Funny Stuff: How Great Cartoonists Make Great Cartoons

Single-panel cartoons have been amusing features in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Readers Digest, and most notably, The New Yorker. Authors Phil Witte and Rex Hesner will celebrate this beloved art form with a fast-paced presentation of their favorite cartoons. They’ll lift the curtain on this deceptively simple art form with incisive analysis, using a light touch. 

The program material draws from their recent publication, Funny Stuff: How Great Cartoonists Make Great Cartoons. They’ll review some of the over 100 cartoons featured in their book from The New Yorker and other publications, illustrating what makes for a great, hilarious cartoon. You’ll gain understanding about the creative process, illustration style, types of humor, caption writing, and much more. The authors will share stories about their interviews with Roz Chast and other legendary cartoonists. 

Phil Witte is a Bay Area cartoonist, author and humor writer whose cartoons have appeared in dozens of publications in the U.S. and England. His latest book, cowritten with Rex Hesner, is Funny Stuff: How Great Cartoonists Make Great Cartoons. Phil also wrote two joke books on aging: What You Don’t Know About Turning 50 and the sequel on turning 60 and has contributed humor pieces to print and online publications. He was a guest cartoonist at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco and the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. 

Rex Hesner is the co-author of Funny Stuff: How Great Cartoonists Make Great Cartoons with former neighbor Phil Witte. A devoted denizen of the San Francisco Bay Area, Rex is a jazz musician, writer, and cartoon critic. He established Cartoon Companion, arguably the world’s first website dedicated to reviewing and rating single-panel cartoons, before attracting the attention of New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff. Migrating to Mankoff’s online cartoon treasure trove, provided Rex and Phil with countless cartoons to feed their blog, Anatomy of a Cartoon.