January 20, 2025

This is the issue with a cover by Barry Blitt showing Musk taking the oath of office along with Trump. (We suggest you click that link to visit his site and at least check out the names of his top navigation choices.)

Reminder: 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.

With this issue it dawned on me that it is pointless for me to try to describe the cartoon and supply the caption: this is only a useful review to people who are looking at the cartoon!

You can use this link to see the cartoons if not a paid subscriber, but after a few visits you will need to subscribe.

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Reaction

Potentially erudite commentary:

9

i-get-it

On page 9 Paul Noth has a cartoon in the cavemen realm, where one guy is hammering out a stone wheel talking about how this will be big for hamsters. And over on the right side is a hamster in a little pen, since hamster cages (and wheels) have yet to be invented.

I get it, but I just didn’t find it that funny. 

Although after I tried covering up the caption I found the drawing all alone funnier. I wonder if there might be a funnier caption.

14

i-get-it

Sarah Kempa has a cartoon on page 14 showiing two women in a kitchen, one talking to the other about carrying a book for special reasons.

I think I got the general idea right away but then read the caption five more times to try to get it clear in my head and never quite did.

To me it is a very caption-heavy cartoon. And of course, there could be thousands of other captions applied to it. 

But follow the link above to her nifty Instagram page and you can read what she and fans and friends have written about that cartoon.

17

Jonathan Rosen has a cartoon on page 17 showing a guy (wearing a tall funny hat of some sort) about to take a shot at a pool table and there is a meatball right on the table, in RED, with some sauce around it. 

Plus a dude looking on who seems not sure how to react.

This is good goofy fun. Absurdist humor. 

I like the cartoon and wanted it to be funnier than I actually found it to be.

Rosen’s website, called Forbidden Cereal is full of all sorts of neat stuff including his music and videos.

29

Roz Chast has a newspaper cartoon on page 22 with the headline “Waldo and Carmen Sandiego FOUND.”

With an image of the two of them together in looking very PTSD.

Of course it’s funny; it’s Roz. 

31

There is a 2-person team cartoon on page 24, the work of E. S. Glenn and Colin Nissan.

Cartoon has parent on the couch and their child violinist speaking to them about her reaction to them taking away her phone.

I think for parents of dangerously smart kids this might land pretty well.

Should a 2-person team be required to produce cartoons twice as funny?

28

Dan Misdea has the cartoon on page 28 with two mermaids. I suspect that for a lot of women this will be funnier than for this old man, but I still like it a lot.

And I wonder if it is known to art history, who was the first person to draw mermaids with brassiere cups made from sea shells.

Dan’s website is full of cool stuff, but I have to say that his name, when viewed crammed together, keeps bolloxing my little brain: I read DANMISDEA is MIS-IDEA. But his ideas are quite solid.

34

Elisabeth McNair‘s cartoon on page 34 is a puzzler: the whale in the bedroom.

It’s kinda funny, humor of the absurd, but I could not help thinking the grandparent of this cartoon, the great James Thurber cartoon where there is a couple in bed, one saying to the other, “Ok, have it your way, you heard a seal bark.” And looking over them from behind the bed is a seal. To be that cartoon is legendary, and just as absurd as this one, but somehow way funnier. 

 

 

35

Juliana Castro Varón is both a New Yorker Cartoonist AND a “Senior Design Editor of A.I. Initiatives at the New York Times.”

Yikes. We are dealing with a very heavy hitter intellectual who also does cartoons. 

If the heavy AI stuff scares you (like me) you can just check out more of her cartoon work on Instagram.

As to the cartoon… it is very caption-heavy but wasn’t quite worth the effort for me to grok the caption, then recheck the drawing, then recheck the caption.

36

Meredith Southard has the bugs and sugar cartoon on page 36. To me this is a good, solid cartoon, bringing bugs into the human dimension by picturing them being sold on your counter as good real estate.

Also, I am finding that if you go to a cartoonist’s Instagram page you can get a good feel for their mindset and that of their fans. As a result you might start to “get” cartoons that you didn’t before.

A cartoon in the New Yorker is out of context with it’s direct peers, so it’s good to see it with its sisters.

39

Tim Hamilton has the cartoon on page 39 where a character is explaining his new idea for a crown that is more pigeon proof.

It’s a goofy idea and I was rooting for it to be funnier than it landed for me. 

The funny moment for me was looking back to the king and sure enough… there are pigeons on his not spiky crown.

I wondered if instead of a big, heavy blackboard drawing of the new crown design it was a white board with a scratchy drawing. The heavy black board was too heavy for me, and for sure, I wanted the pigeons on the king’s head to be goofier.

But check out his Rejected New Yorker Cartoons, some of which are great.

 

43

Robert Leighton has, for me, the absolute winner in this issue on page 43. The guy ice fishing with an unknown creature holding up a drumstick from under the next hole over?

No caption needed, which is a rare treat.

And you immediately start thinking about what kinda creature is under the ice, fishing for the fisherman.

Treat yourself to a wealth of great New Yorker cartoons on his website.

44

Jason Adam Katzenstein has the cartoon on page 44 with what seems to be a magician… and a woman on a couch.

It’s a good commentary on “creating problems from thin air” as people do.

I got hung up on whether it was an actual magician dealing with his relationship or a non-magician taking on that role.

But again, if you view this in the context of Jason’s Instagram page it works better: he has a very out-there sense of humor.

46

Liza Donnelly did the four-box cartoon on page 46 titled “Improve Your Kitchen Game.” It somehow combines sports talk with cooking and it’s fun, if not side-splitting for me.

 

 

 

50

i-get-it

Ben Chase did the cartoon on page 50 of the eye chart made out of what I think are emojis. 

It’s a solid idea, but I’m not even sure I am right that the shapes in the eye chart ARE emojis, so that leaves me in left field.

OOOOPS! I have been informed that the items on the eye chart are various laundry care tags. I have not done my own laundry for so long I didn’t get it.

But then, help me better get the concept of laundry care tags as eye chart…?

51

Joseph Dittino and Alex Pearson are another team in this issue. (It’s hard to find a reliable link to Alex because the name pops up on lots of places…)

This is the cartoon on page 51 at the hotel counter. It is a good reflection of the first world problem of wanting something simple in life and getting stuck with more complexity than wanted such as a life time of emails.

The funny part is that the desk person would go ahead and say it…

 

 

54

Mark Thompson has the fox at the bar cartoon on page 54. For me, a good one.

I remember the first, as a little kid, I hear the big sister of my friend say, when the phone rang, “If it’s for me I’m not here.” I was mind boggled at the time that someone would say that. Now I get it, and I really get the fox saying that with his specific conditions.

55

Maddei Dai did the offbeat cartoon on page 55 with various physical items that can help “assert yourself” in the city.

The cartoon requires some work on the part of the viewer, I think. As I said, offbeat for sure.

58

Lonnie Millsap did the two dogs dancing on the bed cartoon on page 58. Two dogs in a frolic on a bed is a guaranteed winner.

But I did find myself wondering if the caption, “It’s cardio day” referred to them in frolic or to their humans who were out doing cardio, allowing the dogs to have the run of the house and bed. 

Have I analyzed the life out of the poor cartoon?

68

face

The Cartoon Caption Contest

The New Cartoon
Shows a square clock and a round clock on what must be a marriage counselor’s couch. Lotta good options here, I suspect.

The Finalists
Of the three finalists I vote for “Shall we migrate to the conference room?”

The Winning Caption
The caption is pretty good, but we all know that in the age of smartphones nearly all museums have given up on not allowing photography.

 

Bottom Line

There were 6 rated FUNNY and one VERY FUNNY, which is not bad. But I demand at least one life-changing cartoon per week. Of course, I really did like the ice fishing cartoon.

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. 

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