The Cartoons of Emily Flake

A short profile of one of the women in my documentary, Women Laughing

Next up in my series of short profiles is Emily Flake. Born in Manchester Connecticut, Emily received her Bachelors of Fine Arts in Illustration from the Maryland College of Art. She sold her first cartoon to The New Yorker in 2008, and her work has also appeared The New York Times, Time and many other publications. Her weekly comic strip has appeared in numerous alternative newsweeklies since 2002.

Photo by Mindy Tucker

Although she went to art school, Emily always begins creating her cartoons by writing. New Yorker cartoons are equal parts drawing and writing, the two elements have to dance together seamlessly. All of us cartoonists approach the creation of this unique art form differently.

Emily is part of a generation of cartoonists who also are stand-up comics. She runs a monthly stand-up show called FDK at Young Ethel’s in Brooklyn, and she’s performed many other places around New York City.

Her humor is sometimes a bit dark, and she herself will admit she enjoys going for crude humor. Her edgy cartoons are sometimes about parenting, but just as often about hip Brooklynite thirty and fourty year olds.

Her color work often appears in the pages of The New Yorker in a longer strip format under the Shouts and Murmurs or Sketchbook sections.

Emily is skilled at keeping up with cultural trends and she uses them in her work. She openly draws on her personal experience, telling me in her interview for this film,

“I draw to figure out the world and explain the world to myself. I draw because I can’t afford therapy.”

Emily is the founder and operator of an artist residency called *St.Nell’s Humor Writing Residency, for women+, non-binary artists, and other people of marginalized genders working in any humor-related field. Located *in Williamsport, PA., St. Nell’s mission is as follows:

“Writers need time and space to work, full stop. Residencies make time and space possible. Why marginalized genders in particular? Because this whole (cussword) world was made for men, and everyone else needs all the space it’s possible to carve out. St. Nell’s will be a writing space, a respite, and a community for the 51% of the population historically branded as “not funny.”

We are so grateful to all of you who donated to our Women Laughing fundraising campaign, and helped us reach our kickstarter goal!! We are thrilled that our film has resonated with so many, and during our final week we’re happy we get to think beyond our initial Kickstarter goal, which ensured we’d be able to complete post-production on our film. As such, we wanted to tell you what we can do with a little bit extra:

• August 11th update: REACHED! $1,500 beyond 100%helps us create accessible closed captions, a DCP, and other deliverables needed to screen the film at festivals
• $5,000 beyond 100% helps us helps us hire a publicist to get the word out about this film ($3150 to go!)
• $7,000 beyond 100% helps us hire a designer to create a poster and other promo materials
• $10,000 beyond 100% ensures all featured cartoonists, even international ones, have the opportunity to attend our NYC premiere

*WOMEN LAUGHING is a documentary, executive produced by Katie Couric, about the diverse women cartoonists who have graced the pages of The New Yorker from the first issue to the present day, as well as a fun, insightful journey into how women’s humor reflects their struggles and helps us to see differently.*

Here is the kickstarter page, THANK YOU!