Collaborative Cartoons

Hello! It’s been a while. I’m deep in drawing this Evil Squirrel book and every moment I’m not drawing it, I feel guilty for not working on it. But then I started to feel guilty about not sending out a newsletter in a while, and then my kids were like “daddy, will you play with us?” and I was like “not now, daddy’s busy feeling guilty!”

Anyway, here I am now, and today’s topic is collaboration. I like collaborating on cartoons, under the right circumstances. I don’t love it when a stranger DM’s me out of the blue demanding I draw an idea they have. That approach doesn’t really make me feel, like, what do you call it, a human person with a rich interior and everything. I don’t even like it when they offer me money. I’m not a hired hand, unless of course you want to hire me?

I’m not totally against drawing someone else’s idea, particularly if they are a friend, or a peer, someone funny and/or in the business. I’m also cool if a friend wants to draw one of my ideas, especially if that drawing is really hard.

My ideal situation goes like this: I go to a fellow cartoonist, one that I know well, and say “I have this vague idea for a cartoon but it could use some help.” Then we go back and forth making it better, joking around, having a laugh, giggling it up until finally we get a good cartoon and it is unclear who’s cartoon it even is anymore.

With all that, here are some cartoons that took two to tango:

First up are some collabs with Tom Chitty. He and I have drawn a lot of cartoons together. Every Halloween we submit a bunch of cartoons to The New Yorker for the their daily cartoon. But we’ve also done collabs for non-Halloween stuff. For these, he always draws. He is an amazing cartoonist, an absolute favorite of mine. Our cartoons are usually more his then ours (as he brainstorms the idea with me and draw them) but my one main objective is to think up crazy scenarios with lots of details to make it a fun, challenging drawing and watch him sweat. Here’s a few of my favorites:

Tom is in the middle of a Kickstarter for his new book! I’ve read it, and its so funny and fun to look at. I spent so much time just looking at the pictures with a stupid grin on my face. Check it out here!

Next is my friend Jerald Lewis! We’ve done a bunch of collabs as well, and managed to sell some to The New Yorker. He’s a terrific artist and one of the best guys to banter and collab with.

Sofia Warren and I share a fascination for the IDES OF MARCH!!! We’ve drawn a bunch of cartoons for many March 15ths through the years:

Here’s one I did with Hilary Campbell, one of the funniest people I know. This one was a product of that process I mentioned earlier, where I came to her with an idea and we joked around until it got better:

Finally here’s one I did with King of Cartooning, Asher Perlman. In this instance I was in a slump and I said to him “I’m all out of ideas and I’m feeling bad” and he said, “well here’s a list of some ideas of mine, want to collab?” He also said encouraging things to make me feel better but I wasn’t listening.

Ok that’s it! I love my peers and friends. It’s a wonderful thing to be friends with so many funny people, even when they are annoyingly funnier than you.

Also! I’ve added a bunch of new prints to my shop! Check it out!

Enjoy your weekend!