Cartoon Island

Aside from the artists and editors, there’s that big mass of readers out there who make the crucial decisions about what goes on their bulletin boards and refrigerators. Cartoons from elsewhere in the cartoon universe probably appear more often in these places, but a sizable amount of those pinups are work from my planet, The New Yorker.

When I lived up north, I saw a lot of NYer cartoons on refrigerator doors, then a couple of years ago I moved south. Down here, it’s mostly syndicated cartoon strips and kid’s drawings. I’m doing what I can to change that, but it’s proven to be a tough job.

I’ve gone to parties here where people ask the usual “What do you do?” question and when I say I’m a cartoonist, they assume I mean comics or animation. When I explain further that I work for the New Yorker, a lot of them confuse it with New York Magazine or the New York Times. The ones familiar with the magazine often say the cartoons are “over their head”, or just “not funny”. Some of them, I’m sure, decide that I’m a Blue state elitist.

For a short time, back when I lived on Martha’s Vineyard, I made an attempt at running a small gallery devoted to magazine cartoons, New Yorker cartoons in particular. I talked some of my cartoonist friends into sending me their originals and ended up with work by six or seven New Yorker regulars adorning the freshly painted walls. My gallery was in the front room of my studio, which was located on a main road between two tourist hotspots. In the summertime, the road was alive with the buzz of rented Mopeds and the zoom of cars. My potential customers were lured in by a sandwich-board sign out front. They often brought in their children, I guess thinking that the cartoons would serve as a distraction for their bored kids. The parents complained that the artwork was too high on the walls for the kids to see. When I explained these were cartoons for grown-ups, they said they didn’t get the jokes. They were aghast at the prices. (These were New Yorker originals, priced accordingly). Some of them didn’t see the profound differences in style among the various artists. They often asked if I had done all the cartoons myself.

Go figure.

What’s So Funny?

It’s hard to tell. Sometimes my own drawing seems really funny to me. It’s rare, but occasionally I’ll laugh at my own joke. They come as surprises in some cases, completely out of the blue, as if someone else had thought them up. Often, though, the same idea that I thought was great one day seems really lame the next. It’s a mood thing. The same thing must happen with editors, too, especially when they see so many drawings every week. Their choices have to be determined to some degree by their frame of mind during that millisecond they have to look at each cartoon. As the all-knowing Sam has said on a couple of occasions, “It’s a crap-shoot.”

During our lunches and other get-togethers, some of the cartoonists I knew used to play “If I were the editor”, pronouncing judgement on the currently published drawings in the magazine. I once told Jack Ziegler that I had the whole thing figured out. I had decided that I knew what was funny. I might have been making a joke at the time, but part of me really believed it. I suggested that I might make a good cartoon editor. He said, “God help us all.”

In a gathering of cartoonists, you’re quite likely to find one or more sulking in a corner or hiding behind the proverbial potted palm. It could be connected to their recent experiences at the magazine, like the dreaded “drought” (Going for a long time without an OK) or it could just be their generally grouchy nature. Some cartoonists are much funnier in person than they are in ink, and vice-versa.

Cartoonists aren’t a laugh-riot all the time, or in some cases, a lot of the time. Like everyone else, we occasionally lose our sense of humor. I draw a batch each week no matter what my frame of mind. Strangely, I sometimes do some of my best work (According to my biased inner-editor) when I’m depressed about something. Not always, though. Sometimes I’ll do drawings that adhere to the form of a cartoon but have decidedly unfunny content, reflecting my bleak view of the universe that week. I recall once early in my career taking in a batch I’d done in an especially existential state of mind. Lee Lorenz looked over the batch as usual, hesitating briefly over some of those dark cartoons. Before I left his office he reminded me: “These things are supposed to be funny, Mick.”

I Really Should Be Blogging

The idea of showing our work to one another at lunch might have been an offshoot from another custom some of us engaged in at the time. Some of the cartoonists would get together at one or another of our houses or apartments for occasional drawing sessions. They were like musicians’ jam-sessions, where those assembled would doodle away together for an hour or two, eventually showing the results of our efforts to one another.

In the early days of jazz, there weren’t schools cranking out composers, pianists, or saxophone players. The way a musician learned was by playing with other musicians. The older guys were a tough bunch. The new players had to demonstrate their abilities and dedication right there on the bandstand, and were often laughed off the stage or otherwise abused. The younger players had to develop a thick skin, go home and work on their chops and come back for more. Acceptance came as a result of a combination of talent, luck, and perseverance, all part of the learning process, fueled by hard economic times and necessary competition. Gradually, younger players who showed promise and commitment were recognized by the older ones and gained their respect. Once they passed through the gauntlet a few times, they were allowed into the club.

The cartoon jam session seemed a strange way to do what is usually a very solitary activity, unlike playing in a band. It worked for me. I learned a lot from the older artists. The sessions I remember attending were usually with Bill Woodman (Who is now up in Maine somewhere, probably painting his excellent watercolor land- and sea-scapes between cartoons), and Sam Gross, who was another one of my early mentors. Sam and Bill were the masters and I was the new guy from California. They were mostly kind and encouraging to me, but there was a bit of something like tough love demonstrated, too, though neither of them would probably use that term except ironically. One time I drew something which involved a road-sign. I drew all the elements of the cartoon before adding the words on the sign at the end of the process. When I started lettering, I realized I had underestimated the space I needed for the sign’s message and as a result, the words went off the edge of the sign into the background drawing. When Sam saw it, he said something like: “Always do the lettering first, shmuck!”. I had no idea what a shmuck was at the time. That word didn’t exsist in my West Coast Presbyterian dictionary. I did learn the lesson, though, and to this day always do the lettering first if I’m doing a cartoon where it’s involved.

Sam, I hasten to point out, is really a warm-hearted guy with a tough New York-style demeanor. There wasn’t much venom in his “shmuck”, though I did feel the bite, just enough to learn that small lesson. He taught me a lot (The Shmuck!) and I’ll always be grateful.