I went to a lecture this week at The Society of Illustrators, the gorgeous clubhouse/museum on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. We saw a presentation by Peter Kuper (best known as the cartoonist behind Mad‘s “Spy Vs. Spy” since 1997) in conjunction with his current show at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art celebrating his new book Drawn to New York, a collection of sketchbooking, cartoons, and stories about his years here in The Big City, where he’s lived since 1977. Nineteen-seventy-fucking-seven…. Summer of Sam, bankruptcy, the blackout, Billy Martin…. A hell of a time to fall in love with a city. But he did.

He started the lecture with a quick slideshow about the history of cartooning, quickly zeroing in on New York City, the birthplace of both the comic strip and the comic book. Comics: one of the original American art forms, along with jazz and the FryDaddy.

Anyway, I wanted to check this out for a couple of reasons. Number one, I love place. The idea of place. I’m into it. I celebrate it. So does Kuper, and I wanted to hear about this new book, a cartoon mash note to NYC, from its bad years back when he was twenty-something right on up to our new gilded age, with Kuper in his 50’s. Long story short: he loves the city because it offers a lot visually. It’s always interesting, always challenging, always inspiring. I was glad to see that he didn’t automatically mourn the passing of the shit-years (1975–1990) as so many people often [predictably, annoyingly] do. That bugs me. It exhibits a kind of casual, thoughtless crankiness that’s I’m sick and tired of. Ye olde “it was so-o-o-o-o better then compared to now” knee-jerk jive bullshit. Shut up. Grow up. Widen your perspective. Think. Open your freakin’ eyes. There’s good and bad anywhere, any time. Move on. Get with it. Be here. Now. Dammit.

So Kuper didn’t do that, thankfully. He loved the city then and he loves it now. His favorite place to draw is the East Village, both when it was scary-dangerous in the ’70s and now that it’s safer, cleaned up, and you can walk through Tompkins Square Park without impaling your feet on used hypo needles. Gee, imagine how fun that must have been. And the mugging and the raping. Ah, the good old days.

Like the city itself, “Drawn to New York” is a frantic, convoluted blast. The book showcases Kuper’s diligent, fertile imagination and impressive work ethic. He says he’s so prolific because in NYC everyone else is DOING so MUCH that it lights a fire under your ass to keep pace. Kind of like pulling onto a superhighway in southeastern Michigan. You’d better put the pedal to the metal, Jim.

I’m glad we saw Kuper speak. He’s a thoughtful guy creating a remarkable body of work. You may have seen his stuff on the cover of Time or Newsweek (remember them?) in addition to good old Mad. I left the lecture energized & motivated (my second reason for going), feeling a part of New York and its vibrant artistic tradition, excited to get back to work. Ready to put the pedal to the metal.