New Yorker Cartoons In Transition
A new cartoon editor and looking ahead
The New Yorker magazine has been around for 92 years. That’s a long time in magazine years. I have been drawing cartoons for the magazine for over three decades, also a long time. In my time there, the venerable publication has had four senior editors and two cartoon editors. This week, there is a changing of the guard: there will be a new cartoon editor. The community of cartoonists at The New Yorker is on edge.
People seem intrigued with what we do, they want to know how the system works: how ideas are conceived, how are they drawn, how are the cartoons bought. But what about the big picture: why are people so fascinated by them? Why has the New Yorker cartoon succeeded for so many decades?
The outgoing cartoon editor, Bob Mankoff, took his post in 1997. He had been a contributing cartoonist at The New Yorker for around 20 years before assuming the job of cartoon editor. The senior editor and the cartoon editor are the two people who select cartoons for the magazine, the senior editor being the one who has the final decision. Oftentimes others are brought in to participate in the selection process, perhaps to bring a new perspective (with the exception Tina Brown, both editors historically have been men).
I began at the magazine during a time when the humor was often quiet; I drew many caption-less cartoons and many sequential cartoons in my early days. In recent decades, the cartoons have become at times “louder,” in part because they have to be in order to get attention from readers who are distracted. But I would argue that they don’t have to be, that people enjoy working for and thinking about humor.
The world always needs more laughter, but that can’t be the only reason why New Yorker cartoons are so loved by many. It’s more complicated than that; for many decades, consuming and enjoying New Yorker cartoons has (for good or bad) been like a club. If you get the cartoons, you are “in.”
The cartoons in The New Yorker are now becoming more accessible to more people because of the internet, and because they are not now as specific to a certain locale (NYC) or class (upper), as they tended to be in the early days. The magazine was founded in New York in 1925 as a sophisticated urban humor magazine; it survived the Depression and WW II and grew to be much more than a humor magazine. The cartoons over the years provided relief for readers as they worked their way through often challenging material and lived through challenging times.
People often tell me they read the cartoons first; then, as they read the words in the written pieces, they get to revisit them. Enjoying and understanding New Yorker cartoons is less of a “club” to belong to, and that’s a very good thing. On the internet, humor is valuable to people not only for their own fun, but for sharing. It’s not unlike putting clipped cartoons on the fridge or on your office door; this is done so as if to say “see what I find funny, hope you do too.” Sharing on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter is the same principle, and New Yorker cartoons are shared that way now. This is why we like cartoons: we want to share a laugh and show others who we are.
Cartoons are little expressions of our individual selves and collective selves. Ideally, the collective self now includes different genders, race, class, and nationality. In my travels, I notice that most of the world is aware of New Yorker cartoons and love them. The new cartoon editor starting this week is Emma Allen. It’s interesting that she will be the first woman to hold the job; whether it will mean more diversity among cartoonists at the magazine is anyone’s guess.
Ms. Allen inherits a lot of anxious cartoonists, more than at any time in the magazine’s history. Mr. Mankoff brought in a historic number of new cartoonists in an effort to, paraphrasing his words, revive a dying form. I argue that it was never dying; the editors and cartoonists need to be certain they adjust to the new reality of the internet, in all the various and complex ways I mean (that’s another article). The lot who draw cartoons love what we do; there will always be people like us who want to be a part of The New Yorker.
Outlets for cartoons have shifted during my time drawing them, and I have transitioned from pen and paper to stylus and tablet. Ms. Allen informed us that she wants to explore new forms of cartoons for the website, as well as the traditional cartoons that we have come to love inside the print edition. More visual humor in any form and on any platform is good news. Where they appear, who draws them and who selects them may change, but the need for them has not.
Big Picture? Hopefully the cartoons will do their job and make the world smile.
