Random Batch of the Week

Hello and welcome to ‘Random Batch of the Week,’ an ongoing segment in which I take a deep dive into a batch of cartoons chosen by readers. This week we’re taking a look at an early batch from the very start of my career. No sellers in this one, but a couple that I like. Thanks to Daniela Gilsanz for choosing this one. If you want to comment or email a random batch, number 1 to 288, you should! I’ll write about it in the future! OK, Let’s get into it.

Wait! No, let’s not get into it. First, I have a question for readers. On my life-long quest to “figure my shit out,” I’m trying to learn more about why the hell anyone would subscribe to this newsletter. I was recently told by a friend and expert that I should be “crystal clear about the unique value” that my newsletter provides. When I said that “I have no idea what that is,” I was told that “I could figure that out by asking readers.” So, here I am, asking readers, why the hell do you subscribe to this newsletter?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m never gonna optimize so much that I risk losing my voice, and I hate the word “brand” (I think I’ll write about that one day soon) but building a newsletter is hard and I gotta figure out some semblance of a strategy here. So with all that, if you’ve got the time and inclination, please share some thoughts on what you like about the newsletter, what you would like to see more of, what you HATE, really anything. Also, like and subscribe!

OK now on to the toons. Up first:

You know, I really like this one. Mafia cement shoes is a well-worn (pun intended) trope, but this one manages to be part of it without depicting the usual scene with gangsters on a dock. I also like how the quotation marks are the punchline. It’s not often that punctuation delivers the joke. This is also a combination of tropes. I’ve also seen a bunch of “X days since last accident” cartoons. Combining tropes can be a useful exercise when you’re fixing to add one more cartoon to your batch.

Come to think of it, I think this may have been the true origin of my Gangster Pollack cartoon, which I discussed two weeks ago. This factory cartoon was submitted three batches before my first attempt at the Pollack one. Although cement shoes is a completely different angle, clearly the phrase “make it look like an accident” was on my mind. So I suppose the lesson here is that you don’t have to give up on an idea if you don’t sell it. Just rip it apart and build back differently.

Next toon:

This one is a little dopey. Sometimes a set-up is just so old fashioned that it spoils any chance of the joke landing. When I wrote about how cartoonists search for “a thing,” I left out that one should be wary that the thing in question is a relic from the things of yesteryear. These shows were popular enough to enter the zeitgeist, and therefore become PCF (potential cartoon fodder) but time erodes the relevancy of some tropes and leaves behind a nice thick layer of cringe.

I guess an updated version of this would be like, on a Love Island type reality show, but even that feels tired to me. Hell, jokes about the Turing test are tired too. I guess it could be AI on Love Island. Love AIsland? Nah, that’s trying too hard. There’s no saving this one! Next!

Okay this is an interesting contrast to the previous one because this is also a relic of a certain era in American culture but it doesn’t feel nearly as flat to me. This could be personal bias, as I love action movies. That being said, action movies may have changed since the 80’s, but they have not gone out of style like match-maker gameshows. In fact, a sub-genre of action movies that’s popular right now involve set-ups where regular people with regular jobs gotta do action stuff. I’m talking about “The Accountant,” “The Amateur,” “A Working Man,” etc. In fact, now that I’m thinking about it, maybe File Clerk can be Jason Stratham’s next big franchise. Jason, call me!

I love this set up so much that I still submit versions of it, knowing damn well no one will ever buy it. Here’s one I did earlier this year:

Anyway, next cartoon:

This one is OK. It’s very similar, maybe too similar, to a cartoon by the great David Sipress. It’s a gruesome cartoon, which makes me think of a lesson I learned from Emma Allen a year or so after this batch. I rarely draw gruesome or violent cartoons, but sometimes I get an idea for one. I had one in particular that I submitted to Emma that featured a guy’s hand getting ripped off. She grimaced and was not into it. I asked her why artists like (one of my favorites cartoonists) Ed Steed can draw violent cartoons but it doesn’t work when I try it. She told me something along the lines of: Ed’s style —his world—is made up of nasty little creatures doing nasty little things, and the violence naturally fits into it. My style, however, is cute and light, and it’s distracting when we see my characters spurt blood from their limbs. That’s something to think about if you’re just starting out and mulling over your visual vocabulary.

Next toon:

This one is also kind of dark. If that bird pops a pill, it’s heading straight for the ground. This is a dark batch overall. I don’t know what was going on with me on Oct of 2016. The election hadn’t happened yet, so I’m not sure what my excuse is. Anyway, you may recognize this from a different cartoon of mine that was in The New Yorker, because I reused the picture after this one didn’t sell:

That cartoon was in batch 13, from Jan 2017. I just took the orange pill bottle out of his talon and added a VR headset. Easy stuff!

Last cartoon:

This one is so stupid but I love it. Nothing else to say!

That’s it this week! If you enjoyed it, please like, comment, subscribe, whatever. And send me random batch numbers! And tell me what you would like to see more of from this newsletter! And tell me your darkest secrets! That’s not for the newsletter, I’m just curious.

As always, thank you so much. It’s really great knowing that people read my crazy ranting. Have a great weekend!