Todd Rosenberg, aka Odd Todd, is a bit of an Internet legend. (He even has a Wikipedia entry to prove it.) After being laid off from Atom Films in the dot-com “Bummer in the Summer” of 2001, he started to document his unemployed life through cartoons. Very popular cartoons. You can catch his work on the big screen and meet the real-life action figure behind Odd Todd at the NYC Animation Block Party at Makor this Saturday. He’s currently developing a sitcom with CBS that centers around a bachelor who lives in Brooklyn. If it’s half as entertaining as his NYC Q&A below, we’re sure it will be a hit. 

How many years, apartments and what neighborhoods have you lived in NYC?
I was born in Manhattan but grew up in the burbs. I’ve lived in NYC for about eight years in three apartments. First it was an Upper East Side studio that was like 35 square feet. Then West Village and now I’m in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.

What’s your best (or worst) NYC taxi story?
I have two.

1. I was riding along minding my own business when all of a sudden I saw a giant cockroach race by on the partition glass! On my side! Then it disappeared! I freaked out! I’m totally scared of bugs. For the rest of the ride it kept feeling like the roach was on my neck or up my pant leg or on my arm or something. I think the cabbie thought I was on drugs because I was all jolting around and stuff.

2. I got in a cab with a cabbie who at first seemed really cool because he looked totally old school. Like he’s been driving a cab for like 40 years or whatever. Big cigar and hat and crap on the dashboard and everything. I like talking to cabbies in general so I decided to chat it up with him. He soon made it clear that he was all sorts of crazy, mumbling and talking about government electronics and science crimes. Then I noticed his meter was running super fast. Like the dollars at double speed. When I called him out on his scammy meter he just acted crazier and drove faster. Mumbling and weaving. It was probably an act but it worked on me. So eventually I just sucked it up and buckled up and shut up. I got home safe and paid him his stupid money. But I felt like a sucker for days. Like I should have had the balls to just get out at a traffic light and run.

Ooh! I just thought of one more! I was talking to a cabbie and he told me he was a painter. He was sort of shy about it but eventually he fessed up that he had some paintings with him. They were rolled up inside paper towel tubes and he started handing them back to me to look at. They were good! Simple houses on a river bank. All of them. I bought one for $30 or something and framed it. It’s hanging up over there (I’m pointing at the wall to my right.)

What’s your New York motto?
“What’s the worst case scenario?”

Describe that low, low moment when you thought you just might have to leave NYC for good.
Actually it was a few months after I got laid off. I couldn’t afford my apartment in the West Village and the dot-com thing was bottoming out. I was interviewing for really sucky jobs. Like sales cold-calling for commission and stuff. (And I wasn’t even getting those jobs!) So I started thinking about alternative careers like being a lobsterman, pro-scammer, or tropical bartender rumhead.

Who do you consider to be the greatest New Yorker of all-time?
Probably the person who was smart enough to draw a line around Central Park back in the day and save it. That guy (or chick)—but I guess that’s not an answer. Instead of Googling around for a name I’ll just say Woody Allen instead.

What was your best dining experience in NYC?
It’s hard to say. I used to go to a bistro type restaurant nearby that actually let me bring my dog (Roscoe) inside which was totally cool. One snowy day I went there mid-afternoon. I remember having a bowl of onion soup, feeding my dog crusts of bread, and drinking some wine while reading a book. It was perfect. So that stands out.

(A couple months later, I stupidly went to that health inspection website where you can look up health-code violations of any restaurant and found out that my favorite bistro place was super filthy and almost seriously flunked inspection. Tons of violations. Evidence of rats, not mice, RATS! So that place is all ruined because I was nosey. Haven’t been back. I guess I shouldn’t have been all that surprised… after all they let friggin’ dogs inside.)

With a nod to Milton Glaser, how much do you really love New York?
Thisss muccch! (I’m holding my arms out with finger extended. Hard to type this way.)

Of all the movies made about or highly associated with New York, what role would you have liked to be cast in?
Spiderman.

What happened the last time you went to L.A.?
A friend of mine took me into one of those exclusive semi-secret clubs. He knew someone who knew someone or something. I was all excited and felt cool. We finally get inside and it turns out it was just a regular bar with a bunch of lunkheads standing around staring at each other. I felt self-conscious about my jeans being wrong.

If you could change one thing about New York, what would it be?
I think there should be a requirement that any new building that goes up should be easy to imagine still standing in 150 years. Any new building that doesn’t meet that requirement should be ripped off its foundations and thrown in the river by a giant robot.

The End of The World is finally happening. What are you going to do with your last 24 hours in NYC?
I doubt I’d be able to pull any decent plan together so I’d probably just sit on my couch and watch it all on TV.

[Animation Block Party’s NYC Focus: 12/2/06]

Related: 11/28, Comic Superheroes: Live on the Silver Screen!; 12/3, The Cartoonist’s Way with The New Yorker‘s David Sipress; and Winter/Spring Art Center Drawing Classes on sale soon