Draw Me Anything with Jason Chatfield

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Jessie Kanelos Weiner came back on Draw Me Anything this morning. That makes her my only three-time guest, which I announced live and then immediately wondered aloud whether we still had anything to talk about. (We did. We talked for 45 minutes and I never once got to the drawing I’d prepared.)

(Watch the full replay above.)

Jessie is an illustrator, an author, a Substacker and a stand-up comedian, and she does all of it from Paris, wh...

Hello again, friend!

We did it. Scott Dooley and I birthed a book!

You’re Not a Real Parent Until... is out today. It’s pub day! (Publication day, for those of you not in the biz. For those of you in the biz, my condolences.)

Earlier today, Scott and I went live here on Substack for our official virtual launch. Thank you to everyone who tuned in live and shared your parenting experiences! (Watch the full replay above.)

First, the winners... We promised to give away one free copy of the...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.newyorkcartoons.com

Michael Maslin has been in The New Yorker for 49 years…

He has catalogued every cartoonist who ever drew for the magazine, and wanted me to know that, off camera, he is surrounded by “a lot more books.” (Not his books. Just books. A man after my own heart.)

Thank you to everyone who tuned in and left comments during our live stream— a reminder: the live streams are, and will always be, free. If you missed it live, th...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.newyorkcartoons.com

Stay tuned for the full recap tomorrow…

Thursday, midday. Paul Noth is in Milwaukee, where he moved back after 20 years split between the Upper East Side and the Princeton area, and where he now has, as he put it while wandering to another room mid-stream to chase better WiFi, multiple rooms. (We get it, Paul. You don’t live in Manhattan anymore.)

First order of business: it’s Noth, rhymes with both. He’s been letting people say “Nawth” for decades out of Midwestern politeness. Gosh. Consider yourselves corrected on his behalf. If you missed it live, the replay is above. Here’s what happened, wi...

Thursday, midday. Paul Noth is in Milwaukee, where he moved back after 20 years split between the Upper East Side and the Princeton area, and where he now has, as he put it while wandering to another room mid-stream to chase better WiFi, multiple rooms. (We get it, Paul. You don’t live in Manhattan anymore.)

First order of business: it’s Noth, rhymes with both. He’s been letting people say “Nawth” for decades out of Midwestern politeness. Gosh. Consider yourselves corrected on his behalf. If you missed it live, the replay is above. Here’s what happened, wi...

Wednesday, midday… Brian Biggs is alone in his Philadelphia studio, an old garage he describes as a hermit cave, holding his phone in one hand and a pen in the other. I’m at my drawing board doing the same. For the next hour, 90 people watched 2 grown men show each other their doodles.

If you missed it live, the replay is above. What follows is what you missed, with links to everything we held up to the camera.

Brian has made more than 80 books. The Everything Goes series, Tinyville Town, the New York Times-bestselling Frank Eins...

Wednesday, midday… Brian Biggs is alone in his Philadelphia studio, an old garage he describes as a hermit cave, holding his phone in one hand and a pen in the other. I’m at my drawing board doing the same. For the next hour, 90 people watched 2 grown men show each other their doodles.

If you missed it live, the replay is above. What follows is what you missed, with links to everything we held up to the camera.

Brian has made more than 80 books. The Everything Goes series, Tinyville Town, the New York Times-bestselling Frank Eins...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.newyorkcartoons.com

On Wednesday at 8pm, I did something I have never done in 20 years of cartooning: I drew a stork, live, on the internet, while two grown men discussed laundry detergent… (I know. Weird that it took me so long, right?!)

Let me back up.

I went live on Substack with my co-authors on a book we’re writing about how couples can run a home without slowly startin…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.newyorkcartoons.com

Carly Valancy beamed in from Valencia, Spain.

Some of you will remember Carly. She interviewed me on her Substack, A Good Omen, a while back. This week I got to return fire.

Four years ago, Carly reached out to the writer Alex Dobrenko`. When she interviewed him, she asked who she should talk to next. He said me. She sent me one email. I said yes. Then I sent her one email (”I know how busy you ar...

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Welcome back for another episode of Is There Something In This?

Outside, seaplanes kept coming down the East River like they’d been thrown, and every twenty minutes Scott and I stopped mid-sentence to watch one not crash. One aborted, came around, and hit the water hard enough that we both made the noise. Nobody plans these segments.

I’m back from Columbus, where actual listeners turned up and forced us to describe our audience out loud. Here’s what we landed on: you’re...

About twelve years ago, a teacher hired me to draw a caricature of her colleague as a gift. The colleague, she mentioned, was a New Yorker cartoonist. I said yes immediately, then realised I had no idea what the man looked like.

That’s the whole profession, basically. You know the work, you know the signature, you’ve never seen the face. “It’s the perfect crime,” Avi Steinberg said this week, a decade after drawing him without his knowledge. “You can be famous on paper and still walk around without anyone bothering you.”

Avi kept the caric...

About twelve years ago, a teacher hired me to draw a caricature of her colleague as a gift. The colleague, she mentioned, was a New Yorker cartoonist. I said yes immediately, then realised I had no idea what the man looked like.

That’s the whole profession, basically. You know the work, you know the signature, you’ve never seen the face. “It’s the perfect crime,” Avi Steinberg said this week, a decade after drawing him without his knowledge. “You can be famous on paper and still walk around without anyone bothering you.”

Avi kept the caric...

I said at the top of this episode that I didn’t want to call Josh Gondelman a comedian, because the word does about a third of the required work.

Here is the CV, and I have since checked it against his actual bio rather than my memory, which is a courtesy I extend to guests and to no one else. Five years at Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, first as web producer and then as staff writer, where he collected four Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards and three WGA Awards. Head writer and executive producer on...

I said at the top of this episode that I didn’t want to call Josh Gondelman a comedian, because the word does about a third of the required work.

Here is the CV, and I have since checked it against his actual bio rather than my memory, which is a courtesy I extend to guests and to no one else. Five years at Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, first as web producer and then as staff writer, where he collected four Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards and three WGA Awards. Head writer and executive producer on...

Over Austin Kleon’s shoulder, the whole time we talked, Lynda Barry watched us.

Not the actual Lynda Barry; an original manuscript page from Cruddy, hanging on his studio wall next to an outtake from Making Comics. He calls them his Guardian Spirits, and the plan is to keep adding to them until he’s got a full pantheon of demigods looming over his desk.

I understand the impulse completely. I’ve got a drawing of Larry David in my studio that Luke Watson painted for me, and he glares at me every day with an exp...

Over Austin Kleon’s shoulder, the whole time we talked, Lynda Barry watched us.

Not the actual Lynda Barry; an original manuscript page from Cruddy, hanging on his studio wall next to an outtake from Making Comics. He calls them his Guardian Spirits, and the plan is to keep adding to them until he’s got a full pantheon of demigods looming over his desk.

I understand the impulse completely. I’ve got a drawing of Larry David in my studio that Luke Watson painted for me, and he glares at me every day with an exp...

Let me tell you who Myq Kaplan is, because if you’re not already a fan, that changes today.

He’s been doing comedy for going on twenty-five years. He has a Comedy Central special. He was a finalist on Last Comic Standing. He’s been on Comedy Bang Bang and Keith and the Girl more times than I can count. He has two specials on YouTube - AKA and Rini - and a new one he’s just recorded. He runs a Substack called Myq Kaplan's Arty Har-Hars, which you should subscribe to immediately after this. He is on...

Let me tell you who Myq Kaplan is, because if you’re not already a fan, that changes today.

He’s been doing comedy for going on twenty-five years. He has a Comedy Central special. He was a finalist on Last Comic Standing. He’s been on Comedy Bang Bang and Keith and the Girl more times than I can count. He has two specials on YouTube - AKA and Rini - and a new one he’s just recorded. He runs a Substack called Myq Kaplan's Arty Har-Hars, which you should subscribe to immediately after this. He is on...

My drawing board is currently covered in a mix of art supplies and aggressively pungent deli meats.

I’ve got a puddle of Higgins ink dangerously close to a towering pastrami on rye, and my entire apartment smells of mustard. Outside my window, a sanitation truck is violently reversing down 9th Avenue. The floorboards are vibrating. On my monitor, looking entirely too relaxed for a man navigating the crazy New York City culinary scene, sits Ben Gollan, a fellow Aussie expat making a go of it in the big smoke.

If you enjoy my work an...

My drawing board is currently covered in a mix of art supplies and aggressively pungent deli meats.

I’ve got a puddle of Higgins ink dangerously close to a towering pastrami on rye, and my entire apartment smells of mustard. Outside my window, a sanitation truck is violently reversing down 9th Avenue. The floorboards are vibrating. On my monitor, looking entirely too relaxed for a man navigating the crazy New York City culinary scene, sits Ben Gollan, a fellow Aussie expat making a go of it in the big smoke.

If you enjoy my work an...

There’s a cartoon early in Rich Sparks’s new book of a man my age, alone in a bath, lifting a spoon to his lips. No setup, no crowd, no scene. Just the act, and a title underneath:

“Youp.”

Where I’m from, that’s a diagnosis. My uncle Greg taught it to me as a child: “Mate, get a load of this bloke. He drinks his own fucken bath water.” (Australian for arrogant.) First cousin to tall poppy syndrome, that great national project of never letting anyone tout their own success.

I opened the boo...

There’s a cartoon early in Rich Sparks’s new book of a man my age, alone in a bath, lifting a spoon to his lips. No setup, no crowd, no scene. Just the act, and a title underneath:

“Youp.”

Where I’m from, that’s a diagnosis. My uncle Greg taught it to me as a child: “Mate, get a load of this bloke. He drinks his own fucken bath water.” (Australian for arrogant.) First cousin to tall poppy syndrome, that great national project of never letting anyone tout their own success.

I opened the boo...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.newyorkcartoons.com

When I first moved to New York 12 years ago, I did what every terrified transplant does: I asked other comedians for advice…

This was a mistake, because comedians are a bag of cats and no two of them agree on anything. One told me to do every open mic in the city. One told me to do none of them. One told me, with great seriousness, to “find my inner hobgoblin,” which is the kind of thing people say when t...

“You cannot write a line of code that replaces the invisible labour, the thousands of terrible rough sketches, and the deeply human derangement required to make a truly great cartoon.”

If you try to launch a print humor magazine in the 21st century, most financial advisors will tell you to just set your money on fire instead; it’s faster, it requires less paperwork, and it keeps you warmer in the winter.

We live in the era of the digital churn. We live in an ecosystem where corporate media conglomerates are continuously gutting their editorial staff...

“You cannot write a line of code that replaces the invisible labour, the thousands of terrible rough sketches, and the deeply human derangement required to make a truly great cartoon.”

If you try to launch a print humor magazine in the 21st century, most financial advisors will tell you to just set your money on fire instead; it’s faster, it requires less paperwork, and it keeps you warmer in the winter.

We live in the era of the digital churn. We live in an ecosystem where corporate media conglomerates are continuously gutting their editorial staff...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.newyorkcartoons.com

My drawing board is currently covered in a mix of art supplies and aggressively pungent deli meats.

I’ve got a puddle of Higgins ink dangerously close to a towering pastrami on rye, and my entire apartment smells of mustard. Outside my window, a sanitation truck is violently reversing down 9th Avenue. The floorboards are vibrating. On my monitor, looking entirely too relaxed for a man navigating the crazy New York City culinary scene, sits Ben Gollan, a fellow Au...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.newyorkcartoons.com

I am sitting at my drawing board in my sweltering Manhattan apartment. Grant is sitting in his room in Wichita, Kansas. The contrast between our two environments is immediate and palpable.

His background is calm, lined with books. There is a quiet, steady, midwestern stillness to his frame that makes my own neurotic, constantly vibrating New York energy feel unhinged.

I have been a big fan of Grant’s work for a long time. If you have sp...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.newyorkcartoons.com

Thank you Jeremy Caplan, Adam Ming, Carly Valancy, Kyrie, Sheri Handel, and many others for tuning into my live video with Grant Snider! Join me for my next live video in the app tomorrow at 12:30pm EDT.

I am sitting at my drawing board in my sweltering Manhattan apartment. Grant is sitting in his room in Wichita, Kansas. The contrast between our two environments is immediate and palpable.

His background is calm, lined with books. There is...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.newyorkcartoons.com

As always, if you want to watch the full replay, please upgrade to Paid. I really appreciate your support.

If you want to test the absolute limits of your nervous system, try sitting in the middle of Times Square with a sketchbook, a pen, and an open microphone...

It is a sensory assault. It does not smell like inspiration; it smells like roasted nuts, diesel exhaust, and the sweat of ten thousand tourists realising they’ve lost th...

When I first sat down to chat with Jeremy Caplan about artificial intelligence and digital productivity tools, I genuinely did not think we would end up talking about him playing the violin. I certainly did not expect the conversation to pivot into a deep, philosophical appreciation for the irreplaceable magic of humans sitting in a room together, simply enjoying a live performance.

But tha’s the funny thing about talking to someone who spends their life evaluating machines. You inevitably end up talking about what it means to be human.

The frictionless technological utopia we we...

When I first sat down to chat with Jeremy Caplan about artificial intelligence and digital productivity tools, I genuinely did not think we would end up talking about him playing the violin. I certainly did not expect the conversation to pivot into a deep, philosophical appreciation for the irreplaceable magic of humans sitting in a room together, simply enjoying a live performance.

But tha’s the funny thing about talking to someone who spends their life evaluating machines. You inevitably end up talking about what it means to be human.

The frictionless technological utopia we we...

If you joined me last time I had the legendary Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher on the stream, you’ll remember we discussed the “Cartoonist’s Paradox”- the absurd reality where cartooning is incredibly easy to start, but absolutely impossible to stop once it gets its hooks into you. This time around, our conversation shifted gears. Instead of talking about how to get into the game, we talked about how to survive it. We dug into how to stay sane in a politically fractured world, how to defend the analogue line against the digital horde, and the sheer mechanical joy of making ma...

If you joined me last time I had the legendary Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher on the stream, you’ll remember we discussed the “Cartoonist’s Paradox”- the absurd reality where cartooning is incredibly easy to start, but absolutely impossible to stop once it gets its hooks into you. This time around, our conversation shifted gears. Instead of talking about how to get into the game, we talked about how to survive it. We dug into how to stay sane in a politically fractured world, how to defend the analogue line against the digital horde, and the sheer mechanical joy of making ma...

I live in an ancient little apartment a block from Times Square, because I love cooking dinner in my bedroom.

It’s more of a ‘Pre-War Cupboard’ really. I ordered a mini fridge the other day because I needed a guest bedroom. Morris, my French bulldog, is asleep on a pile of discarded drawing paper, completely unbothered by the fact that his gourmet kibble requires legal tender. My radiator clangs with the aggressive rhythm of a stolen Citibike being dragged backwards down a flight of subway stairs.

It’s a very particular kind of anxiety. You want...

I live in an ancient little apartment a block from Times Square, because I love cooking dinner in my bedroom.

It’s more of a ‘Pre-War Cupboard’ really. I ordered a mini fridge the other day because I needed a guest bedroom. Morris, my French bulldog, is asleep on a pile of discarded drawing paper, completely unbothered by the fact that his gourmet kibble requires legal tender. My radiator clangs with the aggressive rhythm of a stolen Citibike being dragged backwards down a flight of subway stairs.

It’s a very particular kind of anxiety. You want...

Margreet is a brilliant Dutch comic artist and the former Comics Laureate of the Netherlands. She spent three years acting as an ambassador for the medium, literally compiling guides to help teachers get graphic novels onto high school reading lists. She is also someone who intimately understands the frantic reality of a creative life.

The Court Jesters & the Freedom Fighters

Margreet and I talked about the bizarre cultural divide in cartooning. In Australia, people generally look at comic artists like we are overgrown toddlers playing with crayons. It is treated as a silly little hobby...

Margreet is a brilliant Dutch comic artist and the former Comics Laureate of the Netherlands. She spent three years acting as an ambassador for the medium, literally compiling guides to help teachers get graphic novels onto high school reading lists. She is also someone who intimately understands the frantic reality of a creative life.

The Court Jesters & the Freedom Fighters

Margreet and I talked about the bizarre cultural divide in cartooning. In Australia, people generally look at comic artists like we are overgrown toddlers playing with crayons. It is treated as a silly little hobby...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.newyorkcartoons.com

Episode Links: Book // Socials // Podcast // Website

If you caught this chat live on Thursday, you know my chat with Sarah Elizabeth Hill didn’t bother with small talk. We dove straight into the deep end.

Sarah writes, produces, and runs Bobi Media. She took $400 and built it into an agency that works with Oscar winners, Deepak Chopra, and brands you see on billboards. On paper, it looks like she just levitated to the top of New York me...