A Non-Award Post* featuring Award-Worthy Cartoonists
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May we introduce to you some acts you’ve known for all these years: Steve Brodner, Jack Ohman, Lynda Barry, Paige Braddock, Roz Chast, Harry Bliss; and new cartoonists to the show: Gabrielle Drolet, Edith Zimmerman.
The Art of the Craft and the Craft in the Art
Steve Brodner and Jack Ohman discuss the art of cartooning with Ohman cartoons as samples – it amounts to an hour long cartooning course by two longtime masters of the form.
The Flowering of a Young Cartoonist
It’s daylight savings, and your screen is illuminated by a cartoon rat cooking soup for her friends. No, it’s not the start of a new Wes Anderson flick — you’ve just found Gabrielle Drolet’s Instagram page.
Whether it’s charming comics about mundane life or clever articles on the pitfalls of food snobbery, Gabrielle’s got no shortage of work to back up her name. Freelance journalist, cartoonist, tarot reader, pigeon lover.
Eshal Naqvi for The Gazette interviews young but already accomplished Gabrielle Drolet – New Yorker cartoonist, the first woman ever nominated for a National Newspaper Award for editorial cartooning (lost to Michael de Adder), author, etc.
The Eternally Youthful Lynda Barry
I’ve been reading Lynda Barry for decades, years before I considered writing a potential career. I have pushed her novel, Cruddy (1999), into dozens of readers’ hands. The Fun House (1988), The Good Times Are Killing Me (1988), The! Greatest! of! Marlys! (2000), and One! Hundred! Demons! (2002) give me pure joy. When reading Barry’s work, I have permission to use all the exclamation points that were beaten out of me in grade school.
It is my goal to be a Barry completist, and I’m grateful that so many of her books are still in print. She is also the author of Come Over, Come Over (1990), My Perfect Life (1992), and The Freddie Stories (1999) and has written four bestselling how-to graphic novels. What It Is (2008) won the 2009 Eisner Award for Best Reality Based Graphic Novel. It was followed by Picture This: The Near-Sighted Monkey Book (2010), Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor (2014), and Making Comics (2019), which received two Eisner Awards. Her books on the creative life encourage us to regain the sense of play we lost before we remember losing it.
For Southwest Review Mary Miller interviews a hero of hers Lynda Barry!
Barry joins the Zoom late, eating from a plate of toast and apologizing profusely. She’s at her desk in her home in Wisconsin, her hair in braids. It is exactly as I’d pictured it.
Lynda Barry: My students would be delighted because I am wildly punctual—they would think this was hilarious. I’m mortified, but it’s a good way to start an interview, being completely mortified.
Career Highlights
Edith Zimmerman cartoons about a recent exhilarating high in a cartooning career.
* Okay, We Do Have an Award Announcement
Paige Braddock, Creative Director Emeritus at Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates, was honored with a 2025 Sparky Award from San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum.
Braddock, trained by Charles M. Schulz and personally asked by the Peanuts creator to take over the Charles M. Schulz Studio, recently stepped down as its head after 25 years of leadership. To celebrate her career making comics, she helped to host the Cartoon-A-Thon event, hosted by the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in April.
Ollie Kaplan at The Beat reports on Paige Braddock getting a very special award.
Roz Chast, Exhibitionist
After five years, Carol Corey Fine Art will host its final show in May—an exhibition of new works by legendary New Yorker cartoonist and longtime gallery friend, Roz Chast. Chast, whose off-kilter, wiggly characters and relatably anxious worldview have been part of the American subconscious for decades, was the natural choice to give Carol Corey’s gallery a memorable sendoff.
“Roz has an enormous fan base, and people really come out for her shows,” Corey says. “Everybody just laughs—and it’s a really wonderful thing to hear in a gallery.”
Opening May 3 with a reception from 4 to 6pm, and running through June 8, “Roz Chast: New Work,” will feature a collection of recent New Yorker cartoons, embroideries, and a fresh batch of Chast’s pysanky eggs—all infused with the charmingly unstable energy that defines her work.
Jamie Larson for Rural Intelligence reports on the opening of a Roz Chast exhibit to close an art gallery.
“It’s going to be a lot of cartoons—that’s pretty much what I’m probably best known for,” Chast says with a laugh. “But I also get obsessed with different crafts. I just kind of want to do them for a while.”
Cartoonist Meets Journalist in a New York City Moment
I first met Seymour Hersh [Wikipedia link added] at the offices of The New Yorker when the magazine moved from West Forty-Third Street to 4 Times Square. We met on the elevator.
Seymour asked me what I did for the magazine, and I told him I was a cartoonist and cover artist. He introduced himself as Sy, extending his hand. We chatted briefly, and I told him I was heading back home to Nyack. He asked me how I was able to come up with cover ideas if I didn’t live in the city.
Harry Bliss and Sy Hersh share a New York City moment.
From You Can Never Die by Harry Bliss. Copyright © 2025.
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