#151: Family Feud
Plant any cartoonist in a fancy bed of moss in your kitchen and in no time we'll whip up some cartoons about your family.
Where do you get your ideas from?
If you're asking this, we may be getting ideas from you, right now. Like one of those seussian, spidery air plants you sometimes find in garden shops and acquaintances' kitchen windows, nestled in a glass globe terrarium of pebbles and moss - cartoonists get most of our creative sustenance from everything around us while we just sit there taking it in.
Plant any cartoonist in a fancy bed of moss in your kitchen and in no time we'll whip up some cartoons about your family. It's what we do with ours. And the best cartoons don't come from the moment your family is all getting along, playing a board game after dinner, everyone leaning in with outrageously overjoyed expressions like a Milton Bradley box. They come from slights, fights, quarks, frustrations and feuds.
~ Kendra
Jason Chatfield
My sister is 4 years older than me. That means when I was growing up I was watching Movies and listening to songs that were about 4 years above my age range. I saw Wayne's World when I was 7, Ace Ventura when I was 8, and heard all the lyrics to Killing in the Name when I was 9. I don't know if it was that or watching Ren & Stimpy that warped my tiny brain so much, but I do appreciate her including her annoying little brother. Unlike Colin here...
Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell
One of the biggest issues in my family is how much my mother Laurie packs for vacation. It starts the night before the trip. She is freaking out about the house being clean before we leave, she needs to do so much laundry, and she has no fucking clue what we should have for dinner. Once a pizza is ordered, Laurie begins to throw every shirt that she’s ever purchased from Marshall’s into her massive suitcase, which be the way, are all white v-necks, and none of them are without a little stain on them. Then she starts adding items you thought no one would ever bring on a trip to places that will have their own grocery stores. She packs bottles of wine, tiny boxes of cereal, and an extra can of hairspray. By the time everyone gets out of the house the next morning, we’re a half hour late for the airport and my nephew Johnny is taking bets to see not if my mother’s suitcase will be overweight, but by how much.
By the way I do this too.
Navied Mahdavian
Phones are fun
They keep us connected
When I don't answer a call
My mother becomes apoplectic.
Kendra Allenby
The big closet lobby would like us to believe that sound organizational principals can ward off any feud. Anecdotal evidence is mixed, but it’s a long-term study.
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
Sofia Warren's got an advice column! Read it here.
Quality, just brilliant.
I loved "The Unforgiving Tree".
And the air plants.