Random Batch of the Week

Well, here we are again. Another Random Batch of the Week, where I take a deep dive into a random batch of cartoons chosen by YOU, yes YOU, assuming your name is Charles Basin. If it’s not, then you didn’t choose this batch, but you can choose one on a later date, if you want. Just yell out a number from 1 to 288 in the comments. And then type it in because I won’t be able to hear you. Anyway, thanks Charles!

Today’s batch, 256, is a fairly recent batch. I submitted it a little over a year ago. It’s also the first batch in this series in which I sold a cartoon but The New Yorker hasn’t run it yet. Because of that I can’t include it here, so you’ll just have to imagine a really great cartoon, or at least a cartoon that makes you go “Ohhh I get it.” Heck, I’ll even take a grunt of approval. I’m not picky.

Okay, on to the toons.

Occasionally you’ll see cartoons like this, which I’ve heard described as “sitcom cartoons,” because they are read in a way that a character in a sitcom might speak it out loud, pausing right after for a laugh track. This cartoon is not a joke itself, the cartoon is of a character making a joke. That’s a significant difference. Generally speaking, sitcom cartoons are not that funny. They’re too self-aware. They’re looking at the camera, winking and elbowing you in the ribs, saying “eh? You get it?”

It’s a problem of tone. There is sarcasm in the speakers voice, which announces it as a joke. Cartoons are better when they are earnest, the characters in the cartoon should be oblivious to the joke. This is true visually as well: New Yorker cartoons deal with understatement, in tone and emotion. That’s why so many artists use dots for eyes instead of large expressive windows into the soul. That’s why a slight frown is the funniest reaction for the non-speaker. It’s also why there’s no subsequent jokes or silly elements in the background. Simplicity rules.

Of course there are exceptions. Mad Magazine cartoons utilize some truly wild and detailed drawings, and I love those cartoons. There are beloved newspaper comics strips that are all sitcom joke style. But for The New Yorker, I recommend not drawing a cartoon like the one I drew above as a part of my submission to The New Yorker. Next!

You can tell how much I believed in this joke by how hard I worked on it. It’s not good. It’s too easy and overdone. This joke would have been stale ten years ago. This is what we in the industry call “filler.” We know that it won’t be bought but we want to pad the batch, make it look like we’re putting some effort into it.

In any case, you never know what sells. In fact, it’s often that you sell a cartoon from your batch that you never would have expected. So why not doodle a bad idea up and stick in the batch? What’s the worst that could happen? You’re forced to figure out how to write about it in a newsletter that you put out a year later? And you don’t really know what to say so you just write about how you don’t have anything to say about it, basically writing the same sentence over and over in different ways? Just trying to fill up space in a paragraph? That would be dumb.

Ok, I like this cartoon. I like a good ship captain. I like the way they talk. Now I know, as with so many other characters, The Simpsons did this guy and did him the best, but you can’t stop me from taking a stab at it. I’ve written before about how contrast is an essential ingredient of cartooning. The sea captain provides the perfect voice for creating contrast. Sea captains are poets, storytellers, dramaturges. They speak with such passion, and when you apply that drama to the mundane: boom, a cartoon. Hell yeah. I can’t get enough. The sea captain is the kind of character cartoonists live for. Moving on.

Here’s another character I like: the real New Yorker. I also like this cartoon although it’s not really working. I like the overall concept, two real New Yorkers taking their natural argumentative nature to the debate stage, but the caption isn’t right. It doesn’t have that oomph to it. It lands flat. I submitted it a couple of more times later on, tweaking the caption each time, but I never really figured it out. There’s something there, though, I think. If you got any ideas for me, let me know. Nothing crude though. Crude isn’t funny in cartoons!

I realize that by asking for nothing crude, I have only increased the odds of one of you emailing me something crude.

Here’s a parent joke. I’m a parent. I drew myself into it. Not sure what to say about it except that I think a problem with it is that you don’t realize he’s speaking in a baby voice until the word “pwease,” which comes too late in the caption. That being said, “I’m begging pwease” is still funny to me. To summarize: a fine joke, nothing special.

I’m still not sure if the thrust behind this joke, that by spending a lot of time with kids you sort of get stuck using your kid voice, is a thing or not. Maybe it’s just me. If you spend a lot of time with kids and this has happened to you, let me know. If it is, in fact, a thing, maybe I’ll try another version if it.

This is a another perfectly fine joke. I think I submitted it a few times, I don’t remember if this batch was the first time I tried it or somewhere in the middle. I dunno, I think it works. Maybe it’s a little reminiscent of Family Guy or something, it sort of has that tone to me.

Mascots in danger is funny. That’s all I got!

That’s it! We’re done! Nothing else. Pretty good length, I think. Not too long, but not phoning it in either. You could probably read the whole thing on the toilet. That’s the aim, you know. Let me know if you read this on the toilet. But please don’t be crude about it.

Bye!