This is the issue with a cover by Roz Chast, which, to be honest I didn’t entirely understand, but I loved it anyway.
This page of reviews is only useful, if at all, if you have a print copy of this issue of The New Yorker in front of you and you want to compare your reactions to ours.
Page
Reaction
Quasi erudite commentary:
11

On page 11, Jenny Krok has a “Sketchpad” illustration which is close enough to being a cartoon that is seems like we should review it.
It has four panels showing examples of “What happens if you stand still in N.Y.C.?”
It’s whimsical, not heavy, and fun to take in. We noted that the woman in each of the four illustrations is identical, which, if I did it, I would consider myself lazy, but since the idea is that it is the same woman doing the same thing all four times… why not?
Jenny Kroik has a lovely website where she show multiple New Yorker covers and lots of other great work.
Her style is kind of woodcut-ish and very flexible and pleasing
15

Amy Hwang has a cartoon showing two snails facing each other with the caption, “I take things one centimeter at a time.”
It’s a sweet drawing but we all know that snails are slow, so the punchline has to do with the use of centimeters as a unit of measure?
This brings back the question of who supplies the caption. Because two snails having a little chat could have several thousand captions and I suspect some would be funnier.
And I wanted a bit more emotional expression from the snails…
Go to Amy’s site and look for the bedsheet cartoon!
22

Roland High has a cartoon on page 22 showing two insects talking about their emotional attachment to their dead grandfather in the ceiling light.
Most of us have seen the dead bugs in the ceiling light, but only Roland was able to illuminate for us the residual attachment between living and dead bugs.
I love the drawing style, quirky and jerky and the bugs are cute and I think this has the potential to be a lot funnier.
But I think the caption is a little bit too heavy weight here. Like the two snails conversation in the previous cartoon I can’t help thinking that there must be a shorter and funnier caption.
If you visit his Instagram page, he has many wonderful, rich illustrations in a variety of styles.
29

Adam Douglas Thompson has a great cartoon on page 25. It shows a server getting tea for a cafe customer who is saying “…whatever you have is fine.”
But the server is standing in front of a wall of a zillion kinds of tea, which I think most of us have experienced in people’s home or at a cafe.
The thing I love about this cartoon is how deeply the drawing is involved in the story: the figures are plain and clean, but the wall of tea is incredibly busy and detailed.
So the cartoon is deeply visual, but also funny, and that is the goal, is it not?
Plus this cartoon is very original. This is not a replay of a standard cartoon meme; this is a whole new thing, and that is a great thing to achieve.
Visit his site. He uses lots of line work with no shading, but at times uses details to create darker tones, but always in service of the story.
I am now a huge fan of ADT.
31

Oren Bernstein‘s cartoon on page 31 shows an office scene where a Clark Kent character in a suit jacket also has no pants on and blue leggings and little pink panties (?)… and a woman co-worker has dropped her coffee in shock.
It’s a funny cartoon, and it does a rare thing: it has a teeny bit of color in a black and white cartoon, and the color is essential.
I love Bernstein’s drawing style with lots of detail and texture. It passes the Booth test – it’s funny without even a caption. The big square suit jacket looming over his teeny pink panties is perfect.
And Bernstein builds his own caption right into the cartoon with a drawn title at the top: “Mr. Kent’s Recurring Nightmare.” Which is perfect and pretty clearly supplied by the artist, not added in later.
A whole new take on the “being naked in public” nightmare.
32

William Haefeli has an energetic cartoon on page 32, showing a couple is some sort of crowded public place, a cafe or airport. The woman is sayng to the man, “I refuse to believe that the conversations I engage in are as insipid as the ones I eavesdrop on.”
I found it funny, expressing a thought that any of us might encounter in public.
I did feel that the caption was a tiny bit too complex and when I read it to my partner I shortened it to “I refuse to believe that my conversations are as dumb as the ones I overhear.”
The link above is just to Haefeli’s Wikipedia page so you would need to click here and there to more of his great work.
33

Zach Kanin has a cartoon on page 33 that I liked, though it isn’t so much funny as meaningful. But then, while I have observed the scenario of parent taking over doggy care, I have not actually been there. (I got and cared for my own pooch for 14 wonderful years.)
There are two kids on the couch and the parent is saying, “A dog is a big responsibility–are you prepared for the guilt you’ll feel when I’m the one who ends up taking care of it?”
Kanin is a script writer and this is a complete scene, not requiring actors.
He has nicely made the two kids rather small in front of the dominating parental unit, which is perfect.
Was not sure if the parent was male or female but doesn’t seem like it matters.
The link above is to his Wikipedia page, so click around to see he other work,
34

Tom Chitty has a cartoon on page 34 with a man arriving at a cafe table and explaining to the woman seated there “Sorry I’m late–I was trying to throw a string of dental floss in the garbage.”
I thought is was pretty funny, being a regular victim of mishandling strings of dental floss, myself.
What really struck me about this cartoon is the style of the drawing; it seems more like a 1950s cartoon style than New Yorker, but having looked at Chitty’s website, I think that that must be entirely on purpose, a retro approach. Chitty has a wealth of work that uses many different and sophisticated styles.
Be sure to click the link above to explore his other funny-as-hell work.
And he consistently passed the Booth test: his drawings are detailed, expressive and funny even without captions.
37

P. C.Vey (ignore security warning you may see on entering his website) has a cartoon on page 37 showing two pigeons on a window sill where a cat is staring at them, through the glass.
One is saying, “He came with the windowsill.” in reference to the cat.
Much as I love any cartoon with a cat, and Vey has a great weekly cat cartoon. this one didn’t quite do it for me. But I bet for some people who deal with oddities of apartment renting that this might land better.
41

To repeat, if I say one unkind thing about Roz Chast, my old girlfriend will hunt me down.
Her four-panel cartoon on page 41 tells the story of a girl whose mother told her dust mites were called flurbs and how this has stayed with her through life.
I loved it.
We all have dumb stuff from our parents we can’t let go of and this tells one version of this perfectly.
And of course, Chast always passes the Booth test: her cartoons are funny even without captions. And she builds the captions right into the cartoon, rather than having the editor place a lesser caption?
45

Paul Rogers has a full page comic on page 45.
But because I am just too lazy to work my way through these detailed comics I won’t review it.
It’s an interesting story about Picassso and Appollinaire stealing art from the Louvre.
Probably great, so my loss.
46

Tom Cheney has a cartoon on page 46 that I just didn’t quite get. Or maybe I do.
A scientist on a platform by a rocket, an ICBM sort of rocket, is saying to two military types “And here, of course, are the parental controls.”
This made little sense to me until I realized that it was probably a very strong comment on having a daft president like Trump where we need parental controls.
Maybe this is obvious and I am just thick.
But I needed something more to cement the idea.
We know that the New Yorker as a magazine is deeply opposed to Trump and all he stands for, but I can see that somehow it falls out of bounds for this cartoon to have a daft Trump character off to one side. I get that. Interesting.
I should also mention that THIS CARTOON by Cheney has been on my frig for decades since I cut it out of the magazine.
54

Ivan Ehlers has a cartoon on age 48, a replay of the classic desert island cartoon. One bearded castaway is saying to the other “Maybe we’re following up too soon and let the editorial process run its course.”
The gag is castaways obsessing about how to go about putting a message in a bottle. I bet that for people who live in the world of modern office discourse this might seem funnier.
OK, I get it, but there are much funnier cartoons on his website, plus a bunch of other great graphic art.
52

Liana Finck has a neat cartoon on page 52, showing the devil looking criticially through a window and telling a fellow “I need a better advocate, Craig.”
Seems Craig often plays Devil’s advocate, but not up to Satan’s standards.
Not screamingly funny, but smart and very original, with her lovely drawing style.
56

Micheal Maslin has a cartoon on page 56, a take on the caveman meme. One cave person is wheeling a trash toter outside the cave and the other cave person says “What’re you doing? The next trash pickup isn’t for another two million years.”
I found it funny, I snorted out loud.
But then the nerd part of me got to wondering where they would even GET a trash toter?
And then wondering if two million years is an accurate number.
So after laughing I started to pick the cartoon apart like an idiot.
And after all, the cartoon passes the Booth test: it’s funny to look at even without the caption.
Maslin has much more great work on his website.
56

Joe Dator has our FAVORITE cartoon for this issue on page 57.
A somewhat bored and miffed Santa appears at the door of a couple and says “I’m just checking to see if your kid is playing with all the crap I brought him.”
If you replace the words “crap” with the word “toys” the whole cartoons collapses because the funny comes from Santa being such a bored and offput dude.
And Dator has a wealth of funny-as-hell cartoons on his website.
56

Pia Guerra has a cartoon on page 60 showing what must be two Romans, one of whom is saying “Age ain’t nothing but some letters.”
I get it. The modern version is “Age ain’t nothing but a number” and this is during the era of Roman numbers… so it’s letters.
Pia Guerra has much funnier stuff elsewhere, including some very pointed anti-Drumpf cartoons.
63

Victoria Roberts has a charming cartoon on page 63 showing a pyramid of 36 frogs and the single frog on top, with iPhone in hand, says “Oops,I forgot my selfie stick.”
I think for somebody more open to laughter than me this cartoon might be funnier.
But I liked it so much that I took care to count all 36 frogs, each of which is a little different.
Her website is packed with great cartoons and covers for the New Yorker, and much more.
72

The Cartoon Caption Contest
The New Cartoon
The new cartoon shows a woman stepping into the surface of a giant iPhone and saying something to the man behind her. I have NO idea where this will go, but looking forward to seeing the finalists. I was very interested in the caption contest when it first showed up but found it was much, much harder to write a good caption than I would have thought.
The Finalists
Of the three candidates for finalist of the cartoon where a carrot and a stalk of broccoli are at a cafe table where a tomato is the stand-up comic, we voted for “You pulled me out of the ground for this?”
The Winning Caption
The winner for the robot on the couch commenting to the other robot… “Nobody wants to hire you when you are out of warranty.”
Probably the best caption, but the cartoon itself didn’t bonk my funnybone,.

Bottom Line
There were some darn funny cartoons in this issue, but there is always room for improvment, so we weill continue jousting at this windmill for now,
The only useful way to see this page, if there is one, is with a print copy of the New Yorker in hand. You can compare your reaction to each cartoon to ours.