The New Yorker Cartoon Review
What?
Nothing better to do in this insane world than review the cartoons in the New Yorker each week?
Well, I suppose not. But we are facing very difficult years and we need humor and off-kilter viewpoints to get us through.
And in my opinion and that of various friends the once-great New Yorker cartoons have fallen from their previous lofty levels to a more mortal level – and we want them back up there. We need it.
So the entire point of this exercise is to point out what is great – and not so great – about current New Yorker cartoons and to motivate both cartoonists and editors to do better.
Above are, for now, 8 possible reactions we imagine having to a New Yorker cartoon. For each cartoon we will assign one, but also write a paragraph about what works for us and what doesn’t.
Looking Back
As a kid I spent countless hours going through our family’s New Yorker cartoon album, probably the 25th anniversary album, containing cartoons from 1925 to 1950.
There were all the early greats that I loved: the scratchy lines of George Price, the early strangeness of Charles Addams, the neatness of O. Soglow, the gentle shadings of Chon Day, and of course the early works of the brilliant Saul Steinberg.
At the same time I was ogling these drawings, so was David Sipress, who swore he would some day BE a New Yorker cartoonist, and after 25 years of trying, he did. (I read his book, jealous of someone who knew from an early age exactly where he was headed. Whereas I, at 75, am still wandering.)
Steinberg and Booth
Over the years I have come to appreciate two New Yorker artists above all others: Saul Steinberg and George Booth. They are utterly different in their work but represent to me two prime directions that a cartoon might take: conceptual and brilliant in the case of Steinberg, and just deeply, wonderfully funny in the case of Booth.
Steinberg’s work can be amusing but is much more thought-provoking and awe inspiring, unlike everyone else.
Booth drew enormously funny cartoons: the essence of Booth is that even if you don’t read the caption, the cartoon is funny. The befuddled faces, the flea-bitten dogs, the bathtub philosopher.
Trying to follow these two in the pages of the New Yorker is like trying to write folky songs in the wake of Bob Dylan, or follow Tom Brady as quarterback.
For Steinberg there is an extensive website with lots of work and biographical information.
There is not an ideal online George Booth gallery, but there are plenty of new and used books available of his work.
So it may be unfair of me to use these two giants as reference points for mortal cartoonists, but they point the way to excellence. If there is one thing that I think every cartoonist can learn from Booth is that the drawing itself should be funny, even without the caption.
A Theory of Humor
I once saw a book about the theory of humor and it made the point that one of the primary ways that stories, jokes, and cartoons make us laugh is to push us up a slope and then at the top – dump us over the edge. Falling off the logical cliff is the key to much humor, and reviewing these cartoons I saw many times where the drawing would bring us up a ramp and the caption would push us off.