, too.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_03: I was trying to curate two different experiences.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_03: I was trying to be there in my professional capacity,
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_03: and I was also trying to give him a great experience at Comic-Con, too.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_03: We came up with a deal where every other book sale that I made,
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_03: one would go to me, and one would immediately transmogrify into Pokemon cards.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_03: Love that.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I would basically just started asking for payment in Pokemon cards
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_03: because that's what it would be anyway.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes,
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, it was mind-blowing.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you kind of went in an interesting year because,
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've seen every single year it's different.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it's not really exactly the same every year.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's always like a big,
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_01: like a show coming out or a movie or a book series or,
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: you know, there's like a new Funko toy that you can only get at Sandy.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: Too much.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: Too much.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_03: So you'll see massive lines forming at one end of the convention hall
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_03: and you have no idea what it's for.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_03: But I think the Ryan Coogler thing was the big one.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_03: My kid really enjoyed it.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_03: They have the new Nintendo game Splatoon launch.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_03: Splatoon game.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah,
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_03: it's like,
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_03: and then like Matt Groening is wandering around, Jim Lee is wandering around.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's just this crazy.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's like you're in the Elysian Fields of the cartoon gods, you know.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_03: Also, like as a gag cartoonist,
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_03: there's like serious,
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_03: as a gag cartoonist and sort of,
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_03: you know, we're kind of goofballs and we have our own styles and stuff.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_03: And you're like, you're like walking around and like,
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_01: The comic art is just so breathtaking.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing, right?
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's on another level altogether.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_03: And it was actually really affirming for me to know that I'd chosen the right path
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_03: because there's no way in hell that I could draw as good as any of these guys.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like Alex Ross is over here.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my God, yeah.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's not even the style.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's even just like they're another breed of human at this point,
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: the way that they can just like churn it out.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: You see them doing commissions,
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_01: just sitting there with like a lap desk or something and just like draw it.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I can't even understand.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_01: I've been doing this my whole life and I can't understand how you're doing that.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_03: My characters with like the dots for eyes and the little swoop for the nose is like
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_03: the furthest extent of my cartoon.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm really thankful that I have like some wit that I can apply to it.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've always felt I'm funny because I can't hang out.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_03: But I will say,
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_03: I have spotted,
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_03: I think,
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_03: an opening in the marketplace where I think there is a market for gag cartoon people
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_03: to be more of a presence at Comic-Con.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_03: Because people enjoy it.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_03: The panels that I was on, I think there's an opening.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_03: I think we can make it a thing.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_03: Because we should elevate the craft and really stand in our talent and be more confident in it.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well,
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: in 2019,
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_01: I believe it was,
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: speaking of Lonnie Millsap, I think he might have coordinated this.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was him, Ivan Ehlers, it was Shannon...
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: Too Much Copy Man, Shannon...
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_03: Shannon Wheeler, yeah.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: Wheeler and a couple other cartoonists because they were both in Mad and
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: The New Yorker at the same time.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's maybe in 2018, actually.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: And they did a panel.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: They did a panel of gag cartoonists.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it was the first time at New York Comic Con or San Diego Comic Con,
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_01: this is San Diego, that I'd seen a gag panel at all.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, it was full.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: This was like Hall H, big, full...
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think you'll be great.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: People enjoy it.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to be at New York Comic Con.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_03: You should pitch it.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_03: Great.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_03: I think we should just throw a couple Comic Cons on the calendar and just make it a thing.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_03: Because they're always open to, you know, it's up to the artists to pitch the panel topics.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's right.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I should absolutely pitch one.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_03: Because, you know, we like to be self-deprecating, but we want to have careers too, you know?
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is what Avi and I were talking about.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's so hard because no one else is going to do it for you.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_01: No one else is going to self-promote.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's by definition, you're the only one who can promote your own self-promote, you know?
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so uncomfortable.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: It could be so uncomfortable,
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: but you just kind of have to learn it if you want to get your book sold
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: or your products, you know, out there.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's tough.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it's really refreshing, too.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_03: And single panel gag cartoons are like perfect for the presentational medium,
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_03: like showing them to an audience, sharing the laughter in a room.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's It's not only, it's like really affirming for us too.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm going to, I'll keep you updated.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's an opening there.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_03: Good.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_03: We're going to see what happens.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, yeah.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_01: Let me throw my,
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_03: if people are interested,
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_03: let me just throw the link to my Eisner nominated book collection in the chat.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, please, please, by all means.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: And when I rewrite the,
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: when I write the recap for this episode,
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_01: which will go out in the next couple of days,
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to put the links to both of your books in there,
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_01: to Avi's book, Yeah, it's a lot of work.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's a lot of work.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_03: It's on our shoulders,
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_03: but it's really like getting out and sharing your work and like,
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_03: hearing laughter live from an audience for your gag cartoons is,
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_03: I kind of got addicted to it.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_03: So I was, I really couldn't get it.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so it came out in October and I've really been doing a lot of stuff for the book tour.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_03: My next project is,
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_03: I have a children's book coming out in Thanksgiving called Between the Balloon.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's a new children's book.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's about, So I added my illustrations to her pictures.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_03: So it was really kind of an interesting experiment.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, cross-media kind of, yeah, mixed media.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_03: Totally.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's going to come out in Thanksgiving,
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_03: so I'll probably be around New York for that reason as well.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_03: And it's actually just available for pre-order, so I'm going to throw that in the chat too.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_01: Pre-order, what did you say it was called again?
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_03: It's called Between the Balloons.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_03: It's actually the new,
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_03: it's the debut children's book by what's primarily a photography press, Aperture.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's the first kids' book that Aperture is doing, so that's cool.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's amazing.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I want to do another cartoon collection.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_03: I really want to do another cartoon collection.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_03: Gosh, maybe I just need to spend my time making a time machine and going back to the 90s.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_03: But I really want to live in an era where you can come out with collections
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_03: because it's good work and it's funny.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_03: And people love it.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think yes, yes and.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_01: I want to yes and that because yes, I definitely feel the same.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, did I show up at the party just as they're sweeping up the cups?
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like I got in at a weird time.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there is like the appetite for it with like short form,
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_01: especially like I think there is an appetite for what we do.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_01: People really enjoy it.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_01: And there is,
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: as you've seen,
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: like people just really enjoy the community of like being in a room
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_01: when everyone else is laughing at the same thing.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's intoxicating.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_03: From the publisher standpoint,
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_03: the feedback I'm always getting when I'm trying to pitch my new collections is like,
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_03: they want it to be themed in some way where it's like,
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_03: I'm known for my climate stuff.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so like, why not put together a collection of climate cartoons?
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like,
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_03: how many,
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_03: can you really,
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_03: is it really satisfying to pick up a book and look
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_03: at like 200 rising sea level gags?
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_03: I love the thematic link of the far side is they were Gary Larson's and they were funny.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_03: Why can't the thematic link be like they're cartoons that I've done and they're all funny?
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_01: The thematic link is a signature in the corner.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's the theme.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_03: Asher's doing collections too.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_03: I know Paul Noth has a collection coming out.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_03: Amy has a few collections coming out.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_03: So hopefully it'll become more of a thing.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_01: I really hope so.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_01: What we were talking about earlier about the people pitching over time,
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_01: but also everyone having a style.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's so nice to see one person's work in a collection because you just really get
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_01: a sense of their style and the consistency, their world that they've kind of built.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_01: I remember Joe Data's book,
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember just seeing like these characters,
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_01: like these sort of cast of sitcom characters he almost had, you know.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it's fun to watch, like it's just fun to look at and then kind of learn from, really.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_03: No, yeah.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_03: And you get to see sort of the full spectrum of all the facets of the prism
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_03: of someone's mind, you know.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's like kind of, it's just a fascinating thing.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_03: Like I like seeing how artists tackle different topics.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to see how you tackle the same topic 200 times, you know.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_01: I feel the exact same way.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't know.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_03: Hopefully it'll be more than a thing.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah,
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_03: so I'm also,
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'll see anyone,
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_03: anyone who's in Columbus, Ohio for the Rubens, I'll also be at the Rubens.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I'll be there.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_03: I'm hoping to, fingers crossed, I go 0 for 3 in the trifecta.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_03: I was up for,
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_03: I was up for the Thurber,
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_03: I was a finalist for the Thurber this year,
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_03: I was a finalist for Eisner, now Gag Cartoonist of the Year.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_03: I think it'll be funnier to go 0 for 3 than to go 1 for 3.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm actually kind of hoping for the loss.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_01: Just to commit to the bit.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: Rule of threes.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_01: I have to lose.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_01: Comedy, rule of threes.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_01: I am lucky to be nominated this year for the book that I did
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_01: with my friend Scott Dooley called You're Not a Real Dog Owner Until
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_01: for book illustration.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's insane.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_01: This nomination phase thing that I was talking to you about earlier is like...
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's the nicest feeling because I saw who I was nominated with and I'm like, this is insane.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_01: I have both of the books of the other nominees and I'm like, there's no way.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is insane that I'm even in the same category, which is really nice.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_01: I know it sounds like a trite thing to say,
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_01: but I genuinely was,
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_01: this is the most crazy thing in the world to feel that anyone thought
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_01: that my stuff was in the same league as these other guys.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_01: Congratulations.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's really cool.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_01: No, it feels, it's a nice feeling.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: Before we go,
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to do something,
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_01: my favorite thing to do is look through,
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_01: like I always have favorites of cartoons,
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_01: of different cartoonists that I have and I put them on my wall
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_01: and I have them around,
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_01: because I Learn stuff from them,
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_01: but also just like they genuinely never stop making me laugh.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like I have Ed Steed's Squid Surprise Party cartoon.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_01: Just never, every time I see it, it gets me.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a tree that Avi has drawn here.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_01: He's great at trees.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_01: Demon for a tree.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_01: Love a tree.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_01: Look at that.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_03: I think Avi,
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_03: like of anyone in The New Yorker currently,
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_03: Avi does like expressions of just like,
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_03: Deep horror, deep existential horror, like something in the eyes.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's so disturbing.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_03: Totally.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_03: I know exactly what you mean.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_00: I just sit down, look in the mirror.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_01: Your reference is just your face.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_01: This one is great.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_01: This is the three trees with the chocolate in the middle.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_01: It pains me to say it, but Greg is much more interesting as a book.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's such a great mean gag.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so just, it's very you as well.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then this one, remember, it's just a game.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, nothing matters.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: We have to create our own meaning in life.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_01: For example, it would mean a lot to me if pitching stuff didn't matter to you.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love it.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_01: It needed to be long for it to work.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_03: We're on the walk with you.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_03: You're walking us around the block and we just can't
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_01: wait to see where we're going.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, where is he going with this?
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of those great jokes.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_03: I like captions where the length is the joke.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Asher
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_03: does that as well.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Asher's yo-yo one is really good where it's like go back and play yo-yo.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm different than my dad and you'll be different than me and we'll continue back
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_03: and forth for eternity.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_01: It just works because of the length of it.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_01: This was the first one I think you ever sold to Bob, right?
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_01: After like 10 years, I think this was the first one?
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I've heard that I'm not the only person that sold an animal cartoon
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_00: as their first one, and especially a fish one.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think Steve might have a fish one too.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it's easier to draw fish than people, which I get.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_01: I guess.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it might have been Joe Dater or Emily Flake who told me when I was coming in
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_01: to pitch to Bob in person,
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_01: they said, hey,
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_01: there's like,
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_01: you could try this every week when you have in your batch,
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_01: but like,
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_01: order them differently,
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_01: but kind of put a shit one in there to kind of make the others look good.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I idiotically took the advice.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I put a dumb one in there,
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_01: just a silly joke that I was like, there's no way they're going to like this one.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that was my first sale.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, no, not that one.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's the one I put in to make the others look good.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's never like,
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_03: every week I have one where it's like, this is indisputably the next masterpiece.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And never, ever, ever, ever, ever sells.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Nope.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_03: That's really funny.
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's insane.
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_03: I don't intentionally do crap ones.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_03: Some like mine are just crap because they're crap.
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_03: But I will submit ones that I know are completely inappropriate to the town of the New Yorker.
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's like just to remind them that you're not a PDF creating bot,
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_03: that you are like an actual user.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_03: One time,
• 1:11:54
  SPEAKER_03: one time,
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_03: I submitted an entire batch that was the same art with different captions,
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_03: like 10 different versions.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_03: Bob said to me, I hate this.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_03: Like, never do this again.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_01: I submitted the same caption with different art for over the course of like three
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_01: and a half years.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was this gag that was, I was so married to it.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a fat guy at a hot dog stand handing over a credit card saying, keep it open.
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And David, like Emma liked it, but David was like, eh, it's a fat joke.
• 1:12:33
  SPEAKER_01: You can't do that.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've never sold a hot dog stand joke.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_03: I've never cried.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I really wanted to as well.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was so excited to sell a hot dog stand.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not a New Yorker.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_03: My hot dog stands are not my scene.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I had to do research as well because I was like, what do they really look like in person?
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And like Zach...
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Zach's one is trying to ignore the hot dog smell.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Do you guys
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_03: find it satisfying?
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_03: Do you find it more satisfying when you nail something that is uniquely yours
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_03: and is just like an observation?
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like a trope.
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_03: Or do you find it more satisfying to land your spin, find your millimeter of your trope?
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's really
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_01: satisfying, yeah.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_01: You want to think you've done for...
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_01: You did?
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_01: What was it?
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_00: I had a couple, but I think one that was out.
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_00: I hope it was out or else I'm giving it away.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're going
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_03: to kill it.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_03: They're going to kill it.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is it in the hopper?
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Someone's standing on the island.
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_00: He has stubble on his face.
• 1:13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And someone's kind of floating up as he just arrived.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the guy on the island is like, I've actually been here for a while.
• 1:13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't grow a beard.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_03: I love that,
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_03: I love that,
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_02: I love
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_03: that.
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good joke.
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_03: I think the island is the trope that I've done the most variations on
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_03: that have like sold, or maybe it's like, maybe the therapist's couch, but yeah.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_03: Keep it open.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's good.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_03: I like that.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh,
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_01: but then I redid it so that it wasn't a fat joke and it was like a drunk girl after
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_01: a big night out,
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_01: you know, a broken strap in the heel and all that, and I actually got my ex-wife
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_01: To pose for this one because I couldn't get the pose right.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_01: But then the feedback was just like a prostitute.
• 1:14:18
  SPEAKER_01: My ex-wife was thrilled.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then I posed for it.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, what if I do it as just me?
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like a dude.
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like just a guy at a hot dog stand.
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Liking.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then so just like keep it up.
• 1:14:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's like regular.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I finally, because I kept pitching this damn gag with different art.
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-oh.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_03: All right, let's talk shit about him behind his back.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_02: We lost him, but...
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_03: He kind of went, take the... Oh, can you see?
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_03: Can you see?
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_03: We got you.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_03: You're back.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_03: You're back.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, crap.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_01: I had a moment with Joe Data...
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, exactly, right?
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was like, what if it's just a guy?
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Just make a regular guy at a bar.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then he said, what if it's an elephant at a peanut stand?
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, take the people out of it.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Just make it an elephant at a peanut stand and keep it open.
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then Emma was like, yeah, it looks like Babar.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then she's a bit more realistic.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think you should compile these into a
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_03: killer cartoon collection.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_03: Crazy shit.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:15:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's good.
• 1:15:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's good.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like people always out like, you know, resubmission is a thing, right?
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_03: Like you can resubmit.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes you go from a couple months away,
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_03: like you go back through some old batches and you're like,
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_03: okay, like I remember that idea.
• 1:16:03
  SPEAKER_03: And like, it's literally just flipping the composition.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_03: Like you realize, oh, you, I just reading it the other way around, you know,
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_00: the visual.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_03: And that did
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_01: make a big difference.
• 1:16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I sold it to Bob in the end.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up selling it to Bob Hancock.
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, airmail.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_03: Airmail did it.
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 1:16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 1:16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Keep on drawing.
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_01: I could not let go of this frigging gag.
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_01: I just couldn't get up.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_03: So, Jason, you are such a good illustrator, like genuinely.
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_03: Do you draw worse when you do cartoons?
• 1:16:33
  SPEAKER_03: Like for cartoons, do you have to restrain yourself?
• 1:16:38
  SPEAKER_03: Do you try and dial back the detail on your illustrations?
• 1:16:41
  SPEAKER_02: I...
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_02: I find...
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_02: I guess it's like...
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Every line has to pull its weight, right?
• 1:16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_01: I want to say like...
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_01: I have a New Yorker cartoon philosophy,
• 1:17:03
  SPEAKER_01: and I have a philosophy for other illustration, I think.
• 1:17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Just because every single line has to pull its weight in a cartoon.
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm more minimalist, yeah.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_03: I admire the versatile.
• 1:17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, it's a trick.
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's like you practice, you know.
• 1:17:18
  SPEAKER_01: I feel really jealous.
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_03: I'm way too long, by the way, talking about my own crap.
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, no, no, no.
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_03: I admire your illustration style so much.
• 1:17:26
  SPEAKER_03: And Avi is like the Aristotle of gag cartoons.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_03: Your existential dread is like, yeah, I love your stick.
• 1:17:34
  SPEAKER_03: Like your stick figures coping with the horror of existence is one of my favorite things.
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's so good.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_00: My biography.
• 1:17:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_03: I love them.
• 1:17:44
  SPEAKER_03: So when parents of your kindergarten are looking at your stuff,
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_03: are you ever concerned about that?
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Church and estate.
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Church and estate.
• 1:18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Church and estate.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:18:03
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:18:03
  SPEAKER_01: He's Batman and Bruce Wayne.
• 1:18:05
  SPEAKER_01: I am going to have to wrap this up because I have to go, but I could talk to you guys forever.
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think we should do another three person thing.
• 1:18:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is like really fun.
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_01: I had never done this before and this worked out really nicely.
• 1:18:18
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for including me.
• 1:18:19
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you for jumping on time.
• 1:18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for letting me skip the live drawing session because I'm so bad at sketching.
• 1:18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:18:26
  SPEAKER_01: You are now the official Ryan Seacrest of Draw Me Anything.
• 1:18:30
  SPEAKER_01: So welcome to the club.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_01: I will be your time.
• 1:18:32
  SPEAKER_03: You're just going around to Comic-Cons.
• 1:18:34
  SPEAKER_03: Appearing at the Comic-Con.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_01: The best.
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_01: What's his name?
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Smigel.
• 1:18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you to everyone for tuning in.
• 1:18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Please go on, buy both of these amazing books.
• 1:18:47
  SPEAKER_01: The Jumble out November 3rd.
• 1:18:49
  SPEAKER_01: And to think this started as a book club by Tom Toro.
• 1:18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Please buy it wherever you buy books.
• 1:18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you guys both for doing this.
• 1:18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, who's that behind you?
• 1:18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, hey.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Show me your Pokemon cards.
• 1:19:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I am going to be back, I think, next week with a big mystery guest.
• 1:19:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think you guys are going to really like him.
• 1:19:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's a fun one.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for tuning in, everyone.
• 1:19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having us.
• 1:19:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'll post the recap tomorrow.
• 1:19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Avi, you're the best.
• 1:19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Tom, you're the best.
• 1:19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 1:19:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'll talk to you guys soon.
• 1:19:19
  SPEAKER_01: We both rock.
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_02: See you.
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Bye, guys.