For me, one of the many interesting aspects of running the publicity campaign for Cannonball Statman’s 2023 album Hard to Break was exploring the dimension of Cannonball’s family, and how that plays into his work.

On the one hand, Cannonball’s name was, in fact, taken from another member of his family – his childhood dog, Cannonball. Alongside his nephew, a chocolate Lab called Apolo (née Apollo) Statman, the black Labrador retriever Cannonball Statman might be most famous for his lead role in a brilliant music video by the human artist of the same name, for the song “Manhattan, I am a Sheep” – much to my disappointment, the video does not feature any sheep. Or any humanoids, for that matter.

On the other hand, there are the human members of Cannonball Statman’s family.

As it turns out, the canine and human members of the part human, part dog musician Cannonball Statman’s family have equally been blessed with some serious artistic talent – on the human side of things, his father is the poet and translator Mark Statman, his mother is the painter and memoirist Katherine Koch, his grandmother was the singer and accordionist Dolores Statman who performed at New York’s Carnegie Hall many moons before Cannonball’s birth, his grandfather was the poet and playwright Kenneth Koch, and his great-grandmother was the performer Lillian Loth, for whom the arts space Centro Cultural Liliana Loth in San Pedro Ixtlahuaca, Mexico was named.

So this is just to say – when we were putting together the press kit for his 2023 album Hard to Break, I suggested to Cannonball that we put his collaborations with his grandpa Kenneth Koch as his first “career highlight” – referring to the series of cartoons the two made together in 2000 and 2001, shortly before Kenneth’s passing – which roughly coincided with the formation of Cannonball’s first band, The Band Of The Land, and the penning of his first original song, “My Love is Away”.

As it so happens, Cannonball agreed with me that this information would be a good addition to the press kit – and following the release of Hard to Break, the inclusion of that bit has led to some renewed interest in these aspects of Cannonball’s work that many of his fans hadn’t even been aware of.

Jesse “Cannonball” Statman was only 6 years old when he and his grandpa started drawing comics together. But they both took it very seriously, apparently – they made two books of comics together: It’s Jesken! (named for a recurring character who is a physical combination of Jesse “Cannonball” Statman and his grandpa Kenneth Koch in the same body) and Kids, This is Just Professional! (a “catchphrase” of the drama teacher at Jesse “Cannonball” Statman’s middle school, who he and Kenneth also made into a character in some of their comics).

The books in their entirety were never published or mass distributed, but some of the pages were displayed as part of an exhibition of Kenneth’s poetry comics at Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York shortly after his death, which began to spark some interest in this collaboration.

In addition to his brilliant poetry and avant-garde plays, Kenneth Koch is now also known for his poetry comics – in part due to the posthumous publication of the book The Art of the Possible! in 2004, which is a collection of Koch’s “comics mainly without pictures” – and is, objectively, one of the coolest things ever made.

But while It’s Jesken! and Kids, This is Just Professional! are also quite cool – and they are poetry comics, hence their inclusion in the “words” section of this website – they’re also decidedly not “comics mainly without pictures” – these are comics with very much a lot of pictures.

Which means they’re a rare glimpse of Kenneth Koch’s brilliant work as an illustrator, and Cannonball’s illustrations, which are not something you’re likely to see much of elsewhere.

Indeed, despite Cannonball Statman’s associations with a scene full of musicians who are also known for their great visual work – Jeffrey Lewis, Mallory Feuer, Toby Goodshank, and Daniel Johnston are but a handful of the countless artists who come to mind – and even after having attended numerous “art nights” hosted by (anti)folks like Jeffrey Lewis who insisted that all attendees pick up a sketch pad and draw for most of the evening – Cannonball just isn’t known for his illustrations. At every single one of these “art nights”, he drew the same exact cartoon face of a character with long, curly hair, and a talk balloon with a random message he came up with off the top of his head – usually song lyrics.

He says he’s just “not very good at drawing things.”

To each their own, I suppose.

I personally really like Cannonball Statman’s illustrations.

I also really like his (out-of-print) cartoon series alternately titled Jesse and Robostat and The Robots that he worked on from 2002-’04 – and the illustrations he did for his (also out-of-print) series of short stories about a group of adventurers led by a bloke called Tom Turkey and his partner Cranberrysauce – Kenneth actually came up with the idea of the character Tom Turkey, and some of the concept of the series as well, as it was made around the same time as these comics they did together.

Unfortunately for me, Cannonball is primarily focused on his music these days – so we’re just not likely to see many new illustrations coming out of him anytime soon.

Until he comes to his senses – you can at least find some of the brilliant cartoons he made with his grandpa in 2000 and 2001 on this page.

I’m really hoping I can eventually convince him to do second edition of at least one book (or two) from his brilliant Tom Turkey Adventure Book series – that one’s also technically a collaboration with Kenneth, and it served as a partial inspiration for the Cannonball Statman song “Tom Turkey” that was written in 2013 and finally recorded and released this year as part of his self-titled 32nd album – though much of the inspiration for the song actually comes from Cannonball’s surreal short film The Scarf, which he co-wrote with his mother Katherine Koch.

Now, as I’ve mentioned, there has been some renewed interest in these collaborations, with publications such as Music In Belgium mentioning them in some of the write-ups of Cannonball’s recent tours, and from fans of Kenneth’s work specifically – some of whom requested to see the pieces Cannonball and Kenneth made together, including for purposes to do with the numerous events and projects surrounding the upcoming 100th anniversary of Kenneth’s birth, for which many celebrations are planned – in the US, Mexico, England, and elsewhere in the world, mostly in February 2025. 

And – much to Cannonball’s surprise, but not at all surprising to myself – everyone who saw these cartoons more recently seems to think they’re not only really interesting, but genuinely good.

As such, we’ve decided to release the digital versions of some of these cartoons on the Cannonball Statman website.

There are plenty more, available by request – you’ll have to write Jesse for that, though: Jesse (at) Cannonball Statman (dot) com

See you soon!
Kléo

Selected Pages from It’s Jesken! and Kids, This is Just Professional! (2000-’01)

Jekyll and Hyde in Restaurant Comix, Cloud Comics No. 02, + Giraffe Comics
Going to the Square + Heads or Tails, One or Two, Front or Back Comix
Jesse and Mama in the Snow Comics, Squareroot Comix, + Ball Comix
Snowball Comics, Dog Comics, + Voices of Motel Comics
Cover Artwork for It’s Jesken! + Kids, This is Just Professional!