February 3, 2025

i-get-it

Kadir Nelson created the cover art with pigeons flying around a person who seems to be on a rooftop. The online edition indicates that this cover concept was put forth by Françoise Mouly, the art editor at The New Yorker since 1993.

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Reaction

Marginally erudite commentary:

1

Richards Smit has the leadoff cartoon, where a rock singer is giving a long explanation of the history of the song before singing it. This is what I call a caption-heavy cartoon.

For sure, the drawing and caption deliver a great summation of what can happen in rock or any popular art: the work can become successful in a way it was never intended.

But I can’t help wondering if there is a shorter caption out there that says it just as well…

But visit his Instagram page to see many more cartoons including a wonderfully anti-Drumpf drawing.

And note that his last name is Smit, not Smits. And he first name is Richards, not Richard. That is some cool name pluralization, is it not?

2

Jeremy Nguyen has the second cartoon, a new take on the neverending dogs vs cats controversy.

I have trouble giving any cartoon with dogs and/or cats anything but a rave review, but will try to be objective about this.

A few nights ago my town had a long, contentious vote about allowing accessory dwelling units and whether they are allowed in the front yard. (They are not.) So this cartoon is about exactly what my town meeting just voted on and our cats and dogs were very scrappy in their opinions.

But I am giving this a Very Funny even beyond its connection to our local issue… It gets into the enormous spiritual and religious differences between our two main furry family members.

Please note that Jeremy’s Instagram page also has lots of great stuff, including another anti-Drumpf cartoon.

3

Will Santino brings us the cartoon about the Renaissance era cheese vendor

It’s a mildly intellectual cartoon, a fun take on the concept of a Renaissance man. It works on the cognitive dissonance between our modern label of that era, and putting that label back into the era itself. There have been a few of these time-shifting cartoons, and they work, and make you think.

My quibble here is the expression of the customer: she seems mildly unhappy about his explanation: this is is based on microscopic bit of ink in the rendering of her mouth and eyes. 

But it is not obvious to me what else her expression should say…

4

Suerynn Lee has an interesting and visually strong cartoon about a couple in the process of breaking up and the guy is making a totally understandable but off-the-wall plea.

How funny is this, or how meaningful? Depends on how far you are from your last painful breakup, I suppose.

I love her distinct blackness-and-whiteness drawing style.

 

5

Roz Chast has a typically whimsical cartoon where she invites you into her inner thoughts about what would make good substitute bundles of joy from the stork.

It’s a solid piece of Chast, where you read the three labels of stork bundles and with each you are absorbed deeper in to Chastworld. I enjoyed the ride, as I nearly always do.

5

Lysn Hsu has an offbeat but classic cartoon with astronomer using the huge telescope, aimed down, to see if a colleague has “left the house”.

Clearly funny, to me.

I bet this will end up on a lot refrigerators in telescope facilities around the globe. 

6

Sophia Glock (the irony of that last name for a cartoonist!) has another example of a cartoon where modern sensibility – and product – have clashed with olden days.

In fact, I needed to go back and go over this cartoon a few times: we have a modern woman with a computer being addressed by a servant, so this is either a mashup of modern and ancient times… or a scene from the British royal family, where we presume they might still have servants?

Not sure which, but not sure it matters.

And I am quite sure that among the women who wear Lululemon this will land a lot better than it does for this old non-dancing nerd.

7

Peter Kuper has a cartoon with two couples at the end of a dinner party talking about how to rearrange their two standard topics of discussion.

At first I thought this was too New-Yorkerish, too much of the slightly bored upper-middle class view that I sometimes think the New Yorker does too much with, as opposed to Booth cartoons of flea-bit dogs in run-down apartments.

But I then realized that my own discussion topics are also bit routine, if not identical to these. For us, it’s also what’s great on TV, and then what a nightmare is going on in Washington.

So, after some actual thought and reflection, I realized that I myself live in that cartoon.

8

i-get-it

Nick Downes has a scary cartoon that bring to mind, for me, the horrendous scene in the Brian DePalma movie, The Untouchables, where DeNiro plays Capone and ruthlessly murders a gangster with a baseball bat – at the conference table, just like in this cartoon.

But in this cartoon everybody but one guy has a baseball bat, so there is some Shirley Jackson going on here.

So is it funny, or meaningful? More the latter, I think. And it somehow parallels the awful times we are in, where vicious people are at the conference table – in the White House.

I suspect people with stronger stomachs than me will find it funnier, but then I really can’t watch horror films either.

9

John O’Brien did the cartoon where the cowboy roping the calf has somehow created the background outline of the canyons and mountains with his… lariat.

This is the sort of imaginative drawing that makes me think of Saul Steinberg, though this drawing is much more organic than most Steinberg. 

It’s not super funny, unless, perhaps you are stoned, but its quiet fun.

10

Nathan Cooper has a take on the Adam and Eve idea, but this time in modern day. It’s really more of a difficult date cartoon than Adam and Eve: the guy is explaining that this awkward situation seemed like a good idea. And who hasn’t been there?

So, again, after spending time with it, I found it funnier and more meaningful than a first glance. Whatta concept, huh?

11

i-get-it

Shannon Wheeler what I think is a reference to the second coming of Drumpf. 

Needless to say, it would be pretty hard to make a laugh-out-loud cartoon that references the cesspool in the White House.

But the other way a cartoon can succeed is by being very meaningful, and this one does.

12

Sam Hurt has a cartoon that replaces the standard mice in a science lab maze with giraffes, which is a funny idea.

This is a case where there could be a lot of different captions but I find the one used is pretty imaginative, and once you get to the point where giraffes are talking, why not allow them to comment on the funding priorities of the science?

It’s a small audience, but if there are still researchers running rodents through mazes, this will land nicely.

I was going to quibble that the giraffe’s legs are too short, but that seems to be a common aspect in the area of giraffe cartoons, I suspect because shorter legs seem funnier.

13

Julia Thomas has a parenting cartoon that I am certain parents (and those people who have had parents) will appreciate.

I will give it a Funny but I suspect parents of young ones might rate it Very Funny.

Want to see something rather strange and moving? Check out the cartoon on Julia’s Instagram page where a woman with a dog is comparing progress with a woman with a human baby. 

14

Amanda Chung and Vincent Coca, a cartoon team, have a cartoon about praying mantis couple in bed together that is mildly creepy but funny.

These two seem to work as a team at times and there are other great examples on Instagram. Check them out.

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The Cartoon Caption Contest

The New Cartoon
A pirate with a whisk for a hand, instead of a hook: good place to start.

The Finalists
The round and the square clock at the couple’s therapist: all three captions are good.

The Winning Caption
Off shore investments is a pretty solid caption for this absurd and funny cartoon.

Bottom Line

Once again, I find a lot of pretty good cartoons, although friends of mine say I have gone soft. But the more one spends time with these cartoons, the funnier they get and the deeper my appreciation.

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