Contractor Content. Exclusive Cartoons.

This week I’m going to post some more New Yorker cartoon rejects. I’d like to write something more essay-like (not because an essay is better but because I️ can’t bear to part with them) but WE’RE MOVING (oh and also I’m about to give birth) and my brain feels like a dense fruit cake, the less said about that the better.

I do keep having ideas for drawings, but they’re unusable, like the drawing ideas you have in a dream. In this case, they’re exclusively about contractors. My take on contractors (a term that I believe includes plumbers, licensed electricians, handymen, general contractors, engineers, and perhaps some expediters and architects) is that they embody the exaggerated essence of men, like how Greek Gods embody the essence of humans. A contractor will represent various elements of men you might have more involved dealings with in your life (e.g. boyfriends and husbands) but in a magnified way that’s both disturbing and elucidating. What I mean is, it’s like dating but without the personal connection. The danger is there, and the intensity, and the pee on toilet seats, but it can’t touch you, you have no part in it, you get to just examine it.

The problem with contractor cartoons is that no one wants to see them because no one—no one I know, at least—has had the privilege of getting to deal with contractors much. Whether this means it’s a privilege to deal with men in general, I’m not sure.

Re pregnancy, I’m at the stage where it’s all heartburn and I pee when I cough. I’m very tired all the time and it takes hours to fall asleep at night and if woken in the night. Sometimes I take a break from trying to sleep and make myself an English muffin. It’s not bad. The main thing is the move, which is a nice distraction from the fact that it’s not easy to work.

As always, you can buy my new book, Mixed feelings, here (you can specify in the comments if you’d like it signed or personalized with a message), and letterpress prints (including a bunch of new ones) here.

If you send me a receipt for Mixed Feelings, I’ll send you a $20/off code for this print:

Read on for some New Yorker cartoons I made last week that cannot be seen anywhere else. Posting these feels like offering you a limb of mine. I think Substack is personal, and cartoons are more - universal? Not immediate. More elaborate. And more room to fail, so scarier to show. When they’re published in the magazine, it doesn’t feel like they’re exactly coming from me anymore.

Also, I’m afraid you don’t even want them. Please want them? (I’m a terrible salesperson).