How do you decide what items you are going to have on your desk for OPCD episodes?

Totally arbitrary! In the beginning I tried to pick stuff that contributed in some way thematically to what the episode was about. But I ran out of stuff/interest in doing that.

Lately it seems like I’ve been featuring books I like (Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits, South on Highland, Serpent of Venice) because I like supporting authors and I have a hunch that a lot of the people who like my show will also probably like the books I enjoy. I try to always have a coffee mug (either the Oatmeal Tesla/Edison mug that an anonymous fan mailed me or the Teddy Roosevelt mug Star got me for Christmas last year) but sometimes I forget to bring one (what an interesting answer, Daniel!). 

The majority of the small trinkets that show up are gifts that incredibly nice fans have given me over the years (usually a Spider-man toy or something related to presidents).

I can say that everything that has ever appeared on the desk is a thing I personally own. Cracked isn’t big enough and I’m not fancy enough that I can say to a production designer “Hey, I would like some thematically relevant trinkets on the desk, thanks” because we don’t have production designers on these shoots and that sounds like a gross misuse of money. For the first three years of OPCD, even the desk I sat behind was a piece of furniture I owned that I lugged back and forth to set every time we shot (Fun Fact: Probably the reason OPCD took a hiatus last year was because I didn’t feel like loading that desk into my car). 

I’m running out of little trinkets and things so I’ll probably end up repeating stuff soon. My dream is to do an entire episode where my dog Jackson is on the desk, walking back and forth, getting in my face, licking the desk, and we’d just never address it, we’d just accept that “sometimes this show has dogs.” Probably won’t do it because he’s a very private dog and doesn’t have any interest in being in front of the camera, but a boy can dream.