For Humor And Museum Lovers: My Top 16 Cartoons

It's very difficult to make a living solely from cartoons, so I also do other jobs...like teaching. If you are familiar with any of my work, it may be this one as it is popular around the world. I've seen it painted on a doorway in India. I've seen it tattooed on someone's backside.

I married my college nemesis after we ran into each other a dozen years later (at a funeral). You never know.

I've lived in New York City my whole life. I'm originally from the South Bronx of New York City and now live not far away at the northern tip of Manhattan with my wife.

I have since published two books on the subject, with the last in 2018 called the Illustrated History of the Snowman. It's being adapted into a movie.

I often include people from my life in my cartoons. Especially if it will help pay the bills. The patient here is my mentor, the late Sam Gross, who was the best cartoonist in the world. I tried cartooning on a dare from him. I sold the first cartoon I drew two weeks later to the New Yorker.

The first thing I, myself, found funny was the comic strip Peanuts. I remember tracing that cartoon to learn how to draw.

I worked as a carpenter at one point and love doing home projects myself. Of course, I have no choice because I can never find someone to show up.

Here is another cartoon for the upcoming holidays. It can take a few minutes to come up with a good idea for a cartoon...or sometimes I can work on a cartoon for a year or two before it kind of works. I've done about 2,000 cartoons. Some of them I like!

The first audience I tried to make laugh was my family, of course. They were a tough crowd.

I love writing humor, too, and today I do stuff for American Bystander, Funny Times, AirMail Weekly, and Writer's Digest. I had a piece come out in November and I was on the cover of that issue. That being said, I feel very lucky to have all their support and that I get to make people laugh for a living.

Before that, I was the world's leading snowman expert. I had spent 7 years solving the great mystery, who made the first snowman.

I've been doing a lot of driving the past year while working on an exciting new project...

Let's all at least try to keep our sense of humor. There's one thing I do know America is best at, and that's humor.

I hoped I raised awareness for museums. We sometimes take these great institutions for granted. Maybe you can use my book as a bucket list. Thanks for looking.

This is an excerpt from my new book, Footnotes from the Most Fascinating Museums: Stories and Memorable Moments from People Who Love Museums. It's my love letter to these great institutions and a chance to showcase the other side of my work: illustration.

One of the goals for my new book was to demonstrate that there is a museum for everyone, even those who hate art. As a matter of fact, the book includes The Museum of Bad Art. There are museums for cars, tennis, ships—even SPAM.