I just got a note from Howard.
Apparently he contacted me in his usual telepathic way last night, and caused me to write the note in my sleep. I found it lying on the floor next to my bed when I awoke:

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Dear Mr. Stevens,

It was hard running your blog. I never really got the hang of it. I had a lot of trouble finding stuff. Where do you keep the Inspiration, for instance? I spent a lot of time looking for that. Also, where are the Expertise and the Panache? I searched high and low for them. It’s very hard running a blog without these items, as you must know.

I didn’t expect you to butt in, either. It’s hard enough doing a blog without some flesh-and-blood, self-styled editor tinkering with my hard work! You just had to mess with my captions, didn’t you?!

Also, I never heard from the editors and publishers I expected to get in touch with me with accolades and contracts.

Honestly, the whole experience was a big disappointment. I’m leaving early. I’m going back to the Afterlife, where I know where everything is and people have to appreciate my work by Law!

H.I.
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So much for trying to help out a poor, dead guy.

When I got back here, the place was a god-awful mess, just as I feared, with unused captions and crumpled up roughs littering the floor, and spilled coffee and ink on everything. Cleanup will take some time.

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Meanwhile, Here’s a New Post:

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Possibly the ultimate rejection for New Yorker cartoonists are those drawings that didn’t make the cut for Matt Diffee’s Rejection Collection. Here are five examples from his files of cartoons that were so tasteless or silly that they couldn’t be published even in his books, which are devoted to the kind of cartoons that make viewers and editors alike a little queasy. Fortunately, they also might make them laugh.

From Harry Bliss:

“This rejected cartoon caught the attention of many readers of my syndicated panel, BLISS. I received quite a few angry letters from people who thought the subject of suicide was not ‘funny.’ I guess it depends on the person because I’ve killed myself three times and I still think it’s a funny cartoon. Go figure.”

From Julia Suits:

“This cartoon is one of my favorites. Riding the subways last week, I lamented its rejection all over again.”

From Pat Byrnes:

“I did this cartoon eight or nine years ago, judging from the signature. There is a good chance that I have reformed my character since then. My cartoons are all about far more sophisticated subjects these days. Still, I can’t deny that even in this more evolved self I sense that an inherent awkwardness must exist in suggesting to a friend that you toddle off for a recreational enema. Or am I just being judgmental? Maybe I just need to get out more. Not “out” out, not that I’m ‘in’ or that there’s anything wrong with that, but, you know…”

From Ariel Molvig:

“My wife, who is really smart otherwise, has a weakness
for those trashy weekly magazines wherein celebrities
are tagged and released into the wild to have their
weights monitored. I, who am not-so-smart otherwise,
make fun of her and then read [those trashy weekly magazines] for important research. My research noted that rat dogs were one of the hottest accessories of last season, and fashions change. It was probably rejected because the gun wasn’t big enough.”

From Tom Cheney:

The “Bad Dog” cartoon started off as a doodle on a snowy afternoon, and ballooned into the detailed drawing that was promptly rejected by The New Yorker. I submitted the rough to Penthouse magazine where it was published a month later. The cartoon has since seen lots of action on calendars, greeting cards, and refrigerator magnets.

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To tell you the truth, I wasn’t that happy with Mr. Stevens efforts. Now he’s apparently too damned busy (Pardon my language) to be bothered with drawing up my ideas, so I found someone else. I contacted a guy named Paul Karasik telepathically a few nights ago and caused him to draw up a second batch of my cartoon ideas. He has since denied having had anything to do with them, claiming to have slept through the whole event. He also said something about legal action if I published them, but I’m not worried. They don’t let lawyers anywhere near Paradise.

Howard, here…

Even though I’m no longer dead, I still want desparately to get published. I’ve been thinking up cartoon ideas ever since my untimely arrival here in the Afterlife.

One of the things about the Afterlife is the lack of drawing and writing supplies. Everybody communicates telepathically here, so there’s no need for pencils, pens, or paper. As a result, I have to work through living cartoonists in order to get my ideas drawn for earthly audiences. I had Mr. Stevens draw up a batch once and send it off, but no one got back to me. I really don’t understand it, because those cartoons represented some of my best post-life work. Everyone around here liked them, although everyone here has to be exceedingly kind to one another by Law, so maybe it doesn’t mean much that they said they liked my work. All the same, I was surprised when my work was ignored on Earth. I got very depressed and almost killed myself until I remembered I was already dead.

Howard, here.

My first day on the job here at “I Really Should Be Drawing”.

It’s very confusing so far. I haven’t had to deal with technology since back before the accident that prematurely sent me off to the afterlife in 1985. Things have changed a lot since back in the day, when my old Commodore 64 was state-of-the-art. I’m starting to get the hang of it though.

Here’s a stack of some swell cartoon ideas of mine. I guess I’m supposed to post them, now. How does this work? Let’s see…

Uh-oh. Something’s amiss.
Hang on…

Oops.

Damn!

Geez!

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/cartoonists

See you next time…