Monday, November 23, 2009

What's the Deal With Those New Yorker Cartoons?



Above: a screen capture of the David Remnick video.

A site called Big Think has a 2 minute video of New Yorker magazine editor David Remnick titled What's the deal with New Yorker cartoons?

He talks about how hard it is to find young cartoonists to submit to the magazine and how hard in general it is for cartoonists to make a living.

He doesn't answer "What's the deal with those New Yorker cartoons?" or why acquiring young cartoonists is important to the magazine. But, he does acknowledge how hard it is to be a cartoonist -- in particular a gag cartoonist -- and how some people, for instance Bruce Eric Kaplan, have other ways of earning a living which help.

Me? I'm still working without a net.

Hat tip to Michael Maslin.

6 comments:

j klossner said...

Mike,

Did they edit the part where he says "So we've decided to buy MORE cartoons, and increase our pay rates?"

best,
john

Mark Anderson said...

OK, 16 year old authentic cartoonists, the gauntlet has been thrown down. The NY'er wants YOU!

Rich said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rich said...

He also didn't explain why the NYer cartoons are not funny to most people nor how it takes years of work as a cartoonist to make humor obscure enough to fit into their effete, pretentious style!? Oops, rhetorical question. ;)

Anonymous said...

I'm not even going to bother looking at the video because the premise that the NYer is looking for OTHER cartoonists I find is funny enough in and if itself to be a NYer cartoon.

I'm guessing now that they've never actually opened any submission I've ever sent in.

Tom K Mason said...

I would guess that Bruce Eric Kaplan's other job pays substantially better than The New Yorker - he's been a writer-producer on shows like Seinfeld (he wrote the episode about The New Yorker cartoon) and Six Feet Under.