Random Batch of the Week

Hello and welcome to another edition of Random Batch of the Week, where you, the reader, the protagonist, choose a batch of cartoons from me, a mere side character in your story. This is the seventh segment. You read parts one through six here. Today’s batch comes from Paul Nesja. Paul Nesja has a great podcast about The New Yorker’s Caption Contest. You don’t need to have a great podcast about The New Yorker’s Caption Contest to request a random batch, you don’t even have to have a good podcast. Hell, you don’t have to have a podcast at all, just leave a comment requesting a batch 1 through 289, and I will presumably get to it for a future segment if it hasn’t already been discussed.

Paul wanted to see some more recent stuff and requested batch 269 which I submitted a little over a year ago. Couple things right off the bat: 1) you can see me practicing my “new” style in this batch, if that’s interesting to you, and 2) I did sell a cartoon from this batch to The New Yorker but they haven’t run it yet so I can’t share it. I have a lot of cartoons still in the docket, some dating back a few years. It’s how it goes. But that’s okay, there’s plenty more to share here so let’s get into it.

First cartoon:

This cartoon is the latest in an ongoing attempt to sell a cartoon based off an inside joke I have with my wife. The general idea is about how her hair ties and scrunchies will disappear, reappear, move around and hide as if they were living creatures. This is my third try and it won’t be my last, damnit. I think the idea is funny. I love anthropomorphizing things. I love the word “anthropomorphize.” Who doesn’t? It’s fun. Anyway, here are the other two attempts from 2020:

Cartoon number 2:

This cartoon is also a new attempt at an older concept. One thing I have noticed about my processes is that these multiple attempts used to play out in my sketchbook, and I wouldn’t submit it until I found the version that really worked, but these days I’m less precious, so I’ll just throw all my ideas at the editor and let her decide what’s best. Like any other job, the more comfortable you get doing something, the less hard you make it on yourself.

Anyway, I think this cartoon is OK but a little lazy. I love a good movie reference but they can often feel somewhat cheap, particularly if it’s referring to a major movie like Indiana Jones that’s been spoofed already a thousand times. Which is why in my first attempt I went more for the feel of an Indiana Jones movie instead of a direct reference:

This cartoon is clearly a reference to Jones without it being a direct reference to one of the movies. It’s hard to decide which is the better angle. Cartoons deal in tropes, so one might be tempted to signify the reference without outwardly saying it. However, there’s really no reason to skirt around it either. If you’re talking Jones you might as well go fully in. Not that it mattered in these examples, as neither is particularly funny.

When I was starting out my cartooning career in 2015, I read this article in Slate by cartoonist James Sturm, about his own attempts to sell cartoons to the magazine. One sentence has stuck with me: “He [cartoon editor at the time, Bob Mankoff] thought that a superhero gag would be funnier if I used specific superheroes...”

You rarely see a generic superhero in the magazine’s cartoons. It’s usually a specific one like Batman, Superman, etc. I can’t say exactly why this is, but my guess would be it’s because generic superheroes are already a bit of a parody. Captain Generic Man is a punchline within itself, so if the joke isn’t about his banality then you’ve got too many jokes in one and you’re putting a hat on a hat.

There are cartoons where the superhero is made up for the purposes of the punchline, like this one from funniest-guy-ever Lars Kenseth, and this one from the greatest-to-ever-do-it, Roz Chast. In these examples, the superheroes are made up, but still specific. So, if you have a cartoon about super heroes, but the joke doesn’t revolve around who they are and what they can do, just make it Batman. That’s what I do. Batman’s the best. Moving on:

This is a cartoon about me never learning my lesson, which is always good cartoon fodder. I make it an extra large popcorn every time and every time I regret it. Not sure what else to say. Next!

Talking about specificity, this is an example where it doesn’t work. The issue is that this doesn’t need to be Jerry Saltz. In fact, Saltz wasn’t even my first consideration. I think I had Jeff Koons originally. It could be anyone really, so when you choose someone, you sort of make the joke about them even if it’s not meant to be. This joke was inspired by those fancy Taschen collection books which generally have an intro from someone famous. I don’t know why I landed on Saltz. It felt both reasonable and silly. But ultimately the specificity of his name sort of dominates the entire joke and the Taschen angle fades away. I still think it’s kind of funny in an absurd way though.

Interestingly enough, this is not my first ten commandments cartoon with this exact specificity problem. I drew this a year or so before:

I think I only landed on Stephen Fry because I looked up which celebrities read a lot of audio books. This is not a good way to devise a cartoon.

OK! that’s it for this week. Remember, you too can choose a batch if you like, just comment here or in the email or come knock at my door in the middle of the night and when I answer the door no one is there and I leave to go back to bed and you knock again and I turn around and you're standing in front of me holding a knife! It’s October, might as well get into the spirit.

If you don’t want to throw out a batch number please like this, or better yet, share it!

Thanks so much! Have a great weekend.