Random Batch of the Week: Batch 140

Welcome to my second installment of Random Batch of the Week, a very special ongoing series that’s perfect for weeks when I can’t think of anything else to write about. Last time I did this, for batch 222, I asked anyone to shout out a random number, 1 to 282. And someone did! Thank you to Jane Schapiro, for choosing batch 140. If you want to follow in Jane’s footsteps, please shout out a number!

P.S. These segments are very shop-talky! Perhaps useful if you are/want to get into this business, or maybe interesting to learn about a particular industry, or maybe it will just be super boring! You’re about to find out!

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OK! On to the batch. I submitted this batch to The New Yorker on April 23rd, 2021. First up, this one:

Not too much to say on this. I was trying to play on the idea that dogs and other animals know when a storm is about to hit. In this case it’s going to be a storm of biblical proportions. Since I don’t have much to say on it, I’m going to tell a story about the caption’s font. Everybody loves a font story.

This batch was drawn a year into the pandemic, and my wife, one-year-old and I were living with my in-laws for several months to get some help with the baby. Before this I had always drawn on my desktop. Now I had to switch to a travel -friendly device so I got an iPad to work on, which I still use today. I had been drawing on a program called Manga Studio that I bought back in 2015. It’s a great program so I downloaded it for my iPad, but somewhere between 2015 and 2020 Manga studio had an identity crisis and changed their name to Clip Studio. Like I said, it’s a great program, I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a photoshop alternative.

Anyway, I downloaded Clip Studio, but for whatever reason the two versions of the program did not share the same font files. I had been using a font that looked similar to the one you see in the pages of The New Yorker, but now I needed a new one, and without giving it much thought I landed one you see in this batch. I don’t remember when, but at one point the cartoon editor emailed me to tell me that I should go back to a font that looks like the one in the New Yorker, and that little things like that can make or break a sale! So I tried a little harder and found a better one; ‘Verdana Bold, if you’re curious. So a lesson for the cartoonists out there: fonts matter!

And that’s the story. I didn’t say it was a very good one. Next toon:

This is one of those toons where you think you’ve got a real hit, and then quickly learn how wrong you are. This was during the NFT craze, which seems like an innocent time compared to todays AI craze. Anyway, I was trying to make fun of everyone who was constantly (and annoyingly) explaining/pitching NFT’s to me. They would explain it to me like I was a caveman, hence this toon. I thought this was real funny! No one else did! I’ve re-used this image with different captions, none of them hit. In fact, another version of this toon was scrutinized on a website called “Comics I don’t Understand.” Not a blast on them, I enjoy that site quite a bit! Next toon:

Not much to say about this one, except to say that I love this trope. I have drawn so many ‘giant monster attacking a city’ cartoons, but they never sell. Poor me. <Sniff>

This one isn’t particularly good. Some cartoonists think, if you have an idea, any idea, even if you think it’s bad, draw it, because you never know which ones will sell. That’s true, and it’s good advice, but I still have a hard time getting myself to draw ideas that I don’t think have a chance of selling anywhere. Except when it comes to giant monster cartoons. They’re just so much fun to draw. I will draw the worst cartoons ever if it involves a giant monster. Come to think of it, that’s probably why I don’t sell them! Oh well. Next toon:

Ok this one is kind of interesting because it’s an example where I sold it later after I changed the caption. I’ll show that version to you in a second, but first a discussion about the content on this version.

As someone deeply terrified of death and the concept of infinite nothingness in general, I have always found ghosts to be a bit comforting. I watch a lot of horror. I watch a lot of ghost movies. When I watch them I think, “what’s the worst thing that can happen here? Ghost kills the hero. Then what? Hero becomes a ghost!” Not too bad, could be worse. Better than nothingness. I guess it would be awkward to spend eternity locked in a house with the entity that killed you. Anyway, my deep existential dread wasn’t quite as funny as the housing market, because as I mentioned I did sell this picture, but with a different caption:

Next toon:

Oof. this one is bad. Embarrassingly bad. In fact, it’s this is the first time that I’ve posted it anywhere. I know that I mentioned that I have a hard time drawing cartoons that I don’t think are any good, but sometimes (often) I can’t tell if a cartoon of mine is bad. You see, I made the terrible, horrible, unforgivable mistake of just drawing this before showing anyone the sketch first. After I drew it and submitted it, I finally got around to showing some people and the response I got was “huh?”

If, right now, you’re also going “huh?” let me try to explain: It’s a play on the “animal mounting trope,” specifically, the sub-trope “reading by the fireplace with a mounted animal head on the wall,” which I swear is a thing. Look: the great Will McPhail did one. So the idea here, is like, instead of mounted animals, it’s cave drawings of such. I know it’s bad! Sometimes it just takes me a week to realize it! OK! Next toon:

OK, this one was actually originally a pitch for a cartoon book about grandparents babysitting their grandkids. As I said, I was living with my in-laws, who were watching my kid, so I figured that a great way to repay them for their hard work and time was by making a whole book about how bad they were at it! (THAT’S A JOKE. THEY ARE VERY GOOD GRANDPARENTS. AS ARE MY PARENTS. MOM, DO NOT GET UPSET.) Anyway it didn’t really go anywhere and I just submitted this toon instead.

But guess what! This one was also discussed on “Comics I don’t Understand”! What a week! next toon:

I sold this one to the New Yorker! It’s a favorite of mine and I think is pretty popular. The story: As I mentioned now a whole bunch of times, we were living with my In-laws house in New Jersey at the time. I would work in my wife’s dad’s office which was very nice, but a wasp’s nest had formed outside the window and they were breaking into one corner of the room. So instead of doing something about it or telling anyone, I just sort of stayed away from that corner. Love it when real life inspires a toon!

OKAY THAT’S THE BATCH! Phew! Like I said, please let me know if you want a random batch discussed! Just pick a number.

We’re not done yet though, because in this weeks New Yorker you can find my picture in the caption contest, along with the winning caption:

Congratulations James Matthews of Little Rock, Ark. I hear that place is lovely. It’s a great caption you came up with!

If anyone is interested, the original caption when I submitted was: “I know it’s not much to look at but it has a lot of potential,” which is a nothing caption. It adds zilch. I had a feeling when I submitted it that if it were to sell, it would be for the caption contest.

OK! Now we’re done! I swear! I got to get on to other stuff. No time to ask you to subscribe again. Have a great weekend!