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Redrawing one of my earliest “New York” cartoons was something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. “I Don’t Have Friends” will be released as a 3-color serigraph later this month, and you can now reserve one now over on the gallery website, or just by clicking on the $50 PayPal deposit button above.
I was looking forward to adding the red and the gray, as I wanted to give it a New York, retro-hipster, Ben Shahn vibe.
Anyone who ever moved to The Big Apple as a young adult will understand what the words in the cartoon mean.
With the original black and white drawing, during my first year in Manhattan, I got it printed onto ordinary business cards, with nothing but my name and e-mail printed on the back (I had no website back then). Then, as I walked around the city, I’d leave the cards everywhere- in bars, in phone boxes- the more random the place, the better.
Small, random street art. Exactly.
I love this drawing. It perfectly captures what I wrote about moving to New York for the first time:
All I had when I first got to Manhattan were 2 suitcases, a couple of cardboard boxes full of stuff, a reservation at the YMCA, and a 10-day freelance copywriting gig at a Midtown advertising agency.
My life for the next couple of weeks was going to work, walking around the city, and staggering back to the YMCA once the bars closed. Lots of alcohol and coffee shops. Lot of weird people. Being hit five times a day by this strange desire to laugh, sing and cry simultaneously. At times like these, there’s a lot to be said for an art form that fits easily inside your coat pocket.
The freelance gig turned into a permanent job. I stayed. The first month in New York for a newcomer has this certain amazing magic about it that is indescribable. Incandescent lucidity. However long you stay in New York, you pretty much spend the rest of your time there trying to recapture that feeling. Chasing Manhattan Dragon.
Scattering a few thousand business-card images was actually pretty hard going. It took me a couple of weeks to distribute the thousand cards. Much quicker to scatter them over the internet, by far.
From the emails that I received soon after, I quickly learned how many nutjobs there were living in New York. But that’s a story for another time…
That being said, if I lived in New York again, I’d probably the business card street art idea give it a second go. And this time I’d make sure my URL was printed on the back.
So for those friends of mine still lucky to be living in New York City, the way I once did, this print is for you. Hope you like. Rock on.
This is one of my favorite cartoons of yours. As a twentysomething who’s worked in the city for the last several summers, I still haven’t quite lost that “certain amazing magic” yet. I’m really hoping it never disappears.
As someone who just moved back to NYC – I love it. Speaks volumes. Would look fab in my new apt!
I think the same syndrome happens in SF… chasing that beautiful SanFran dragon. But it doesn’t matter. I would classify living in these cities as “better to have done than not”. What a lovely dragon to chase, right?
I say this as I leave San Francisco for a small town in Texas (a coincidence, I assure you). As much as a I love this city, it is time for a change… a slow down… a new and different adventure… a break from the dragon, from the chase.
Hugh, I had a bit of trauma after typing in your web address. You see, I remembered it as “gaping hole”, and LOL, that is a different site ENTIRELY.
Anyway, same goes for Miami, where I just moved–about your cartoon.
Read your book, loved it, would recommend it to everyone! Wish it would have come out before my time in the School of Hard Knocks, where I earned a Phd learning many of the lessons outlined in the book. And thanks for the confirmation that I’m doing things right by doing them unconventionally 🙂 You rock!
The more I see of your New York influenced work the more excited I am to go to London. I’m hoping a much bigger city will have the same strange emotional effect on me. Not to mention the experience itself.
I really wanna go to New York as well, of course…but not so much to live as to visit. I think I’d make a better tourist there.
Brilliant work. I love it.