For that sole reason, and no other reason, I created a Toonstack Gift Guide. Please thank this anonymous woman who has great hair.

Ditch those big cartoon businesses this year, buy from the lil cartoon guys and gals here at Toonstack. We really know how to stretch the dollars we sometimes receive.

Me? Hilary? I’m selling TWO things this Holiday Season. Up first a signed copy of The Joy of Snacking. I’ll draw your favorite snack in!!!

I also just announced a brand new Honkytonk painting! Limited prints available! The original sold. SORRY!!! Watch the video of the process behind this piece here.

Emily Flake

Have you ever been grappling with your creative work, but found yourself hitting a wall?

Here’s the thing—sometimes you push through a wall. And sometimes, you need to reset your mind so that you can attack the problem with fresh eyes. That’s where Joke in a Box comes in!

Designed as an at-home version of New Yorker cartoonist Emily Flake’s popular workshop, Joke in a Box will provide a gateway into the craft of joke writing and construction, with modular prompts designed to help you see the world in a more playful and inventive way. Presented with care, empathy, and a sense of joy, this 70-card deck full of exercises and ideas is useful not just to gag writing and drawing, but to any form that speaks to you as a creator. Exercises focus on idea generations techniques such as making lists to force comic juxtapositions, drawing exercises (why not mine your junk mail for visual reference and inspiration!), and encouragement.

Kendra Allenby

Give the gift of making art and screw the capitalist forces. Kendra is teaching monthly drawing workshops with community hangouts. Get a membership for yourself and a friend and make 2026 the year you made a ton of art.

Amy Kurzweil

got a printer, I got a stack ‘o books, I got a pen, I love going to the post office. You got people to gift. Let’s make this happen people! High quality Art Prints for $95. Signed books for a steal! $20 paperback or $25 hardcover. Or bundle it! Any book + Art Print for $100! Includes shipping within the US. Enter your desires here to arrange the sale.

Jason Chatfield

For a very limited time, I’m opening a tiny window to draw your dog into my new cartoon book about dogs.

Here’s how it works:
You send me a couple of photos and your dog’s name. I’ll hand-draw your pup in the inside cover! Your dog will live there forever, alongside all the other badly behaved, wildly loved doggos and puppers in the world.

It’s the perfect gift for:
-Dog-obsessed friends and family
-Couples who treat their dog like their first child
-Anyone who loves New Yorker cartoons and wants a personal Easter egg in a published book

This is a bespoke, time-intensive thing, so I’m capping the number of spots. Christmas orders close December 10th, so I have time to draw, design, and get everything hand-drawn and shipped in time for Christmas.

Send photos of your pup and order here!

Sofia Warren

My book, Radical: My Year with a Socialist Senator, is a graphic memoir chronicling my time embedded with first-time state senator Julia Salazar. The year was 2019, and Julia was the first socialist elected to the state senate in a hundred years. And I was a complete state politics newbie, following behind her with a sketchbook!

Custom cartoons, prints and zines on my etsy!

Ellis Rosen

My new Shop EllisRrosen.com! Hats and Prints!

Emily Bernstein

Tummy Time!

A book of comics about having a child and feeling like one, too. Great for the pregnant or pregnancy-curious, as well as those who have given birth and / or been born.

Limited edition, numbered and signed by the author

$20 off with discount code diaperfund :)

But wait, there’s more!

• Hilary releases Cartoons by Hilary every Friday! And her book is out!!!

• Attention Bay Area folks! Amy Kurzweil is teaching a graphic memoir class IN PERSON. Fill out this form here if you’re interested.

• Subscribe to Jason’s regular weekly Substack at NewYorkCartoons.com

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To celebrate my love of snacks, I asked my fellow cartoonists to share their snack toons!

Amy Kurzweil

Personally, my stress attacks involve NOT eating. If my Jewish stomach can handle a whole a burger and fries, you know my nervous system is doing A okay.

The unsung fuel of every cartoonist’s career. From the quiet rustle of pretzel bags at 2am deadlines to the moral dilemma of whether coffee counts as a meal, snacks are the glue holding our creative process (and blood sugar) together.

Some days you snack, and some days you are snacked upon.

Emily Flake

But wait, there’s more!

• Hilary releases Cartoons by Hilary every Friday! And her book is out!!!

• Attention Bay Area folks! Amy Kurzweil is teaching a graphic memoir class IN PERSON. Fill out this form here if you’re interested.

• Jason Chatfield has a new cartoon book about Dogs which is out now! —and he’ll draw your dog inside it for you. Subscribe to Jason’s regular weekly Substack at NewYorkCartoons.com

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Hello! It’s me, , your editor for this week’s edition of

The New York subway has always been a rich vein of comedy: the small, blunt moments sketched out between stops, the dry observations about delayed commutes, and those absurd torture of rush hour. If you trace the evolution of those drawings, few have captured it as beautifully (or as hilariously) as the cartoonists of the New Yorker.

Tonight, the New York Transit Museum plays host to “A Century of The New Yorker’s Transportation Cartoons,” an exhibition and talk featuring two masters: Roz Chast and Ellis Rosen. Join curator Jodi Shapiro in the Grand Central Gallery & Store (99 Schermerhorn St, Brooklyn) at 6 PM to explore how mass transit has inspired generations of artists—and how their work continues to map the pulse of city life, one panel at a time. Tickets are $15 general admission, $10 for museum members; check in early—doors open at 5:45.

In addition to that, In celebration of the magazine’s 100th anniversary, the New York Transit Museum is proud to present Commentary on the Commute: A Century of The New Yorker’s Transportation Cartoons. Showcasing work from 57 artists, the exhibit includes a selection of cartoons and covers from the New Yorker whose subjects should be familiar to anyone who has ever taken public transportation: the uniqueness of New Yorkers, the challenges of the commute, the daily sea of humanity (and critters) that move through the region, and the grittiness and the grandeur that is New York. You can see that exhibition at their Grand Central gallery. (More info here.)

One of my favourite Ellis J Rosen cartoons about NYC Transit is the one below:

Of it, the NYC Transit Museum says:

New York is a city of changes, and that includes the NYC Subway. This charming cartoon by Ellis Rosen from the New Yorker captures the quirks of our transit system.

Don’t forget — you can hear from Rosen himself, as well as fellow New Yorker cartoonist , in conversation with NYT Transit Museum Curator Jodi Shapiro, today, Thursday, September 11 at 6PM ET.

Anyway — on with the stack!

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The joke was that coronavirus had been detected in rats — but now the joke is that rats wear masks to protect themselves from unvaccinated, plague-carrying, measles-spreading, disease-ridden humans. Yay, progress!

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Like the lava game, just accept that the floor is game over.

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I, for one, think the train can be very romantic!!!

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If I had a dollar for every time I missed a gig/date/villainous plot due to the New York city subway, I’d have enough money to fix the New York city subway.

(Note: This cartoon first ran in the Weekly Humorist. See more cartoons from some fellow Toonstackers here.)

But wait, there’s more!

• Hilary releases every Friday! Her new book is out soon — Preorder it here, and attend the launch on Oct 7 here!

• Join Kendra's September 27th drawing workshop on leaning into Your Personal Voice and Style

• ’s graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story, was named a best book of 2023 by The New Yorker, NPR, and Kirkus!

• has a new cartoon book about Dogs which is out now! —and he’ll draw your dog inside it for you. Subscribe to Jason’s regular weekly Substack at NewYorkCartoons.com

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Ivan Ehlers

This cartoon wasn't quite crazy enough to work.

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Tom Toro

Take a rest from your wearying and futile labors with my debut cartoon collection, And to Think We Started as a Book Club...

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Kendra Allenby

Raise your hand if your employment situation is getting better, your options are widening, you're part of a thriving industry that pays you what you deserve! Now raise your hand if last week they took away the remaining bowl of fruit.

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Jason Adam Katzenstein

The shark’s life is bleak, but also it’s cool that the computer functions underwater.

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Hilary Campbell

CREATIVE LABOR IS STILL LABOR!!!!!

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Avi Steinberg

The only thing I love more than having a wonderful job full of meaning and purpose is not having to go to work at a wonderful job full of meaning and purpose. It's a labor of love, they say, and I'm grateful as heck. But man, teaching kindergarten. Am I right?

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Lars Kenseth

When I was working as an executive assistant in my 20s, my boss told me a fun trick to get out of a meeting topic is to say “let’s table that” and then just end the meeting before you can talk about whatever it was you were avoiding. I think that was the exact moment I decided to “table” office work as soon as possible.

Speaking of, make sure to pre-order my new picture book “CALL ME MOBY” - out Feb. 2nd from Macmillan!

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Colin Tom

How Labor Day ought to be celebrated.

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But wait, there’s more!

• Hilary releases Cartoons by Hilary every Friday! Pre-order her UPCOMING NEW BOOK, The Joy of Snacking today. There’s a PREMIER EVENT for the book you can learn about RIGHT HERE

• Avi Steinberg has a picture book out called A Story No One Has Ever Heard Before as well as a Substack and cartoons and merch

• Pre-order Asher Perlman’s new cartoon collection, Hi It’s Me Again .

• Join Kendra's September drawing workshop on Voice and Style by joining the Kitchen Table Atelier

• Amy Kurzweil’s graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story, was named a best book of 2023 by The New Yorker, NPR, and Kirkus!

• Check out Navied’s critically acclaimed graphic memoir, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America.

• Amy Kurzweil teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up nowto get the recording of every past class!

• Jason Chatfield has a new cartoon book about Dogs which is out now! —and he’ll draw your dog inside it for you. Subscribe to Jason’s regular weekly Substack at NewYorkCartoons.com

Subscribe now

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HAPPY LABOR DAY!!!!!!!!

To be an actor or not to be an actor, that is a question I often ask myself while waiting for the dry cycle to finish. Not because I’m a good actor (up until recently, I had never acted before), but because, naturally, I assumed I would be a great actor. After all, as the Bard once said, acting is just hitting your marks and staying in your light (or was that Liz Lemon?). But recently, I took the stage in a local production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which, naturally, I assumed would simply involve prancing about in tights and saying old timey word like “hugger mugger” and “mobbled” and “whom.” But, forsooth, acting is actually really hard. And while I acted my heart out—this lathorn did present the horned moon, dammit—I think, in the end, I’ll stick to cartooning (you can read a new comic about it here). This week, I’ve asked my fellow Toonstackers to share toons about Shakespeare and the stage.

So, good night unto you all…I mean, line?

Navied

Emily Flake

This is possibly* the dumbest** cartoon I’ve ever made. And yet I love it. Draw any conclusion*** you wish.

*almost definitely

**it’s a DEEP FIELD

***the correct one being, of course, that I am a doofus

Ali Solomon

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Alas, poor Yorick, I met him once at a party and barely remember him.

Ivan Ehlers

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If there's one thing artist-types don't get, it's the big picture (we totally get small pictures and medium-sized photos).

Colin Tom

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Did you know that the laziest, most conversationally tuned out response, “Wow, that’s crazy,” actually originates from Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac? That’s crazy!

Lars Kenseth

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This cartoon combines two loves: Henry V and complicated jigsaw puzzles that ruin your whole vacation. And not just St. Crispin’s Day—I mean the whole week. Truthfully, I’m not sure I even *like* puzzles, but once I start one I have to finish it. It’s an obsession, sure... but it’s also the pursuit of something more. Honor. By jove, I am not covetous of gold, but if it be a sin to covet honor I am the most offending soul alive. And we who puzzle on this day, we band of brothers, shall be remember’d. And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here to make a picture of a pretty deer with us upon Saint Crispin’s day!

By the way, my new picture book CALL ME MOBY is available for pre-order. Secure thy copy anon, lest thou find thyself adrift upon a sea of regret... https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250408747/callmemoby/

Tom Toro

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If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended—
That you can get hundreds more my cartoons in my debut collection!

Kendra Allenby

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Studies show it takes fewer monkeys if some of them are allowed to actually concentrate.

Hilary Campbell

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This cartoon is so old the drawing makes me cringe but the joke still makes me CRACK UP.

Jason Chatfield

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I like to believe that no matter how much has changed in the world, people are more or less the same as we've always been. It's the reason Shakespeare's plays about the human experience resonate so deeply over 400 years after his death. Did people take pictures of their brunch back then? Who knows. Maybe that's what all those still life paintings were, and the Louvré is just one giant IRL Instagram gallery of 'content'.

But wait, there’s more!

• Hilary releases every Friday! Pre-order her UPCOMING NEW BOOK, The Joy of Snacking today.

• Pre-order Asher Perlman’s new cartoon collection, Hi It’s Me Again .

• Join Kendra's September drawing workshop on Voice and Style by joining the Kitchen Table Atelier

• ’s graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story, was named a best book of 2023 by The New Yorker, NPR, and Kirkus!

• Check out Navied’s critically acclaimed graphic memoir, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America.

• l teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class!

• has a new cartoon book about Dogs which is out now! —and he’ll draw your dog inside it for you. Subscribe to Jason’s regular weekly Substack at NewYorkCartoons.com

Give a gift subscription

Asher Perlman here! Longtime contributor, first time editor.

The kind folks over at ToonStack HQ graciously offered to let me take over this week’s newsletter to celebrate the upcoming release of my new cartoon collection, Hi, It’s Me Again.

Pre-Order Now!

It’s a follow-up to my debut, last year’s national bestseller, Well, This Is Me. I worked really hard on it and I think you’ll enjoy it. That being said, if you don’t end up liking it, remember that we learn more in life from hardship than pleasure, so, really, it’s win-win.

Still not convinced? Here are some nice things celebrities have said:

So, those are the blurbs. If you still need further convincing: I know where you live!

Okay, hopefully one of those tactics worked and you’re itching to place your pre-order. If so, click here. Or, if you want an autographed copy (and live in the US), there is a limited number available here.

Finally, I’m having a release party on 9/5 at The Bell House in Brooklyn with some friends and I’d love to see you there. There will be door prizes! I made sunglasses! 

Okay, that’s enough from me. The theme for this week’s ToonStack is “Writing a Book” and some of my all-time favorite cartoonists contributed. Please enjoy.

I love you all.

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The lesson here is: Never look up.

Will Santino

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A lifetime of stories in a few simple lines.

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This might have been funnier in my head.

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They say, if you don't know what to write about, "Write what you know." Which is problematic when all you've known for the past three years is hunching over a drawing board like Gollum with carpal tunnel, illustrating books and flinging them into the void hoping someone might accidentally click "Buy It Now" while scrolling on the toilet. Writing about writing is like dancing about architecture, as the saying goes. (Though after three years of rejection, interpretive dance might be more lucrative.)

Either way, I'd really like you to buy my new book so that I can afford to sit down and write another book. About writing. (Books.)

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The late, great British comedian, Peter Cook was once at a cocktail party where he met a man who told him "I'm writing a book." Without missing a beat, Cook replied "Really? Neither am I." Cook knew that if he pursued the conversation, eventually he'd find out that there was no book, so he skipped over the middle and went straight to the end.

It's a great way to handle cocktail party conversations, often a good way to read a book, but a terrible way to approach life. Cook, for example, when he got to the end of his life, died. Not exactly a happy ending! It's best not to skip ahead, even if it feels like the suspense is killing you, because the death will kill you much less metaphorically. But at least Peter Cook stayed true to his word, proudly dying without having ever written a book.

Sadly, I've never been able to match his great achievement. I gave in to temptation and wrote "INKED: Cartoons, Confessions, Rejected Ideas and Secret Sketches" Sorry, but I'm only flesh and blood, and complimentary bread rolls. I guess I just wanted to see my name on a spine somewhere, and the tattoo on Academy award-winning actress Cher's spine doesn't count (we had a brief fling, and nobody regrets it more than I do, except for her).

I know I can never undo what's been done, but I like to think I've learned from my mistakes, and when I write my next book, I won't. Look for it soon!

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The visual gag here is that more than 2 people showed up for the unpopular writer's book signing.

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Let me guess: you had the exact same idea for a cartoon like ten years ago? Well, get over it. It’s been ten years and I don’t go through your sketchbook anymore, or read your diary or even go through your garbage very often.

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I will [TK] this blurb when I finally [TK] what "TK" stands for. This is what it stands for: [TK]. This is where it comes from: [TK] This is why writers use it: [TK].

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Just like Asher, I too, am desperate for you to buy my book. And come to my book tour. And love me, in general.

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I don’t really want to meet the author; that’s a little intense and awkward. “Um, your magnum opus is good :/.” I’d rather meet the person with the most upvoted comment that concisely destroys a writer’s life work while simultaneously making me think that they are funnier and cooler.

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Nothing says creative work like lugging around hundreds of tiny scraps of half-baked ideas for years. Fill your phone with them! Stuff them in shoe boxes! Write them in the margins of your journal! There's no wrong way to do it so long as you carry them AND an ever-present, weighty feeling that sometime you will MAYBE NEED ONE OF THEM and it will be key to creating the masterpiece that will last for all time that only you were born to create.

I am currently working on a graphic novel and faithfully following this time-honoured method of lugging around scraps of thoughts in the pursuit of supposed greatness. If you're pursuing greatness in your art this year, check out my new program - the Kitchen Sink Atelier. It might help you out. 

But wait, there’s more!

• Watch & live drawing at noon tomorrow right here on Substack. Add to your Calendar now.

• In addition to his new book, Asher has a substack: asherperlman.substack.com

• Preorder ’s new book here.

• ’s graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story, was named a best book of 2023 by The New Yorker, NPR, and Kirkus! She also teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class!

• Check out Joe Dator’s books and prints at joedator.com/buy

• Tom Toro’s cartoon is among the hundreds in his debut cartoon collection, And to Think We Started as a Book Club..., coming out this fall! He also publishes brand-new cartoons every week on his Substack Undiscovered Masterpieces. 

• Buy ’s prints here.

• has a new cartoon book about Dogs which is out now! And Subscribe to Jason’s regular weekly Substack at NewYorkCartoons.com

• Take your art seriously - join the Kitchen Table Atelier, Kendra's new ongoing workshop to support you being a bad-ass artist.

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At the time, I remember being disappointed. But then, why did I expect this artist to be good at public speaking? If she had been good at talking, maybe she would never have bothered taking the time to become articulate in another way. Art speaks, if you train it. Woof.

Cartoonists: how do they feel about talking? This week, I asked our contributors for toons on the theme INTERVIEW.

-Sofia

This was the first cartoon I ever submitted to the New Yorker. I was told explicitly that the New Yorker hates puns, or wordplay of any kind like this. I've since learned not to listen to advice from the naked guy jabbering on the corner of 53rd and Lex.

Sara Lautman

I love an inane talking head anecdote in a documentary. The longer and less self-aware, the better. More seriously, I love that Christopher Guest movies have made it impossible to take rock documentaries seriously. Have you ever seen the 3+ hour documentary about The Eagles from 2013? If you enjoyed The Blue Jean Committee episode of Documentary Now, you’re in for a 3+ hour treat.

Asher Perlman ()

A job? In this economy? 

Colin Tom

If you’re not blatantly lying on your resume, you’re not trying. 

Honestly, humiliating.

Navied Mahdavian

“Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.

- Michael Scott"

- Navied Mahdavian

Hilary Campbell

Extra, Extra!

• Sara Lautman implores you, but, like, in a casual way, to Buy her book and check out her Instagram.

• Asher’s got two things: 1) Last week, he courageously launched his own Substack: The asher Newsletter. Subscribe, if you DARE. 2) His new book comes out in September and he’s throwing a launch party/show on 9/5/2025 at The Bell House. Come through, if you DARE.

• Buy Colin Tom’s prints here!

• Zoe Si writes and draws about the creative process, and lots of other things, over on her Substack: Zoe Sees.

Hello from the summer time, where I am trying to reeeelax.

Unfortunately, I’m a freelance artist millennial who thrives on the life-affirming structure of accomplishing thing after thing, lest I fade into purposelessness.

Schools out! Are you twiddling your thumbs? Scrolling your eyes out? Or are you channeling that restless thumb syndrome into your next masterpiece?

I say boredom is the flavorless glue of life! It’s the oat-milk in your chai tea latte, the shoelaces on your doc martens, the shower curtain liner in your shower— not the patterned curtain itself, but that plastic thing that goes between the curtain and the tub (which you should probably change because it’s full of mold). It’s where all our best ideas come from! So this ToonStack celebrates the bored and the boring. Happy summer solstice, and bring in the ennui!

-Amy K.

Tim Sniffen

What I like is this guy is at zero enthusiasm, but still he's trying to write a memo. And the plant on his desk is healthy, so clearly he does care about some things. Also I'm positive the woman who has stopped to listen has more important things to do and can't wait to leave.

Kyle Bravo

These are basically my kids.

Theora Kvitka

I once went rock climbing outside on a cliff in Arizona. If you've only climbed indoors, you forget that this is actually a dangerous sport. I am averse to physical risk, but when I’m wearing a cushy harness above a thickly padded floor, and there's someone who loves me at the bottom holding the rope, I (mostly) lose sight of the fact that I could die. Maybe this dumb cartoon is trying to say that if you’ve been bored for long enough, you would literally climb anything, walls or rocks, death be damned.

Sarah Morrissette

I’ve had incredibly boring jobs in my lifetime. One of them was folding t-shirts and occasionally selling t-shirts in a Cancun (Mexico) shopping center. Why do they have to be folded JUST SO? Another one was hostessing at a pizza restaurant in California. I had to STAND THERE, looking happy, next to that wooden podium thing and GUIDE PEOPLE to their tables. Why can’t they pick out and find their own tables? Another job, I was cleaning the feet of fluffy mechanical toys. The gift shop owner wanted me to put them back in their boxes and re-sell them as new!!! What a dirtbag. Needless to say, that job didn’t last long. So, people, do not give employees boring tasks! You know exactly what I mean—there are countless ways to give a thankless job “added value.” Think certain kinds of recreational drinks and mind altering substances. Your employees might thank you one day for turning them on.

Polly Lou Adams

Being at peace with yourself sounds so boring. What would I even complain about? What’s the point of life without complaining?

Chris Gural

They say necessity is the mother of all invention but I think an argument could be made for boredom.

Kendra Allenby

I drew this while thru-hiking the Continental Divide Trail, 4.5 months of walking from Mexico to Canada along the rocky mountains. Three of those months I was alone, all day, almost every day. I experienced many of the healthy, empowering, beneficial effects of long stretches of boredom - a dull sleep that lets you wake up in calm and creativity. I was also, after 3 months, just barely this side of bat-shit-crazy-nuts.

Joe Dator

I’ve long suspected that we are all just a dead phone battery away from creating some sublime masterpiece, probably in the time it takes to do Connections at a bus stop. That’s why past civilizations created so much magnificent art, because there was just nothing else to do. Oh well, I guess we’ll never know what world changing art, literature or scientific advances we could have contributed to the world, because we just couldn’t get bored enough.

But wait, there’s more!

• Amy Kurzweil teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class!

• Amy Kurzweil ’s graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story, was named a best book of 2023 by The New Yorker, NPR, and Kirkus!

• Check out Sarah Morrissette’s paintings on Instagram.

• Subscribe to Polly Lou Adams's semi-regular Substack, the Poop Scoop, for more cartoons and memoir comics.

• Kyle Bravo has a Patreon, a Substack, and cartoon zines for sale on his Etsy.

• Joe Dator is having a big sale on originals from The New Yorker over on my BigCartel store and he’s open for commissions, custom cartoons, maybe even some mild landscaping work at joedator.com.

This week I asked the cartoonists how they felt about “the group hang”… and here’s what they had to say.

Getting together in real life with friends in 2025 requires the logistical prowess of a military unit and the patience of a saint. First, there's the group chat that spans three weeks just to pick a date, during which everyone suddenly becomes extremely busy with mysterious "prior commitments", and once you finally align the stars and settle on a place, someone inevitably shows up 40 minutes late because they "couldn't find parking" / were still in their pajamas 15 minutes ago. By the end of the night, you're all planning the next hangout that will definitely happen "soon" and absolutely won't take another three months to coordinate.

Kendra Allenby

Everyone's budget is getting cut these days.

If something starts after 8:00 PM in the evening, I really have to motivate myself to get there! This cartoon is a summation of that. Find more comics from me on substack (newish!).

Yesterday I was selling prints and cartoons at a market and I heard a dad explain this joke (at great length) to his eight year old, until she let out that classic exhalation of air from her nostrils that we New Yorker cartoonists so desire. It tickled me so! What greater tickled heights could I hope for? I can conceive of no height higher.

Yinfan Huang

Yinfan’s brand new memoir Yellow Singing Sail is out now and you can join her at the next book event with New Yorker cartoons editor Emma Allen this Thursday!

But wait, there’s more!

Sign up for Ellis Rosen’s new(ish) newsletter! It has lots of cartoons and discussions about cartoons and the biz (Short for business.)

Amy Kurzweil’s graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story, is available now. Amy teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class.

Hilary Campbell releases Cartoons by Hilary every Friday!

Jason Chatfield has A NEW BOOK OUT! Order it today!

Navied Mahdavian is teaching a summer graphic memoir workshop!

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Dearest Readers,

Open up your closet doors, look under your bed, heed the hairs standing up on the back of your neck - it’s time to think about the monsters in your life.

How are your monsters? Are they striving? Charming? Vicious? Harried? Supportive? Terrifying? Cute?

Do you run screaming from the monsters you create or grow secretly fond of them or is it an uneasy balance between the two? Or, do you calmly take their measure and walk away until you’re out of the reach of their grasping claws? (If so, bravo, you really let that therapy in).

Are your monsters cats?

Enough questions. I can’t get at your monsters by guessing, and I can hear their teeth getting restless. Here’s a tiny tour of some of our monsters. Feel free to share it with yours.

-Kendra

SARA LAUTMAN

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This is one of those cartoons where the drawing has to be very charming to make the silly, kind of willfully cumbersome joke work, and I've really come to love this striving green monster. It was written by KJ, a friend who is very funny, but can be reserved about feeding me ideas to draw, ideas for which I have (with dignity) begged. KJ was enthusiastic and forthcoming about this monster book idea, which, all by itself, is very funny to me.

HILARY CAMPBELL

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I could write a whole tv show on this guy.

JASON CHATFIELD

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I know some people like to think they can just slap a sticker on their pet and call it an 'emotional support animal', but truly the most ambitious version of this was when I saw a guy carry a clear plastic bag with a baby octopus into a San Diego Chipotle, referring to it as his "Emotional Support Cephalopod". He said he was from North Dakota. Fun!

LEISE HOOK

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Every week clean laundry transforms my sweet cat into a paranoid creature jealously guarding her fabric hoard from human hands that dare commit the crimes of sorting and folding.

AMY KURZWEIL

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It's true, I was afraid of the Wild Things as a child. Those Sendakian fur beasts were almost as scary to me as Suess's psychedelic creatures. I preferred my picture books to be about humans, not monsters. But now that I'm a grown up, you know what's really scary? The beach! Sun? Sand? Body dysmorphia? This summer you can find me in a city park, seated comfortably on a bench, under a tree, fully clothed, thank you.

KENDRA ALLENBY

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I’m so fond of this monster. The romance may never work, but maybe, if the monster nudges the wine forward just a little bit more - they could be friends?

But wait, there’s more!

• Check out Support Craft - Sara Lautman’s new award-nominated book and find more from her on Bluesky and Instagram.

• Find more from Leise Hook on Instagram.

• It’s the 2 year anniversary of Hilary’s Real Live Girls! Come celebrate with our fantastic lineup! May 28th from 6-7:30 at Young Ethel’s!

• Jason is offering a custom sketch of your dog in his new book "You're Not A Real Dog-Owner Until..." Click here to order yours.

• Hilary releases every Friday!

• ’s graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story, was named a best book of 2023 by The New Yorker, NPR, and Kirkus!

• Check out Navied’s critically acclaimed graphic memoir, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America.

• l teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class!

• Subscribe to ’s regular weekly Substack at NewYorkCartoons.com

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Hey ToonStack readers! It’s me, , your editor for this week’s dog-themed edition of .

You know these beasts—the ones New Yorkers pay dog walkers more than their first apartment's rent. Doggos. Puppers. Furbabies. The four-legged roommates who've never offered to split utilities. These creatures are cartooning gold—with “On the internet nobody knows you’re a dog” standing as the Mona Lisa in a gallery of heavy hitters.

Last Friday was incredible—we celebrated the launch of the new book, "You're Not a Real Dog Owner Until..." at a crazy sold-out event in at the AKC Museum of the Dog in NYC (I know; we didn’t know it existed either. New York just decided, "We've done museums for sex, spies, and math—why not Labradoodles?") Check out the recap here: NYC Dog Book Launch). The energy with a room full of ravenous puppers was ridiculous and I'm still buzzing from all the dog-sketches I got to do for dog-owners.

If you haven't grabbed your copy yet, now's the perfect time. Even better—you can get a signed copy with a personalized sketch of YOUR furry friend at my store. Nothing beats seeing your own pup immortalized by a cartoonist in a book full of dog cartoons… except, perhaps, the look your actual dog gives you when you return home smelling like seventy-three other canines and try explaining that you've been "networking."

Order Yours!

With that gratiutous plug out the way, let's dive into this week's pooch-themed edition of Toonstack…

Ellis J Rosen

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Here's an interesting thing about me: I'm the only cartoonist who has ever drawn a dog cartoon. It's true! I'm also the only cartoonist with a newsletter. you should read it here.

Is the Bloody Mary mirror thing still a thing kids do (or don't do)? That "game" where if you say "Bloody Mary" three times into a mirror, supposedly she will appear. I was never clear if the Bloody Mary referenced in the game is Queen Mary I of England, who got the nickname for killing lots of Protestants.

I wonder if, not being a Protestant myself, I never actually had anything to worry about. In any case, I'm still too afraid to say it into a mirror, so can someone please try it and report back? Bonus points if you're a Protestant.

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I'm not obsessed with my dog, he's obsessed with me. It's like he wants to eat everything I eat, just because I'm eating it? Stop copying me! Get a life!

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Here's one from the explosion of adoptions during the covid years. It's past its prime now, but I'm still fond of the joke. Maybe because in my mind it goes hand in hand with the end of the NYC lockdown and the flooding of Prospect Park with crazed people and dogs.

But wait, there’s more!

• Hilary releases every Friday!

• ’s graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story, was named a best book of 2023 by The New Yorker, NPR, and Kirkus!

• Check out Navied’s critically acclaimed graphic memoir, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America.

• Subscribe to 's semi-regular Substack, the Poop Scoop, for more cartoons and memoir comics.

• l teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class!

• If you liked this, you should Subscribe to Jason’s regular weekly Substack at NewYorkCartoons.com

Give a gift subscription

Polly Lou Adams

I actually rarely leave my dog home alone because he whines and cries a lot and has no thumbs so he can’t make a cake. If you invite me somewhere, he’s probably coming with. Surprise!

Jason Chatfield

This might surprise you, but a coat of arms wasn't always something one could just 'buy'. But, it's 2025 and nothing matters anymore, so now you can just BUY a Lordship/Ladyship and get your own. You do get to call yourself Lord, once the credit card payment has been processed. I did it. The only person who calls me Lord is my dog. (You can do it here.)

Hilary Campbell

This is just how I expect to be as a mother.

Jason Adam Katzenstein

Multiple surprises in store for our guy here.

But wait, there’s more!

Sign up for Ellis Rosen’s new(ish) newsletter! It has lots of cartoons and discussions about cartoons and the biz (Short for business.)

Amy Kurzweil’s graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story, is available now. Amy teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class.

Hilary Campbell releases Cartoons by Hilary every Friday!

Jason Chatfield has A NEW BOOK OUT! Order it at https://www.realdogowner.com

Sign up for Kendra Allenby's online drawing class in May: Approachable Anatomy.

Polly shares memoir comics and cartoons on the Poop Scoop, her semi-regular Substack.

Finally: TMZ is reporting that Sofia is in talks with herself about resurrecting her Substack, You’re Doing Great. Sources close to Sofia say it will be “better than ever.”

Thanks for reading!

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Ursula died a few years ago at the ripe age of 20. She did a lot of sitting in her two decades. I have a lot more places to sit now. But I wouldn’t mind having to stand.

- Navied

Hilary Campbell

Who could possibly leave their comfortable throne when they have a little cough?

Mads Horwath

For the past 1.5 years, I have been dealing with extreme fatigue which has caused me to sleep up to 17 hours a night if I didn't have to get out of bed. The eventual culprit was discovered to be very low Vitamin D levels. I am getting back on track but for a while, it felt like a long medically induced nap.

Kendra Allenby

It's not about the furniture, it's always about the vibes. This toon was published during the Covid lockdown, but I'd still choose a pillow in the mudroom if it got the juices flowing. Terrible for your back though.

Jason Chatfield

For nearly a decade, I've furnished my entire apartment with crap I found on the sidewalk. It's called Stooping, and it's one of the most underrated things about living in New York.

Not to be confused with schtooping, Stooping is taking shit that people throw out of their apartments and bringing it into your apartment (after cleaning it thoroughly.) Some people make a full-time profession out of it and drive around different parts of New York with a trailer on their car, piling in stuff they can flip on eBay like some kind of Gary V acolyte.

During the pandemic, my neighborhood had to play the morbid game of ‘Dead or Fled’. (I heard an old guy coin that term while he was poking through piles of new-looking furniture with his walking stick.) Moving vans lined every street of the East Village for months. There were literally hundreds of mattresses on the sidewalk. Some would blow onto the road and block traffic.

I would play the Billy Joel song “Movin’ Out!” on my phone to keep things light as I walked past the giant piles of new and used furniture that were left after residents hastily fled Manhattan. (Or, sadly, died.) I would only take stuff that looked like it once belonged to an NYU student who moved back to Wisconsin. There were still unscrupulous people taking old family photo albums and heirlooms. Who would stoop so low?

But wait, there’s more!

Sign up for Ellis Rosen’s new(ish) newsletter! It has lots of cartoons and discussions about cartoons and the biz (Short for business.)

Amy Kurzweil’s graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story, is available now. Amy teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class.

Hilary Campbell releases Cartoons by Hilary every Friday!

Jason Chatfield has a new book out this spring called You’re Not a Real Dog Owner Until… preorder it now!

Sign up for Kendra Allenby's online drawing class in May: Approachable Anatomy.

Save the date: Suerynn Lee and Sofia Warren will be hosting a drawing happy hour on April 22nd. Details to come!

Finally: TMZ is reporting that Sofia is in talks with herself about resurrecting her Substack, You’re Doing Great. Sources close to Sofia say it will be “better than ever.”

Thanks for reading!

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Tonsils to you, Toonstronauts, and welcome to another installment of Toonstack. It’s me, Sofia, here to ask: you ever feel like all the mortar between your brain bricks has dried up and flaked out of your ears, and now all your brain bricks are just sort of grinding on one another, clay on clay no buffer?

It’s not your fault. Your brain mason was shoddy as hell. I can’t fix it, but I can offer you this in memoriam, of sorts, for all the bits of brain bricks we’ve lost along the way. This week’s theme is FORGOT, so surge forth, read on, and embrace your perpetual present.

Navied Mahdavian

What if we're actually Sims, and when you walk into a room and don't remember why you went in there, it's because the player canceled the action.

And if we are Sims, why is my house so small?

Hilary Campbell

One of the scariest things to me is having to return to the grocery store five minutes after you left. It feels like I walk in with a dunce cap. Like I have to apologize to everyone for existing, explain which item I forgot, make some self deprecating joke about what a dumb idiot I am, all in hopes to win the check out lady over and not have her think “oh god she’s back.”

Amy Kurzweil

As discussed in my new nonfiction bestseller, What We Talk About When We Don't Talk About Elephants.

Asher Perlman

I know I came into this newsletter to write something, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was.

Kendra Allenby

So annoying when you forget your keys, but hopefully you didn't bring a tricksy garden gnome into the mix. I really like this cartoon. Editors did not. One called it 'creepy.'

Kyle Bravo

I don’t think remembering is something you can do any better by trying any harder. Is it?

Lynn Hsu

In classic Ron Popeil style, I've mastered the 'Set it and forget it' approach to laundry. Nothing compares to the dread of opening the washer and discovering a dank, musty, twisted horror scene. Each time, I restart the wash and vow to do better, only to find myself repeating the same ghastly mistake in an endless cycle of laundry terror.

Lindsey Budde

Of all the packages that are delivered to my NYC walkup apartment everyday, 50% of them are stolen (which may be a dramatic number, but that is what is feeeels like). 40% are claimed within the same day, and 10% sit at the bottom of the building's stairs in perpetuity...

Jared Nangle

I think I'm quite good with names so that look in people's eyes when they realize they have no clue what my name is can be rough. Every time they call me "dude" or "man" afterwards it hurts more and more.

Polly Adams

Plot twist: the whole three second memory thing is a myth. Goldfish actually have nice little brains. They can remember faces, sounds, and where the food gets dropped in. Next time you see one, be nice to it. Okay? They can’t afford therapy in real life.

Pipe this straight into your brain hole:

• Sign up for Ellis Rosen’s new(ish) newsletter! It has lots of cartoons and discussions about cartoons and the biz (Short for business.)

• Amy Kurzweil’s graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story, is available now. Amy teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class.

• Hilary Campbell releases Cartoons by Hilary every Friday!

• Jason Chatfield has a new book out this spring called You’re Not a Real Dog Owner Until… preorder it now!

• Polly shares memoir comics and cartoons on the Poop Scoop, her semi-regular Substack.

• See more cartoons by Lynn Hsu @loopyline!

• Kyle Bravo has a Patreon, a Substack, and cartoon zines for sale on his Etsy.

• Sign up for Kendra Allenby's online drawing class in May: Approachable Anatomy.

• Save the date: Suerynn Lee and will be hosting a drawing happy hour on April 22nd. Details to come!

• Finally: TMZ is reporting that Sofia is in talks with herself about resurrecting her Substack, You’re Doing Great. Sources close to Sofia say it will be “better than ever” and that anyone with half a brain brick would “subscribe right away.”

Thanks for reading!

Dear Readers,

Four years and two days ago a group of ragtag cartoonists got together over a bubbling cauldron and spoke the prophesy: “In four years and two days, we will remind our loyal readership that we have been serving them cartoons on a theme for four years and two days,” and upon this utterance it was written into the future — where we now find ourselves — that we will have been serving you cartoons on a theme for four years and two days! Fate! My friends! It does more than muddle our tenses, it finds us every time we fold an intention into action or rewrite history, every time we decide to kill a father and marry a mother, or kill a dictator (why is it always killing with these Greeks? Didn’t they know about mental health or diplomacy?)

Those sultry Greek Fates claim they’ll find you even — nay especially! — when you fight your destiny. “The ides of March are come” bragged Caesar to his seer Spurinna… “Nay but not gone,” she spat back… How long is an ides? I feel like the ides of March is at least two days, no? — since March has an odd number of days? That’s 48 hours. So technically Spurinna was like “OK Caesar, for 48 hours in the middle of March, you should watch out.” I’m sorry to rain on Spurinna’s parade, but I feel like it wasn’t that hard to tell that someone was coming for Caesar, who had recently declared himself “dictator for life.” Like, on the ides of basically any month it was overdetermined that something bad would happen to Caesar. So they all picked March. It’s a good, temperate month for a betrayal.

What I’m trying to say is that the only fate that matters is the one you take into your own hands! Like the hands of cartoonists who, four years and two days ago, began serving you cartoons on a theme for four years and two days… and counting.

You’re welcome,

-Amy K

Ellis Rosen

Oh, sure, when the wizened sage calls the hero to action, he's a key part of the story, but when I do it suddenly it's like "who let this guy into our novel? He's messing everything up." jerks.

Hilary Campbell

Because my boyfriend is of the male species he thinks he can predict how all movies are going to turn out. “I saw that coming” is a sentence I hear on a nightly basis!! But did you see THIS MAN coming James ??!? DID YOU!!??

P.S. We watched a French-Canadian film last week that had a fantastic plot “he did not see coming” so that’s, like, huge in the male world. Highly recommend it! It’s called Red Rooms!!

Sofia Warren

I used to read tarot cards, back in the day, so I know a thing or two about the oracular arts. I was pretty good at it, actually. . . maybe less because of my cosmic connections than because of my finely-honed con artist intuition, keeping me attuned to body language and opportunities for misdirection. For example, this: while you were reading this, I stole your wallet straight out of your pocket!

Kendra Allenby

Fate is not equal nor kind.

Jason Chatfield

I often wonder what would have happened if there had been proofreaders and fact-checkers in the old times when gods and prophets were flinging commandments and prophecies out of the clouds. I daresay we'd have less of them; or at the very least better-worded ones than “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.”

Colin Tom

If I ever receive a prophecy, there's a good chance it will be from myself regarding a life and death matter.

Kyle Bravo

I’ve become a superfan of Wheel of Fortune. Does this mean I'm old? I'd love to get on the show someday, but what if I choke?

Amy Kurzweil

Beware! Pawn to C3!

Catherine Holmes

I'm a teacup half-full of tea leaves sort and hope this time traveling fortune teller will eventually offer this sweet dino some happy news...

Anjali Chandrashekar

Among the many unyielding truths of matrimony, is that to maintain the unsaid power structure in your household, you must accept your fate that your wife is always right. It is the oldest and truest prophecy of all time.

But wait, there’s more!

• Speaking of calls to action, sign up for Ellis Rosen’s new(ish) newsletter! It has lots of cartoons and discussions about cartoons and the biz (Short for business.)

• ’s graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story is also about time and the future. Amy teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class. The next class is March 23rd!

• Get your pencils ready for Kendra Allenby's online drawing class in May: Approachable Anatomy. Details to come!

• Hilary Campbell releases Cartoons by Hilary every Friday!

• Jason Chatfield has a new book out this spring called You’re Not a Real Dog Owner Until… preorder it now!

• Kyle Bravo has a Patreon, a Substack, and cartoon zines for sale on his Etsy.

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Copyright infringement is a sneaky thing. Some say you can always get by under the law of parody, but those people have never heard of Bob Ross's estate’s lawyers. Or rather, heard from them. Which I have. First with this cartoon:

And possibly again, since now I’ve drawn this one too?

I asked my fellow cartoonists which doodles they have that could send them to copyright prison and here’s what they (never) said!

Ellis Rosen

Like a rock band lead singer going solo and failing miserably, I’ve started my own newsletter! Please check it out for more cartoons!

Sarah Kempa

Samantha Parkington 🤝 Samantha Jones! I didn’t watch Sex & The City until relatively recently, as I attempted to make my way through all the 90s and 00s cable tv I missed out on, and until then, the only Samantha in my mind was the one and only Samantha Parkington. I’m more of a Molly McIntire for what it’s worth!

I was told by social media community moderators I was breaching copyright from the New York Times by using the cover of their paper…they continued to block this image. I continued to post it. Eventually, it stuck.

Jason Adam Katzenstein

Since every 30 Rock fake show and movie is now actually being made, it’s only a matter of time before this cartoon is adapted into a full-length Disney film. I imagine that they will not pay me for the idea, and that I will sue them and then lose.

But wait, there’s more!

• Remember Ellis has a new newsletter?!

• Check out Navied’s critically acclaimed graphic memoir, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America.

• Jason Chatfield has a new book out this spring called You’re Not a Real Dog Owner Until… preorder it now!

• Hilary releases every Friday!

• See more of Sarah Kempa’s work on IG!

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Gratitude? With all the terrible things going on in the world right now?!

Hello Stackers, I am cartoonist Kyle Bravo, grateful to be here as guest editor this week, and I in no way mean to downplay or ignore the horrors of our time, but I think we’re all getting plenty of that as it is. I know that if I dwell in that dark place for too long it starts to eat me up and wear me down, and it’s harder to stand up to the bad guys in that state.

Gratitude is one of my favorite tools for keeping myself sane. There are many other great tools: therapy, medication, meditation, getting enough sleep, and of course laughing at hilarious cartoons, but gratitude blew my mind when I started to practice it. My natural default seems to be to focus on the negative, but by doing something as simple as keeping a daily gratitude list I can now see just how much good there is in my life, even as rich and mean people wreak their havoc.

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Of course gratitude isn't a cure-all. Action is also critical. If we can keep ourselves healthy and sane, and maintain our ability to laugh, maybe eventually we can storm the castle.

In peace, resistance, and hilarity,

Kyle Bravo

Kendra Allenby

Coffee gets all three spots only when things are very dark, but even when things are bright, it always gets at least one. That's the great thing about an addiction to a mild, legal, mood-altering drug. It makes filling out a gratitude list a breeze.

Jason Chatfield

I often invoke gratitude using the Stoic ritual of 'Memento Mori' -- It literally translates to "remember (that you have) to die." I always laugh when I see the translation though, because it sounds like something I'd tell Siri to put into my reminders app for 'when I arrive home'. Either way, it keeps me grounded, and ever aware that today could be my last. Or tomorrow. All that is to say, I'm just grateful it wasn't yesterday.

Ali Soloman

Much like Steve Martin's SNL Holiday Wish, my teenage prayers were largely selfish, always unrequited, and unapologetically randy.

Lynn Hsu

For the young and tech-reliant, gratitude can often be closely tied to battery life. For my kids, finding an outlet in a public space is like hitting the jackpot. Now, combine that with a cute dog, and it's true love—a modern-day lifesaver.

Sarah Morrissette

Dogs are truly the best at showing gratitude. Pretty much no matter what, they will show their thankfulness in the form of a madly wagging tail at even the slightest hint of positive attention. If I were a boss, I’d hire only dogs. Dogs that can type.

Tyson Cole

I'm grateful for giant monsters. They make real problems seem small in comparison, unless your real problems are also giant monsters.

Navied Mahdavian

Personally, I like weddings. And ever since I moved to a small town in rural America, and then a slightly bigger city in rural America, and then again to a slightly smaller city in the U.K., I've been dying to get invited to one. Free drinks, the music stylings of Abba, an awkward conversation with uncle Steve? Sign me up. It's estimated that there are 42 million weddings a year globally. That's 115,000 parties a day I haven't been invited to.

Not that I'm counting.

Michael Litwak

The grass is always browner!

But wait, there’s more!

• Kyle Bravo has a Substack and a Patreon.

• Check out Navied’s critically acclaimed graphic memoir, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America.

• Jason Chatfield has a new Substack about making art called Process Junkie! And Subscribe to Jason’s regular weekly Substack at NewYorkCartoons.com

• Check out Ali's book: I Love(ish) NYC: Tales of City Life.

• Sarah Morissette also makes paintings which you can see here @morrissette_paintings.

• Michael Litwak's movie 'Molli and Max in the Future' is available to stream for free on Amazon Prime! You can find more of his work here.

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Dearest readers,

To understand the importance of a cartoonist’s desk, you have to know that desks are both physical, tangible spaces - carefully littered with real, solid objects, tools, food etc - and a nest we make so our journey to the abstract, theoretical, conceptual inner world is as comfortable as it can be and we are less likely to run out of inspiration, coffee or snacks on our way.

See, visiting the abstract realm can be scary - you could come back with nothing. Or you could come back with something, get a thumbs up from an editor, spend months on it, and then have it pulled at the last minute which is when you realize the kill fee is ridiculously small and you still have to pay rent.

So, we pad the scary with all the creature comforts loved by a busy, messy mind. And while you can conjure a portal to the abstract realm by something as simple as pulling a sketchbook out in a diner, when you are able to fully build out your portal into an ink-stained, sketch-covered, sculpture-collecting, tipping-over, pillow-covered nest - you can really strap in for the ride.

I hope many of you have nests that you adore. Here’s a peak into a few of ours.

-Kendra Allenby

JASON CHATFIELD

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The only thing that was in my apartment when I moved in was a large old roll-top writing desk, which has become my home.

I sit at this desk for weeks on end, drawing and writing and vanishing into my own little world. It was left here by the deceased previous tenant, who happened to be the poet laureate of the Lower East Side.

There’s something magical about the thing. I fixed it up with an inordinate number of screws and old nails that I’d found around the place just to hold the thing together long enough to survive the next deadline.

The floors in the apartment are warped and angle towards the middle of the room, which meant I had to tether the desk to the wall with a bolt and some twine that I found on Avenue B. If that twine snaps, the whole desk will tip over and crush me. A writer’s death.

HILARY CAMPBELL

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I’m currently in the phase of getting comfortable with my *new* office situation. For the past 4 years I had an office in my apartment that had a door so I could close everything out. I recently moved in with my boyfriend and my office is the living room. Is this healthy? Will we kill each other? Stay tuned!!!!

AMY KURZWEIL

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My husband says it wouldn't be an Amy-true workspace if there weren't several electronics and hot coffee perched precariously on a ledge somewhere (in this picture, the hot coffee is behind the computer, sitting on an ingenious coffee warming device that I highly recommend.) My workspace is, literally, held together with twine; I like to string up recently completed drawings and projects to inspire me with memories of my own productivity / shame myself into working harder via evidence of my previous productivity. But I also string up offerings from friends and family: gifts from other artists and cartoonists, birthday cards from my niece and nephews, a letter from my friend reminding me who is reading my work (for when I'm feeling irrelevant). There are so many things in this workspace that are essential to my process of making comics (the word document script, the sketches on graph paper, the led light box, my oversized scanner, the removable double sided tape, the triangle rulers, the various pens), and so many things that are ... just there: the Fimo-dough bust of my husband's head (Hilary: I made that at one of your parties like seven years ago), the magnetized statue of Nikola Tesla, a stuffed penguin in a cup, random abstract paintings I made in my twenties, a Rolling Stones record. How do these things end up in my vicinity? Let's not question nor attempt to rearrange the madness, lest I spill hot coffee on my laptop.

KENDRA ALLENBY

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Like a gas, my desk things expand to fill all available space. Or, if you prefer an urban planning metaphor, the actual desk surface is the city, and everything I could possibly reach becomes the major metropolitan area urban and suburban sprawl. My desk is currently in the vehicle that I live in with my partner, pictured lower right. Which means my Westchester sometimes has to be a drying space for dishes, and not inked pages. It also means that the whole sprawl needs to be neatened up and secured each time we toddle off down the road, and that periodically the entire center city is bulldozed and turned into a dinner table.

But wait, there’s more!

• Hilary releases every Friday!

• ’s graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story, was named a best book of 2023 by The New Yorker, NPR, and Kirkus!

• Check out Navied’s critically acclaimed graphic memoir, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America.

• l teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class!

• has a new Substack about making art called Process Junkie! And Subscribe to Jason’s regular weekly Substack at NewYorkCartoons.com

Give a gift subscription

Hello! It’s me, , your editor for this week’s edition of

After four years of living in the polished theme park known as Hudson Yards, I've finally moved to what real estate agents reverently whisper is 'the authentic New York experience': Hell's Kitchen.

‘The Avalon’ (my old building) had a squeaky clean refuse room with a garbage chute – the kind that invokes pure catharsis every time you pad down the hallway in your socks to dispose of week-old salmon. My junk mail went from Keyfood Coupon Catalogues to the latest matte laminated postcards from Sweetgreen and Hermés. (Don’t worry, I still shopped at Keyfood).

The new building, a co-op tennement building held together by gaffer tape and positive manifestations, requires a PhD in waste management to take out the trash each week. Get the wrong colour recycling bag, and you face the collective scorn of everyone else in the co-op, not to mention the NYC Dept of Sanitation’s overzealous fine guy.
His name is Trent.

The new digs have what brokers call "character," which means the floors slope at angles that would make M.C. Escher reach for his Dramamine. But it has windows—actual windows, not just holes in the wall where the rats have chewed through—and in Hell’s Kitchen, that's what we call "luxury living." Which brings me to this collection of cartoons about dwelling spaces, assembled while sitting on my "vintage" (structurally uncertain) hardwood floors, listening to what I hope is just my upstairs neighbor practicing tap dance and not, as I suspect, the boiler slowly grinding to its final clank during a polar vortex.

KENDRA ALLENBY

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Here's one from the first few weeks of the NYC covid lockdown. Luckily, my apartment had roof access and the roof usually had a puddle, so I went for "walks around the lake" many times a day.

SARAH MORRISETTE

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I’ve never been able to shame my friends by having a much nicer place to live. Imaging inviting people over for dinner and saying, “Chandler, could you dim the lights? Everyone's blinded by the crystal chandeliers. And sorry for the echo, guys, we didn’t realise that a cavernous dining room isn’t ideal for conversation.

Oh, and I hope you all remembered bathing suits because later we're having floating Baked Alaska Flambe.”

AMY KURZWEIL

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When I left my favorite apartment in Brooklyn, the one in which I'd been living for seven years and in which all the important things happen to me, my three roommates and I left a veritable Edenic feast of furniture and discarded treasures on the sidewalk behind us.

Indeed, we had miscalculated exactly how much sidewalk real estate our unwanted bookshelves and dressers and couches and chairs and lamps and apples-filled-with-knowledge were going to occupy, and needless to say our landlord (who was a cruel God) was not happy. So he kept a portion of our security deposit, which maybe isn't actually legal (we had not damaged the apartment, merely littered the city sidewalk) – but, alas! – sinner though I am, my mortal knowledge at the time did not include any information about renters rights.

JASON CHATFIELD

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I’m in a fifth-floor walk up and my buzzer is broken. As a result, so are my knees.

HILARY FITZGERALD CAMPBELL

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I’m waiting for this show to come out.

COLIN TOM

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Real estate in the remote wilderness sounds nice: space, tranquility, peace, and some cool trees/leaves. But what if I get a hankering for a bacon, egg and cheese on a roll, while I’m reading my various texts by lantern in yonder shed? Can I really ride my ox for a fortnight to get my breakfast sandwich on a whim? Alas, I must stay in this horrible New York real estate market, close to the bodegas.

But wait, there’s more!

• Hilary releases every Friday!

• l teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class!

• has a new Substack about making art called Process Junkie! And Subscribe to Jason’s regular weekly Substack at NewYorkCartoons.com

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Being cartoonists, our favorite things are obviously sex, drugs, and the unceasing approval of others. It’s why we got into this wacky business in the first place. But more than anything, we like cartoons. And we all have favorites. Favorites from other people, and favorites of our own. This week I’ve asked my fellow Toonstackers to share their favorite cartoons. Like this one by Ed Steed, which is a personal favorite.

I mean, perfection.

*Cue music*

Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles, cartoons about penises, and you, dear Toonstack reader.

These are just some of my favorite things.

Happy new year,

Navied

Jared Nangle

This Sam Gross cartoon is one of my favorites ever because of Sam's effortless attention to detail-- the monster's sheepish posture, the casual walk, the calm, matter-of-fact eyes, and of course, the lady's face. It's a perfect cartoon that makes me laugh every time I look at it.

Emily Flake

I am happy and grateful to be a New Yorker cartoonist, but let's be honest - wouldn't we *all* like to have had work in Penthouse? No? Just me? OK FINE, but that's where this gem, by Revilo (the nom de gag of Oliver Christenson) appeared. ("Why do you know that, Emily?" BECAUSE THIS PERV LOVES AN OLD SKIN MAG, BROTHER) I don't remember when I first saw it, but I mentioned it in a podcast, and a few days later a Xerox of it showed up in the mail - hats off to the committed listener who performed this mitzvah. This cartoon lives right in my zone of interest - a cute domestic scene gone dark, dark, dark. The kid covering his mouth mid-giggle gets me every time. And the fact that the children knew to tie mommy and daddy off? Those kids COMMITTED to the BIT. Respect.

That said, if my kid ever gets me hooked on smack, she's grounded.

Hilary Campbell

THIS IS THE HEIGHT OF COMEDY

Jason Chatfield

This is my favourite cartoon-- not necessarily because it's the funniest joke I've done, or best drawing-- but because it's the only joke I've ever had to actually 'fight' for over a long period of time before an editor finally bought and published it. The above version is the first draft. It changed many, many times before I finally got it over the line with a little help from fellow cartoonist, Joe Dator. It's kind of a long story, but you can read about it here.

Brendan Loper

Choosing one’s favorite cartoon is almost an impossible task. So, I started by choosing my favorite cartoonist. That would be George Booth.

Unfortunately, that led me to an equally impossible task, choosing a favorite Booth cartoon. He has so, so, so, so, so many. Off the top of my head, there’s the two old ladies sitting on a bench in the park narrating a mugging “kaboom.” There’s his toon “Whistle, you dumb bastard!” where two spinster types are instructing their stupefied bug-eyed dope of a grandson to whistle at a pretty girl. There are any of the dog or bathtub toons... or dog in bathtub toons... or cat in bathtub toons, heck there's probably a hippo in bathtub toon somewhere.

But, I settled on one that speaks to the artistic practice. It’s not about product, it’s about process, people.

But wait, there’s more!

• Check out Emily Flake’s Joke in a Box, a deck of cards designed to help you craft the best jokes.

• Cartoons by Hilary comes out every Friday with Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell

• Amy Kurzweil teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class!

• Subscribe to Jason Chatfield’s regular weekly Substack at NewYorkCartoons.com. Jason also illustrated a book with Simpsons writer and Producer Mike Reiss, which makes a great holiday gift for the kids in your life!

• Roz Chast and Jason Adam Katzenstein have a new book coming out called The Two Saddest Kitchens. Get excited!

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