Josh Lieb

1 week ago | joshlieb.substack.com | Josh Lieb

Two Tourists walk down a street (in Europe? The Caribbean?), populated by families, shopkeepers, pets, etc. One of the tourists is startled and says: “Wait — they have dogs in other countries?”I bet this sentence has been said more than once. I’m on the verge of renaming this substack “The Drink Savant Can Draw.” Here’s his three four six:Check out the trance-like fascination on Harold’s face. Look away, Harold, look away.

1 week ago | joshlieb.substack.com | Josh Lieb

(Guest cartoon by Billy Kimball:)Hitler is standing around with a bunch of generals. There is a map of Europe behind him. The generals look skeptical. One of them says, “It’s not really my kind of thing, but you do you.”(end quote)This seems like a perfectly legitimate New Yorker cartoon. Thanks, Billy!If no one else is going to draw cartoons, then The Drink Savant will just draw them all himself. Behold, five two four:Nice VR headset, TDS! And nice cartoon, overall. Thanks!The rest of you: get busy.

1 week ago | joshlieb.substack.com | Josh Lieb

A no-good son sits on the couch. His mother chastises him: “You could at least burn your candle at one end.”There’s a lot of unburnt candles in the world. The Drink Savant keeps the convoy rolling with this two four five:This is a classic TDS cartoon — simply executed and easy to read. But it’s his facial expressions that always put him over the top; I couldn’t describe the facial expressions I wanted for this cartoon, but these are them. Thanks, Savant!Who will join TDS on the site this week?

1 week ago | joshlieb.substack.com | Josh Lieb

Players and spectators look aghast at a human ear, lying bloody in the middle of a basketball court. Perhaps a basketball is next to it. The referee reports sadly: “Ain’t nothin’ in the rulebook that says a severed human ear can’t play basketball.” The caption: EAR BUD. This is basically “Air Bud” crossed with “Blue Velvet.” No one will like (or get) this joke. And I got the quote wrong. I don’t care. Today, I am a nihilist.

1 week ago | joshlieb.substack.com | Josh Lieb

(In honor of my “Shouts & Murmurs” piece of a few weeks ago, I’m re-running this handy guide from last year)HOW TO SELL A COMEDY PIECE TO “SHOUTS & MURMURS” IN THE NEW YORKEREveryone wants to write for “Shouts & Murmurs.” It’s not so much the prestige, or the medical benefits, or the reciprocal club privileges with the comedy section of The Paris Review that are the draw (though all those things are great, obviously), but the one million dollar payday. That can add up.