Cartoons have been an essential part of Alta Journal from the beginning. After all, what’s an issue of Alta without a clever collection of gags on the back page? In an effort to make life easier, funnier, and more book-filled, we’ve compiled the most popular Altatude cartoons from the magazine’s first five years into book form—a real paperback you can buy on our website! To celebrate this new collection, cartoonists Kate Isenberg, Lars Kenseth, and Phil Witte to talk about how Altatude cartoons became part of the magazine in the first place, what Alta and other publications looksfor in selecting cartoons, and how these artists come up with their hilarious illustrations and jokes. Don’t miss this rare sit-down with some of the artists who put the funny in Alta.
About the guests:
Kate Isenberg is a cartoonist and animator whose drawings have appeared in Alta Journal, the New Yorker, Narrative, and the New Republic. Armed with an English degree, she began her career as a magazine fact-checker and copy editor. Drawing in the margins of her day job, she conceived her whimsical comic strip, Stewball, about a unicorn-horse who works in a cubicle but aspires to write great poetry. Isenberg brought Stewball to the big screen in the animated short film Dear Death, which received funding from Simpsons creator Matt Groening and screened at festivals worldwide. She holds an MFA in animation from UCLA film school.
Lars Kenseth is a cartoonist and writer who has contributed to the New Yorker since 2017. His work has also appeared in Barron’s, Playboy, Mad, and Esquire. Kenseth is a TV writer by day, with credits that include Chuck Deuce (Adult Swim) and Norm Macdonald Has a Show (Netflix). Currently, he is developing I Hate Mondays, an animated comedy for Amazon. He is a 2016 Sundance Institute Fellow and a long-suffering acolyte of the New York Jets. Kenseth lives in Santa Monica with his wife.
Phil Witte is a cartoonist and author. His cartoons have appeared in dozens of publications in the U.S. and U.K., including Alta, the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Reader’s Digest, San Francisco Chronicle, the Times (of London), New Statesman, and Private Eye, as well as in books, calendars, and greeting cards. His humor books, What You Don’t Know About Turning 50 and the sequel on turning 60, have sold 175,000 copies to date. His latest book, Funny Stuff: How Great Cartoonists Make Great Cartoons, co-written with Rex Hesner with a foreword by Bob Mankoff, will be published in July by Prometheus Books. His humor writing has appeared in the American Bystander, Slackjaw, and many other print and digital publications. He has also written straight journalism articles for newspapers ranging from the Washington Post to the Bangkok Post.•
