Coffee, Apropos Of Nothing

I read an interview with Sempé long ago where he said he didn’t read the newspapers, and it suddenly made a lot of sense! His drawings are responses to what he saw around him. What he did was reportage illustration, and he depicted humans as endearing creatures that did silly things. He could not have done that if the newspapers made him angry and sad daily.

When you make art, it is always a response to something: maybe it is a feeling you want to express in the piece. Or you could respond to information.

But you do get to curate what you take in!

This ongoing experiment is about seeing what I come up with as I read the amazing, fantastic newsletters on Substack. The best writing on SubStack is incredible.

SubStack is more of a publishing platform than a social media platform. SubStack recently added a social media component, Notes, which is a mixed blessing for writers. On the one hand, it offers a way to grow a newsletter by interacting on Notes, but on the other hand, it has all the negative effects on your mental health that social media has. Let’s hope it wins out as a publishing platform.

Which brings me to today’s cartoon. What was it a response to? I don’t know anymore. It just popped into my head as a fully formed idea. In good times, our subconscious comes up with fantastic ideas, and we don’t know what it is a response to.

It could be a response to this fun read. Lots of coffee drinking is happening in that bookstore!

This is an example of the truly excellent writing on SubStack.