DeskStack

Our Homes Inside our Homes

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

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

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!!!!

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.

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

  Cartoons by Hilary
  every Friday!

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

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