The most recent issue of the American Bystander arrived the other day, just in time for me to read with my noon coffee. This issue sports a cover by the great Peter Kuper:
Tag: AMERICAN BYSTANDER
Quarantine Continues
A month and change into the quarantine, and things have settled into a routine. Every morning I wake up around 6:30, have coffee and a frozen banana for breakfast (I’m trying to avoid putting on quarantine weight as well as using less toilet paper), feed Winston, post dreams to Facebook, and then work until noon, when I have… another cup of coffee (and feed Winston some dry food). Eve usually answers work emails for an hour or so in the morning, then goes outside to do stuff in the garden. After noon I usually put in a little time pulling weeds (the focus this week- bluebells!), work in the studio for a few more hours, maybe take a leisurely bike ride around the neighborhood in the afternoon. At seven, just before dinner, (and around the time Winston gets his third feeding- he’s a growing boy), Eve & I go outside and bang pots and pans or beat on a drum with our neighbors. Theoretically, this ritual honors essential workers, but mostly it just lets off steam. Then Eve & I watch TV: So far we’ve watched Season 3 of Ozark, Mrs. Fletcher, Avenue 5, Season 9 of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Some of Dave and What We Do In The Shadows, and two and a half seasons of Better Things. I usually get sleepy and head off to bed between 9 and 10.
Some weekly events punctuate the Groundhog’s Day sameness. Saturday morning we do our weekly Zoom conference with scattered family. Wednesday evening garbage goes out. Various podcasts arrive on schedule to tell me what day it is. Ken Jennings’s Trivia Quiz email tells me it’s Tuesday.
I’ve been making little tweaks here and there to my Patreon page. Recently, I decided to add links connecting all the Call Slip Comics I have posted over the past few years. Cheer your confinement by recalling the bygone days of when libraries were still open! Now you can read the strips in order, starting from the very first:
David Chelsea is reading: Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me
by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell
Continue reading Quarantine Continues
American Bystander #11
American Bystander #12 is almost upon us, which means I really should blog about my contribution to issue #11, which arrived with a plop on my doorstep about a month ago.
David Chelsea is reading: The Last Cruise
by Kate Christensen
Continue reading American Bystander #11
American Bystander #10: James McMullan and Full Frontal Haiku!
The latest issue of American Bystander, number 10, contains a murderer’s row of heavy-hitting cartoonist and writers, including Drew Friedman, M.K. Brown, Ed Subitzky, Charles Barsotti, Rick Geary, et al, and I especially recommend the reminiscence by Jennifer Finney Boylan, who was Managing Editor of the American Bystander’s original prototype issue in 1982, but for me the most significant name is this month’s cover artist, veteran illustrator James McMullan.
David Chelsea is reading: Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America
by Jared Cohen
Continue reading American Bystander #10: James McMullan and Full Frontal Haiku!
American Bystander #8
The latest issue of AMERICAN BYSTANDER has just arrived. Well, actually I got the PDF for it over a month ago, but I don’t REALLY think it’s arrived until my package of physical copies shows up on the front porch. This issue continues the high standards the fledgling humor magazine has set for itself, with contributions by mainstays M.K.Brown, Howard Cruse, Drew Friedman, Randall Enos, Ron Barrett, Rick Geary, and Peter Kuper, a cover by Barry Blitt, as well as an illustration by yours truly.
David Chelsea is reading: At the Strangers’ Gate: Arrivals in New York
by Adam Gopnik
Continue reading American Bystander #8
American Bystander #7 Has Arrived!
Well, actually I got the PDF for it over a month ago, but I don’t REALLY think an issue of AMERICAN BYSTANDER has arrived until my package of physical copies shows up on the front porch. This issue continues the high standards the fledgling humor magazine has set for itself, with contributions by mainstays M.K.Brown, Howard Cruse, Mimi Pond, Ron Barrett, Rick Geary, and Shannon Wheeler, as well as blushing newcomers Ted Jouplas, Sally Gardner, and R.O.Blechman, and a portfolio feature on pastiche maestro Chris Shapan.
My contribution is an illustration for a piece on mindful meditation practice in a Mad Max-style futuristic dystopian hellscape by Lars Kenseth (a gifted cartoonist himself, but possibly too busy to illustrate his own piece this time).
David Chelsea is reading: At the Strangers’ Gate: Arrivals in New York
by Adam Gopnik
Continue reading American Bystander #7 Has Arrived!
Palindromes In Print! American Bystander #6
The latest issue of AMERICAN BYSTANDER, America’s freshest humor magazine, is out, by which I mean I’ve finally gotten my contributor’s copies in the mail. Issue #6 has a cover by the legendary Arnold Roth, as well as some choice humor, illustrations, and comics from a stellar stable of regulars: MK Brown, Rick Geary, Ron Barrett, Randall Enos, Mimi Pond, John Cuneo, Peter Kuper, etc.
David Chelsea is reading: Night of Camp David
by Fletcher Knebel, Co-Author of Seven Days in May
Continue reading Palindromes In Print! American Bystander #6
American Bystander #5!
Breaking news- my personal copies of the fifth issue of the recently resurrected humor magazine AMERICAN BYSTANDER (editor Brian McConnachie produced a prototype issue in 1982; regular publication began last year) just arrived. This edition continues its peerless tradition of fine quality in excellence, with humor pieces by Jack Handey, Merrill Markoe, and Ron Hauge, a cover by the late New Yorker cartoonist Jack Ziegler, as well as comics by M.K.Brown, Howard Cruse, Ron Barrett, Randall Enos, Thom Hachtman, and others. It also makes space for my own full page illustration to the humor piece All STAFF-PLEASE READ by Steve Young. The illustration depicts a pair of very particular restaurant patrons, the Pauloofs:
David Chelsea is reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris
Continue reading American Bystander #5!
Kind Of Just In Time For Christmas: American Bystander #3!

Happy Holidays! My Christmas Eve was cheered by the long-awaited arrival of the third issue of AMERICAN BYSTANDER (long-awaited by me, that is- I understand Kickstarter contributors got their copies in early November).
David Chelsea is listening to: A Pentatonix Christmas
Continue reading Kind Of Just In Time For Christmas: American Bystander #3!