#404: I'm Appearing at the New Yorker Festival + Hawaii Four-Oh! & Osaka Sketchbook
+ Morris gets a punch in the face from his girlfriend
…from Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Welcome to Issue #405 of New York Cartoons!
They bloody love a vowel here in Hawaii. You can get off the Kalanianaole Highway and take a walk down Waialaeuaeueu Street to Maluhiaeiuaiaua Drive. This place is an absolute paradise. Unless you’re a consonant.
They also like to repeat words here: It’s like every store was named by Jimmy Two-Times in Goodfellas.
I’m here for an old comedian friend’s wedding that’s been postponed more times than CoachellaCruise 2020. Attending a wedding on the same beach where I had my honeymoon 10 years ago is giving me feeeEEEeeeelinnnngs!
I’ve been here seven times. I love this place. One morning in 2018 while I was on vacation —right after Trump called Kim Jong Un “Rocket Man” on Twitter— Everybody woke up to a loudly blaring alert on their phone, which was super fun…
Phone sirens blared, horns honked, there were traffic crashes on the highway — nobody knew what to do. Bedlam. Everyone thought “This is it! This is how WW3 starts!”
Turns out… it was a bug.
38 minutes and 13 seconds later, state officials blamed a miscommunication/bug during a drill at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency for the message. Governor David Ige apologized for the erroneous alert. The Federal Communications Commission and the Hawaii House of Representatives launched investigations into the incident, leading to the resignation of the state's emergency management administrator.
I didn’t need coffee that day. But I did need a new pair of boardshorts.
(The whole thing worked out fine: I later thought of this cartoon that the New Yorker published.)
This Week’s Sketchbook:
Sunday in the Park with Charcoal
Wandering through the steaming hot Maruyama Park today, I stopped to make a few sketches, snapped some photos for drawing later, and got very excited about some new charcoal ink I’d been gifted from my artist friend, Yoshi-san.
I settled in the hotel room at night for a sketch session, (with a little taste of Japanese Whiskey for inspiration.) — A young family dress in kimonos for a family portrait. An old man gets drunk alone on a secluded rock. A coffee shop that prohibits photos has the best-caffeinated beverages in Japan. A raw egg on my lunch is a hue I’ve never seen an egg take. I meet my newest friend at a visit to a micro-pig café. Enjoy.
Big News! I’ll be appearing at the New Yorker Festival this year…
I’m excited to announce that I’ll be appearing at this year’s New Yorker Festival with some of my favourite comedians and New Yorker cartoonists, including previous Podcast guest, Roy Wood Jr. and Chloe Radcliffe. Get your tix at festival.NewYorker.com
Most photos by the inimitable @withreservation Mine is by @noaheberhart
The biggest match-up since Godzilla VS. Kong:
Morris VS. Marbella
While I’m away, Morris has been spending some quality time with his best friend/girlfriend/life partner, Marbella. She is about a third of his size. She is, however, thrice as sassy.
If you’ve been having a tough week, here’s something that’ll cheer you up: A recent video of Marbella with her new baby brother at breakfast…
