My First Ever Cartoon Submission to The New Yorker

The New Yorker is celebrating it’s 100th anniversary this year, I am celebrating my 10th year submitting to them. The New Yorker is hosting lots of events to celebrate, I invited three of my friends for pizza, (two of them couldn’t make it). Anyway, it’s not a competition.

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I started drawing cartoons and submitting them way back in the innocent year of 2015, my buddy Sam Marlow had just sold his first cartoon and encouraged me to try it. I wasn’t sure how to approach it. I had just finished a book with my brother called Woundabout, and all the drawings in it were filled with crosshatching and detail. I wanted to try something different for the cartoons, so I bought the big red book, studied the artists and found Chon Day, an cartoonist with a simple, sophisticated line that I admired. I quickly found out that I could not draw a similar sophisticated line, but my drawings sure did get simpler. Regardless, I drew my first batch of toons.

The jokes were, to be expected, very “first-batchy.” Everyone comes in thinking they know what New Yorker cartoon is supposed to be, which is a bit of a trap. When you give the magazine cartoons that you think they want, all you are doing is submitting worse versions of cartoons that they already have. At the same time, drawing cartoons like that is the sort of thing you have to get out of your system before you find your own voice, which could take a few batches. Needless to say, I did not sell a cartoon. I sold my first on my fifth batch, which I’ll talk about next week.

Also, a couple of these jokes are pretty dated, but what do you want from me, I drew them in 2015.

Now on to the cartoons! I brought these to the cartoon editor at the time Bob Mankoff, and sat across form him in his office, which they let you do pre-covid, and watched as he flipped through my batch. Now you can pretend that you are the cartoon editor and judge them for yourself. Remember, I am a new guy that you have never seen or heard of, but I have an air of unwavering moxie that makes you think “maybe this kid’s got something.” Little do you know that I also hold a dark secret. Now write that as a screenplay. I think we’re on to something here.

My First Batch:

That’s It! Do you have any notes for me? Here’s what Bob Mankoff had to say:

1. Use a different pen. He thought the shaky texture looked bad. He’s right.

2. Do not exaggerate the expressions. For instance, the doom-sign guy has a crazy face. For NYer toons, it’s best to take subtle approach for the drawings. Give that guy two dot eyes and a normal expression. let the joke tell the joke, the pictures themselves shouldn’t be silly. That is some of the best advice I have ever received. It’s funnier when you’re not trying to be funny.

3. “It’s been done,” Re: Hummingbirds, fireman, indoor husband, doom-sign guy and believe or not, sheep.

That’s all I got! Thanks for reading! Please subscribe if you haven’t!