The Cartoon Pad

About The Cartoon Pad

“The Cartoon Pad” with New Yorker cartoonists Bob Eckstein & Michael Shaw is a humor podcast discussing all things from the cartoon world with interviews with the coolest names in the cartoon world. Michael is one the most renown New Yorker cartoonists of our generation and a master wordsmith. Bob is an expert in bookstores, cartoons and snowmen and a NY Times bestseller, editor and NYU professor. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-cartoon-pad--4859856/support (https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-cartoon-pad--4859856/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss).

Publisher

Weekly Humorist

Category

arts

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

2 Apr 2021

Latest episode

11 Mar 2026

Latest episodes

49 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   11 Mar 2026

   The Cartoon Pad w/ guest Rich Sparks

   Rich Sparks: Black Socks, Bad Ideas, and the Comedy of Imperfection This week on The Cartoon Pad, Marty and Shaw welcome the wonderfully unclassifiable Rich Sparks—cartoonist, musician, testicle enthusiast, and one of the most delightfully strange voices in modern gag cartooning. If you’ve stumbled across Sparks on Facebook or in places like The New Yorker, Air Mail, American Bystander, or Weekly Humorist, you already know: his cartoons arrive like a tonic in a sea of sameness. We dive into Rich’s peculiar visual universe—mid-century characters in horn-rim glasses, men inexplicably wearing black socks and dress shoes while otherwise naked, and the eternal comic truth that imperfection is funnier than perfection. Along the way we discuss cartoon influences (M.K. Brown, Everett Peck, Cal Schenkel), the mysterious durability of tardigrades, and why pudgy, vulnerable humans make better comedy than flawless ones. Rich also shares his unusual path into publishing cartoons—selling from his very first New Yorker batch, yet originally planning a career in illustration instead of gag cartoons. We talk sketchbooks, Facebook as a public cartoon laboratory, and the slow grind of finding your line after years of hating your own drawings. Plus: Chicago trivia, band life in power-pop groups, trade-journal illustration gigs, the lost art of drawing weird things that make people slightly uncomfortable—and Rich’s new collection Horseshoes and Tardigrades: And other drawings by Rich Sparks (https://www.amazon.com/Horseshoes-Tardigrades-other-drawings-Sparks/dp/1954158432/ref=sr_1_1?crid=29XDMZZZ5JRZX&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.5kUnQLzZRpa_JuMeR5rC7A.SQjbQ-rknz-ryc2y9WmhyuJN3bxl84Tc7taXcFAZ0V4&dib_tag=se&keywords=horseshoes+and+tardigrades&qid=1773265295&sprefix=horseshoes+and+ta%2Caps%2C232&sr=8-1), a book packed with the kind of offbeat, beautifully odd humor that only Sparks seems able to deliver. Come for the cartoon craft, stay for the socks-and-shoes philosophy of comedy. Follow Rich on Facebook or Instagram (@rich.sparks) (https://www.instagram.com/rich.sparks) for a steady stream of wonderfully inappropriate cartoons.

2. 

   9 Oct 2025

   The Cartoon Pad w/ guest Tom Toro

   Tom Toro: Soft Lines, Sharp Jabs, and Jokes that Whisper Before They Wallop! This week on The Cartoon Pad, Bob (in spirit, he's away), Shaw, and Marty welcome Tom Toro—the New Yorker stalwart whose gentle washes and calm, cat-like characters set up sneakily subversive gags. We get into process (ideas first, then drawings that don’t overact), the long grind of early submissions, and the craft of making captions optional without losing the punch. We roam the canon and the shop talk: playing with tropes (the Grim Reaper’s better lines), New Yorker fact-checks in the wild (left-handed infields, mayflies, and a note about lion manes you have to hear to believe), and cover art (those Thanksgiving turkeys in Groucho glasses). Tom also dives into kids’ books (Crocodiles Need Friends Too), where the figures get friendlier but the humor still bites. Plus: Barsotti and Ziegler lore, WC Fields detours, accordion-theft home invasions, and Tom’s new collection And to Think We Started as a Book Club (Andrews McMeel; distributed by Simon & Schuster)—a perfect palate-cleanser between your book club’s 500-page epics. Find Tom at tomtoro.com and on Instagram. Buy his book here (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/And-to-Think-We-Started-as-a-Book-Club/Tom-Toro/9798881604066)

3. 

   17 Sept 2025

   The Cartoon Pad w/ guest Jeremy Banx

   Bold Lines, Pocket Gags, and a Cat from the ’70s! This episode of The Cartoon Pad, Bob and Shaw beam across the pond to Margate—15 floors up, sea view included—to visit the brilliantly dry and dangerously efficient Jeremy Banx. You’ve seen Banx’s sharp, caption-light missiles in Private Eye, Punch, the Mail on Sunday, and most famously the Financial Times, where he files a daily pocket cartoon—yes, daily—often with about an hour to nail the drawing after the greenlight. No pressure! We talk the craft, the toolkit, and the grind. Along the way: why tiny newsprint murders fussy cross-hatching, how a “pocket cartoon” wedges perfectly where writers ran out of words, and why simplicity isn’t simple—it’s ruthless editing. There’s Brit-vs-Yank banter, a quick detour through British comedy DNA, and a love letter to gag cartoons that travel without captions. Banx also teases current side quests: a book project called “’70s Cat” (think minimal, mischievous, delightfully mew-sic), plus a film script and a novel collab—because one daily deadline apparently wasn’t enough. Come for the shop talk, stay for the chessboard with no legal moves, and leave wanting to throw away half your lines. Find Banx on Instagram/BlueSky/Twitter at @banxcartoons.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

13 ratings

Spotify

4.9 / 5

7 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 45 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

59

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

77

Contact The Cartoon Pad

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.