Cartoon Nine Four Seven by Josh Lieb
Injection Read on Substack
Santa’s bedroom. Santa, looking very scrawny, is trying on his red suit. The jacket is way too big and the pants are falling down. Mrs. Claus, annoyed, says: “I told you not to get those stupid shots.”
Some people just look better fat.
Ali Redford ends a long, long drought of reader art by submitting this wonderful nine four six:
Ali thought my cartoon was funny even though, she confesses, she’d never previously heard about the free U2 album that mysteriously appeared on peoples’ phones ten years ago. It occurred to me while I was writing it that I might mystify some of my younger readers. So yeah, while they were rolling out a new iPhone a decade ago, Apple and U2 rather presumptuously “gave” all iPhone users this new U2 album. Everyone woke up with it on their phone and just felt… invaded. Even U2 fans were a little put off. I think it bothered people to discover that they were not in charge of their own phone.
Most people deleted the album (or kept it and enjoyed it). Then there were people like me, who had the unwanted album follow them, from phone to phone, for a decade.
Ali, I love the cartoon you drew — it’s maybe your best yet. The women feel very real, and the speaker’s sense of liberation is palpable. Thank you!
The rest of you: get to work drawing my cartoons.
(snip)
Scottie's Playtime 
Many years ago (and it kills me that I cannot find it online anywhere) Macy’s had a truly bonkers TV ad that featured several skinny women wearing oversized Santa suits (complete with really weird-looking fake beards dancing frenetically throughout the ad. Mrs BDR promptly dubbed it the ‘Macy’s Tweaker Santa Commercial‘
And I just checked…I still have that U2 album on my iPhone…Hey, free album!
At least it wasn’t what folks who used Kindles found out the time that there was a copyright dispute over a book they’d purchased from Amazon…it was simply deleted from their libraries and devices.
The book? George Orwell’s seminal dystopia that included ‘the memory hole’ for removing information from society, ‘1984‘
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I do recall the issue with items disappearing from people’s readers! That’s sobering, and yes, in light of 1984, especially sobering. But congrats on your free album-I hope it’s a good one!😄
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I honestly don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to it all the way through!
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That’s so cool Ali! I had no idea you were also a talented cartoonist! 🌹
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Oh, you were correct before. I am not at all talented; the talent belongs to the writer, Josh Leib. He’s even a professional; I started reading his Substack during the writer’s strike, when he had quite a bit of time. His stuff is pretty funny, but I can’t draw all of it. There are ones that tickle me and make me want to try, though, and this is one. It’s fun!
Then last night, I read a creative pointer on The Bee, to just have a pad and pencil with you all the time, and draw whatever’s in front of you. So often, I want to draw so I can improve, but I have no ideas at all. Sometimes I copy things. Well, drawing anything that’s in front of me would be about the same as copying, but the practice will be good for me.
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I have to disagree about one point. You are underestimating your talent. Keep at it!
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