Is this something?
On the role of curiosity and the real work of making art.
As I spend more time on Substack, I’m discovering more drawers and cartoonists, which is fantastic, also a revelation. Many of them are very accomplished. Jason Chatfield, for example, is a contributor to the New Yorker, has at least three substacks, including this one, is also on something called Cartoonstock, does live standup comedy, and has a podcast called Is There Something In This?, where he and his buddy/collaborator Scott Dooley just talk ideas. It’s laugh out loud funny.
Which is kinda confirming something I’ve been thinking for a while now… just ‘cause you think of it does not mean something is any good. A lot of visual artists, like pretty much all of them coming out of art school, need to learn this lesson. Rooms filled with twitching mechanical birds on wires is not art. There’s something in it, a breath of inspiration, difference, neatness (as in cool). But is it something. Mmmmm. No. Not really.
Jokes, it seems, are developed, evolve. Like all good art. Sometimes it’s just funny to you, I mean me. And that is fine. (Mostly I survive on that. Too easily satisfied? uh…) Other times, a gag has legs. You sorta know it when you see it.
But if it’s too esoteric or just rooted too much in your own deal, whatever that is, it’s not likely to fly very far. E.g.
So what gets a idea from an albeit inspired moment to the finish line of, like let’s just dare to imagine for a moment, publication? I have no idea. Is that a good place to start? Or merely hopeless?
I particularly liked "There's an app for that."