I’m forever amazed at the quality of the cartoons in THE NEW YORKER. They are consistently funny week after week. There was an HBO documentary on their cartoon editor Bob Mankoff that is worth seeing if you’re interested in this subject matter. It details the process of getting a cartoon into the magazine – a rigorous one at best.
The cartoonists, even the veterans, go up to THE NEW YORKER offices once a week and peddle their wares to Mankoff. On the one hand, you’d think that if you’ve already gotten fifty cartoons into the magazine you should just be able to just send one in and get it rubber stamped, but on the other, no guarantees mean you always have to push yourself and the cream of the crop gets selected each week based on merit not seniority.
At one time there were tons of outlets for one-panel artist/humorists. Lots of magazines bought cartoons. You could have one in THE NEW YORKER, one in PLAYBOY, one in ESQUIRE, and one in THE SATURDAY EVENING POST the same week. Now, it’s pretty much THE NEW YORKER or bust.
As a budding young cartoonist myself, I always wanted to get a cartoon in THE NEW YORKER. So in the late ‘70s I decided to investigate how I might make that happen. I called the magazine and asked how I’d submit a cartoon. They said I needed to send six or seven. They could be pencil sketches. If they bought one I would then redo it in pen and ink. I was to send them to Lee Lorenz, the cartoon editor back then.
I dashed off seven cartoons, sent them in, and received the standard form rejection letter two weeks later. But at the bottom was a hand-written note by Lee Lorenz with instructions to call him at a certain number.
So I did.
He said he liked my cartoons, thought they were very funny. He said he wasn't going to buy one but encouraged me to submit six or seven more every week for about a year. Eventually he would buy them, and he might even buy a few he had rejected earlier. But he needed to ensure that I was prolific and he could count on me to deliver on a long-term basis. “That this wasn’t just a lark.”
Unfortunately that’s exactly what it was. I said I didn’t really have the time because I was the head writer of MASH at the time. He laughed and said maybe that’s why the jokes were funny. Anyway, that was it. I never submitted more drawings. And for all I know the submission policy is now completely different.
But I have a great deal of respect for those cartoonists who did stick it out and entertain me every week. Thank you guys and gals. Keep the flame lit. We need your laughter now more than ever.