Frantic Pace

Haven't had a break to write – things have been a bit frantic (working on a rewrite on my snowman book and labor intensive jobs from Sports Illustrated, Consumer Reports, and Trader). But the big time consumer has been relearning to draw – without the computer. That's going horrible because I was so used to being able to type command + Z to undo something, allowing me previously to draw with reckless abandon. One can argue no great artists ever used a Wacom tablet. Oh well.

New Yorker Cartoonist

Above is my first official New Yorker cartoon reject.

There was a great article recently in The New York Times by New Yorker cartoonist Caroline H. Dworin which triggered my interest in trying to get into the New Yorker. I've since had a chance to meet this writer/cartoonist and thank her in person for this new career path. There's an interesting interview with Sam Gross and Matthew Diffee online. Sam Gross is the cartoonist I'm indebted to for getting me started doing gag cartoons (as of last week). Matthew Diffee is a young cartoonist who came out with the best-selling book The Rejected Collection (incidentally, published by the same people currently working on my book). I actually did the same idea five years earlier in Details magazine.

The Newest Freelancer

Having finished the art production of my upcoming book two weeks ago, I was able to return to other "interests": cartooning, restoring friendships, the Lacawac Sanctuary (where I am now in charge the old Lodge's restoration. Last week; lighting.) and this blog.

I decided to try gag cartoons and hit the pavement. I went to The New Yorker first (a couple of days ago) and it was pointed out by the editor how much I did wrong in my submissions – mainly executing the cartoons on the computer. Nevertheless, luckily, they bought a cartoon of mine and I will be meeting with them weekly to pitch more. But I will have to start drawing with a pen on paper...for the first time in over five years! (Pretty pathetic for an artist to say.)

Like most "readers," I was a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut, who just passed away. In light of the fact that I recently made a statement at my local town meeting in protest to the building of a super McMansion next door to me, here is a far more interesting statement Kurt Vonnegut gave in 1998 at a Southampton town meeting to stop a super McMansion going up next to him;

"I'm a novelist. I have lived in a house in Sagaponack for twenty-two years. The house appears on the map in 1739. I restored the house. When I moved here, I had no idea how pliable the town government was. And how humorless, that it would look at a plan for a dwelling this huge, just visually, obviously not a one-family house and call it a one-family house. It will destroy Sagaponack for me, where I have worked and lived very happily. It will cut off use of the waterfront. Such an enormous establishment does not belong between us and the water. And so I'll be leaving. Thank you. One more thing. I'm not a human being. I'm a kangaroo."