A Cartoon Stuck in Time

I admit it, I am a self-deprecating kind of guy, but in fairness it’s only because I suck at everything. I’m kidding! sort of. I do have a tendency to be hard on myself and my work, and I can point to only a handful of cartoons of mine that I think are really, truly great.

There’s one cartoon in particular that I love, which could be my favorite, but the cruel irony is that I have only posted it once and I can never post it again. That’s because it was a Daily Cartoon for The New Yorker, commenting on a very specific news item that is long over: The ‘Varsity Blues’ SAT Scandal from 2019.

I love this cartoon because of how perfectly it all fits together, like it was meant to be. It’s a play on a phrase you might hear in a gangster movie: “It’s all there: (Amount of money) in small, unmarked bills.”

Just look at that! So satisfying. The SAT angle just fits so perfectly into the phrase. “It’s all there: (Number) in small (un)marked (Word that starts with ‘B’).” That’s a once-in-a-cartoonists-career set up. Like it was handed down to me by the Cartoon Gods themselves.

Of course now it doesn’t make any sense. The Gods giveth and the Gods taketh away!

Cartoonists talk about ‘evergreen’ toons, cartoons that will make sense forever, or at least for a long while. Daily Cartoons usually aren’t evergreen. The New Yorker buys them for that day, and only online. Once the news cycle is over, the non-evergreen Daily Cartoon becomes stuck in that moment of time, tethered to the past. I have loads of cartoons like that, but this is the only one that stings. That’s why I wrote this post! So I can have an excuse to share it again! You've all been the unwilling participants in an exercise of pure nostalgia-driven ego!

Get your holiday shopping done early!

My online store is open until Oct. 13th, and four colored hand-signed prints are up for sale. They will only be available until the 13th, so get ‘em before you can’t anymore.

Think about it: You get some gifts out of the way now, you’ll thank your past self when it’s a week before the holidays and everyone else is scrambling. Imagine how smug you’ll get to be to the rest of your family! And isn’t that what the holidays are all about?

So Shop the Collection Now, be smug later! Take a look at what’s for sale:

As always, thank you!