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Navigating the Evolving Landscape of Humor and Cartooning
This chapter examines the creative journey behind humor and cartooning, focusing on the shifts in audience engagement and content channels over the last ten years. It highlights the challenges of creating relatable jokes across various audiences and explains the submission and evaluation process employed by a prestigious cartoon publication.
The New Yorker has great writing, but Aarron and I are pretty sure we’re not the only ones who flip through the magazine before reading any articles to find all the great cartoons from legends like Roz Chast or Saul Steinberg.
So you can imagine how thrilled we were to get a chance to speak with Jason Chatfield, a New Yorker cartoonist who also happens to be a very talented illustrator, and aspiring stand-up comedian.
Jason’s also got a new Substack about his creative process called Process Junkie. We talk to him about the importance of embracing mistakes, how he collaborates with writers, the cartoon selection process at the New Yorker, and why creating a large volume of work is critical to creative success.
Get bonus content and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/jason-chatfield
Jason Chatfield is an award-winning Cartoonist, Author & Comedian based in New York City. For 16 years, he has been an internationally syndicated comic strip cartoonist, writing and drawing the iconic 102-year-old strip, Ginger Meggs, published daily through Andrews McMeel Syndication.
His work has appeared in The New Yorker, MAD Magazine, Esquire, Variety, The Weekly Humorist, American Bystander, Wired, and Air Mail among others. His art has been exhibited in France, the UK, Australia, and all over the United States and in books published by Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, & Humorist Media. His latest book with Andrews McMeel Publishing will be out in Fall 2025.
Chatfield is a past President of both the National Cartoonists’ Society (Est. 1946) and Australian Cartoonists Association (Est. 1924). He is the youngest cartoonist to ever hold either of these positions.
His weekly newsletter New York Cartoons is one of Substack's Featured Publications for 2023, with thousands of weekly subscribers.
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Methodical Coffee: Join us for a coffee break with our friends at Methodical Coffee. In this segment, Methodical Coffee co-founder Will Shurtz teaches us how to select the right roast for our preferred flavor profile. Select your own preferred roast at methodicalcoffee.com, and use code "designbetter" for 10% off of your order.
LinkedIn: Design Better is supported by our pals at LinkedIn—our favorite social network. It’s hard to get your B2B marketing to land with the right audience. Let’s face it, the web can be a very noisy place! If your message isn’t targeted to the right audience—it just disappears into the noise.
With LinkedIn Ads, you can precisely reach the professionals who are more likely to find your ad relevant. With LinkedIn's targeting capabilities, you can reach people by job title, industry, company, and more. Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. To get a $100 credit on your next campaign go to LinkedIn/designbetter to claim your credit.
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