Here's a fun article from the Washington Post about how cartoons are chosen for the New Yorker.
The article mentions Matthew Diffee's acceptance rate: 1 cartoon out of 10 in a good week. Otherwise none. That reminds me of what Ted Williams supposedly said when asked about how it felt to hit .400: "How would you feel if your boss gave you ten jobs to do and you did four of them successfully?" I always wanted to add, "And how would your boss feel?"
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The book Diffee just edited, by the way, is a lot of fun. You'll digest it in about 45 minutes, but it's highly entertaining to see what the New Yorker would look like without the damper on taste.
Really a nice article. The cartoon that's featured on the online layout page—showing Remnick, Mankoff, and Lewis with three baskets in front of them—is definitely not New-Yorker-worthy, though. But the whole text is quite insightful and I understand Diffee's feeling frustrated most of the time. However, the mere fact that he can live off of one caption a week (or less) just blows my mind. How can this guy be frustrated? The artist's ego must be bigger than his "greedy" hands.
"I was in a different place then." How fucking funny is that? (Pardon my French.) I remember the Seinfeld episode pretty well. I also belong into the category of people who don't always get the cartoons/captions, so I have a sympathy for Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer.
The current winter fiction issue has a nice example of what I mentioned before. There are two cartoons on pages 106 & 107. I absolutely do not get the one on p.106 (and I really tried), whereas I find the cartoon on p.107 extremely witty. Maybe someone could explain '106' to me.
I also find this one just hysterical. What was Remnick thinking when he said, "Yes"? :o)
107 could be about Walter Mitty! :-)
106 takes a cliché about novels, "I couldn't put it down," and uses it in a different context where it becomes absurd. A common "New Yorker" device.
That S&M Santa one definitely seems to violate Remnick's rule about decency! :-)
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