Here’s how it goes. On Friday, I post a bunch of drawings, not really knowing if they’re any good. Not really knowing whether I’ll get through to any of you. The next six days are agony as I await the results of your guesses. Now, on Thursday evening, I have the pleasure and pain of reviewing the referendum on my latest batch of drawings.

I’m savoring this last moment of innocence before I see your guesses. Right now, in my own mind at least, it’s perfectly possible that each of you correctly identified all four of my drawings. I’m tempted never to abandon this beautiful fantasy. But, of course, I must.

The making of art is about the pursuit of truth. Or something like that. It might just be about the thrill of reading your desperate guesses.

I gave you this guy.

And here’s what you said. 

• Kojak. That or Mr. Clean minus his earring.
• Bruce Willis. That’s the best we’ve got.
• Billy Zane??
• Coyote Ugly
• Pele
• Bruce Willis. I am pretty sure I see his essence.
• Howie Mandel? Nah, he has a beard on his chinny-chin-chin, methinks.
• I think it’s Bruce Willis. Except in real life Bruce Willis has quite the prominent chin. I think you’re trying to engage in misdirection here. It will not work.
• I’d say Bruce Willis but he’s normally very smooth and not stubbly.
• A very angry Dalai Lama
• Sloth from “The Goonies”?
• Dr. Evil
• Dr. Eeeevil

Next I led you into these treacherous waters.

And yet you navigated with such confidence and calm.  

Although there were a few dissenters…

• Phyllis Diller with a really scary eye. Or Cujo.
• SUSAN BOYLE! Finally.

…most of you were fairly convinced that this was Joan Rivers.

• Joan Rivers
• Joan Rivers? Cruella Deville? Joan Rivers as Cruella Deville?
• Joan Rivers. Oh man, she really does look like that, unfortunately.
• JOAN EFFING RIVERS. I would bet the life of someone I mildly like on it!
• Joan Rivers
• OH JOAN RIVAHS HONEY!!!
• Joan Rivers. you captured the ‘scary’ well
• Joan rivers
• Joan Rivers. Or Cruela Deville. Same dif.
• Joan Freakin’ Rivers (apparently after having sucked a mound of lemons)

But what about this one? I had forgotten about this one. I’m feeling pretty sure that none of you will have correctly guessed this young woman, who is, I must confess, a favorite of mine.

And all but one of you guessed incorrectly.

• Hello Botox.
• Rashida Jones? Or just, you know, your generic woman with teeth, eyes, and hair.
• Kristin Wiig
• Shania Twain
• Chelsea Clinton again?
• Miley Cyrus
• Carmen Diaz meaning well
• Phoebe from Friends
• KATIE COURIC HELLO.
• Tyra Banks
• A Stepford child
• Reese Witherspoon?
• Jennifer Aniston
• Scarlett Johansson
• Ashley Olsen. NOT Mary Kate Olsen. God, I am crushing it this week!

The final challenge was a bit of a throwback. I thought maybe his dapper mustache would help to place him historically.

And you did seem to grasp that I had drawn a gentleman of a bygone era. But, alas, that is where your success ended. This fellow is not:

• Laurence Olivier? Somebody doing Shakespeare, at any rate.
• The dude from the 70’s sitcom Alice
• Oh, man. Super good try though!
• Boris Karloff
• That guy who played the dad in the Addams Family movies. Raul something or other. He’s dead now, isn’t he?
• Schneider from “One Day at a Time.” Or Gomez from the Addams family.
• Some ancient brooding king from Masterpiece Theater
• Peter Sellers?
• Oh god, I know this but cannot think of his name. anyway he looks like a character from a mid-20th c play.
• Can we just go back to my awesome Joan Rivers guess and skip this one?
• Chris Pratt? Only because he’s on basically every magazine on earth right now for the new Marvel movie. Oh, and he has a mustache.
• FRANK N. BARRY
• Gomez from the Addams Family as far as I can tell.
• Clearly a bust of a Frenchman. Or Spaniard.
• Raul Julia????
• Marlon brando
• Omar Sharif.
• Lord Puffy Shirt

Now for my favorite part of Matthew Draws, the bonus question.

Which of these people is in the witness protection program? What did they see? What did they do?

• All of them would make for an interesting reality TV show.
• All of them. They were on the Orient Express. Look at those guilty/crazed faces.
• #4 and his disguise is really good… He’s really a former professional sports cheerleader (lady cheerleader, to be clear) who saw something weird, illegal, and dangerous happen outside her local coffee shop. I can’t say much about it, but it did involve a goat and some questionable life choices.
• The first guy. What *didn’t* he do?
• I think Gomez from the Addams family must have witnessed something horrible and had to go into witness protection AS Schneider from “One Day at a Time.”
• It is too late for Cujo. How about Miley? A wrecking ball is after her?
• Peter Sellers. Because The Pink Panther.
• Def Joan Rivers. She sees all, she knows all, and sometimes she spills.
• Protect Joan Rivers at all costs!
• Picture #1 – Clearly whomever it is has now become unrecognizable. He is a cliche – accountant for the mob who provided evidence against his bosses.
• #2 tweeted something innane, accusing fellow celebrities of committing a crime (joking), not knowing that they actually had
• Joan Rivers. But it’s for our protection, not hers. Seriously, why does she keep getting air time?

And that, my friends, is that. I feel moderately comforted to know that each of my drawings elicited at least one correct answer. I feel extremely glad to know that the stresses of waiting for your guesses is now behind me for another week.

But now it’s time to go get a piece of paper, take up my favorite pen, and set to drawing.

Wish me luck. Or don’t. It doesn’t seem to make a shred of difference.