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AN INSIDE VIEW OF THE BO OK INDUSTRY
Sketch
cable TV and the Internet, everybody knows
something about everything and you can make
some sort of reference to it in a cartoon.”
Mankoff has a working stable of 30 to 40
and the city cartoonists, and over the years actors, playwrights and other hopefuls have submitted cartoons. David Mamet and Norman Mailer once
submitted works (neither ran). From a weekly
A new book and CD set chronicles 80 years pool of 500 to 1,000 cartoons, Mankoff culls the number to 30 to 40 before he and Remnick
of cartoons published in The New Yorker pick the 17 or 18 cartoons that will appear in
that week’s issue.
Sometimes a cartoon will be bought by
The New Yorker and stay in its cartoon bank
for years before running. Only twice in the
magazine’s 79-year history has an issue not
contained cartoons: in 1946, when the magazine dedicated an entire issue to John Hershey’s
book Hiroshima, and the week following
September 11, 2001.
THE NEW YORKER
“After 9/11 we intentionally did not
do cartoons for a week,” Mankoff says. “It’s
not so much a question of appropriateness; we
were numbed. People were simply stunned
and depressed, and in that particular aftermath
nobody feels like making a joke.
“Although we touch on all issues, it’s not
partisan,” Mankoff continues. “The cartoonists
are a wide group. They are not Republicans or
Democrats, or they might be a Republican one
By Richard Deitsch day and wake up a Democrat the next. It’s dif-
ferent than the editorial cartoon or a pundit or
He’s been called the generalissimo of Mankoff, who edited the book and is the Michael Moore. That’s humor that is self-sat-
the world’s only cartoon super- author of numerous cartoon collections. “If isfied. I would say, for the most part, the car-
power, and when it comes to the you open that book to 1944, you’re going to toons of The New Yorker are humor not of
currency of satire, Bob Mankoff feel like it’s 1944. Previous books would be self-satisfaction but of self-dissatisfaction. It’s
controls a powerful weapon of mass distrac- just assortments of cartoons we liked over a about all of us.”
tion: He’s the cartoon editor of The New Yorker. great span of years.” Mankoff is only the third cartoon editor in
The history of what New Yorker editor As you thumb through the book or click the history of the magazine, having started in
David Remnick calls “the longest-running pop- on the CDs’ images—the first CD covers car- 1997, and he says he feels pressure every day
ular comic genre in America” is boldly cap- toons from 1925 through 1964, the second to maintain the legacy of what was drafted
tured in The Complete Cartoons of The New from 1965 through 2004; both offer easy func- before him. “You can see the legacy in this
Yorker (Black Dog & Leventhal), a decade-by- tionality to browse year by year—it’s obvious book,” he says. “So my basic legacy is that
decade compendium of every cartoon that has the New Yorker cartoon has changed with the whenever I hand it on to somebody else, it will
been published in the venerable magazine since times. Mankoff says the biggest shift is that be better than it was before. That’s why I’m
its inception in 1925. The hardcover book, today the cartoonist both draws the sketch and doing this book, partly. Also to make huge
which contains 2,004 cartoons and is divided comes up with the dialogue. amounts of money.” BB
by decades, beginning with 1925, features es- “Therefore, you get a more personal style
says from the magazine’s literary lions, includ- and, to some extent, a more naive drawing,” he Richard Deitsch lives in New York City.
ing John Updike, Roger Angell, Calvin Trillin says. “Another trend is the cartoons are overal l
and Nancy Franklin. more topical. Our news cycle is so fast, and
Two accompanying CDs offer 68,647 everyone is inundated all the time with news.
cartoons, which is every cartoon ever pub- If you went back to 1945, there would be a few
lished in the magazine through February of big stories that impinged on everyone. But with
this year. Fact checkers painstakingly examined every page ever published to make sure
that not a single cartoon was missed.
THE COSTCO CONNECTION
“We worked really hard to create some- The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker THE NEW YORKER
thing that gave you the idea of the historical is available in most Costco warehouses
scope of the New Yorker cartoons,” says and at costco.com. “You can’t change human nature.”
12 The Costco Connection • NOVEMBER 2004
