The Cartoon Lounge: Going Like Ninety
Ninety years ago, the first issue of The New Yorker appeared on newsstands. This week’s issue celebrates our ninetieth anniversary and is, if our fact-checking department is correct, the...
View ArticleOnce Over Lightly: Freedom of Speech
Back before the Constitution enshrined the principle of free speech in the very First Amendment, the French writer, wit, and philosopher Voltaire said, “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Oh, Canada!
In this week’s episode of the Cartoon Lounge, I add to the Annals of the Offended some citizens of our neighborly neighbor to the north, who, neighborliness notwithstanding, were in high dudgeon over...
View ArticleOh, Canada! The Sequel!
In this episode of the Cartoon Lounge, our Canadian Mollification Project proves to be a resounding partial success. Thankfully, the hearts and minds of most of the Great White Northerners who took...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Hahvahd
There is only one Hahvahd.See the rest of the story at newyorker.comRelated:Federal Judge Admits Having Brady on Fantasy TeamA Few More #TrumpBible VersesDaily Cartoon: Thursday, September 3rd
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: We Got Game
Scientists now believe that the recurring epidemic known as March Madness is due to a transient altering of the genetic code best illustrated in this diagram. But you don’t have to be a scientist to...
View ArticleLights! Camera! Cartoons!
Dear Laughter Lovers, We—actually, I—interrupt our—actually, my—regularly scheduled newsletter to throw caution, and maybe integrity, to the winds and promote a movie.See the rest of the story at...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Stupid Bob Tricks
Thoreau said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Not me, baby. My desperation is noisy, voluble, and visible. Case in point, this episode of The Cartoon Lounge, in which evidence of a...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Animal People
Considering how often animals appear in New Yorker cartoons, one would assume that our cartoonists are quite fond of them. Of the seventy-nine thousand cartoons that we have published since 1925, more...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: The Next New Things
It seems like every day, hour, and second of the time we live, what’s new is made newer. Our Innovators Issue is a celebration of this phenomenon, but, as for me, I’d hold the champagne. I mean, there...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Grim and Bear It
Let’s face it: cartoons do not present the good side of life. They are full of bad doctors …See the rest of the story at newyorker.comRelated:Federal Judge Admits Having Brady on Fantasy TeamA Few...
View ArticleThe New Page in Town
What’s new with you? Same old, same old? Too bad, but we’ve got something new for you: newyorker.com/cartoons, a one-stop shop where everything New Yorker cartoonish is now collected on its very own...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: The Way We* Work Now
Actually, by “we” I mean “you.” There is nothing wrong with an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, except for the work part—too hard. That’s why they call it work.See the rest of the story at...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Some Things Tech
I was born in the past but am in love with the future. I am impatient for every technological breakthrough that promises to transform our lives. And, no matter how often those promises are broken, I’m...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Silence is Golden
There’s an old saying, “Silence is golden.” The meaning of this saying is lost in the mists of time, where I’d just as soon leave it. It did get me thinking, however, about one place where silence...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: High Jinks on the Mini-Golf Course
I’m a sports fan, but not one for whom tradition is everything. For me, it’s next to nothing. My main gripe is that the games go on too long. I have no patience for Wimbledon marathons or...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: The Biggest Little Dwarf Planet There Is
By the time you read this, the space probe New Horizons will have flown right on by Pluto at some thirty-one thousand miles per hour. But that breakneck pace did not prevent it from doing some very...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Bob and Colin’s “Beach Blanket Bingo” Adventure
Pop quiz: What was “Beach Blanket Bingo”? Pop answer: a movie starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, from 1965. It’s well worth watching for its extraordinary mix of insipidity and stupidity,...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Let’s Do Lunch
Aristotle claimed that man is the only animal who laughs. We now know that this is not true: it seems that apes and chimps get the giggles now and again, and even rats think being tickled is a riot....
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Happy Cartoonniversary
Hey, gang, remember “The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker”? That’s the tome we published, back in 2004, containing sixty-eight-thousand-and-something cartoons, with accompanying CDs.See the rest of...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: The Huffington and Puffington Post
This year I gave up my gym membership. Why? Not because I’m too lazy to exercise. In fact, I like exercise, need exercise. Without a good amount of it, I get the heebie-jeebies. Even with it, I still...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Sprechen Sie The New Yorker?
False modesty is not my strong point. Which is just as well, because if that’s your strong point you’re in bad shape. Anyway, as the cartoon editor of The New Yorker, I have the top magazine cartoon...
View ArticleWhich U.S. State Performs Best in the New Yorker Caption Contest?
Each week, roughly five thousand people chuckle to themselves in front of the computer while typing out the gingerly curated string of words that they are sure will finally prove to their...
View ArticleFestival Spotlight: Cartoons with Matthew Diffee
Hey, kids: Bob Mankoff, the cartoon editor at The New Yorker, here with a Festival recommendation. Get tickets to “Matthew Diffee / Hand Drawn Jokes for Smart Attractive People: A One-Man Show With...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Is Meta Betta?
What goes around comes around—and around and around and around.See the rest of the story at newyorker.comRelated:The Most Likely Ways I Will Die in New York CityDaily Cartoon: Tuesday, May 24th“The...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: The Immortal Bard
That would be Shakespeare, of course, who has achieved immortality because of the timeless beauty of his language, despite the fact that that language—often obscure, archaic, and opaque—is anything...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: If You Can’t Beat ’Em…
I’ve been a Yankees fan all my adult life. Actually, since well before I became an adult. I knew I was a Yankee fan all the way back in 1951, when, at the age of six, I saw Joe D play on a TV with a...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Nakedity and Nudedness
The typical New Yorker cartoon character has the good sense to keep his or her clothes on.See the rest of the story at newyorker.comRelated:The Most Likely Ways I Will Die in New York CityDaily...
View ArticleCartoon Lounge: Show Me the Funny
The method by which we judge the Caption Contest is well known: my assistant, Colin Stokes, plows through the thousands of submitted captions and then gives me a list of about fifty, from which I...
View ArticleCartoon Lounge: Cartoonometrics
The Greek philosopher Protagoras stirred up a controversy in ancient times by claiming that “man is the measure of all things,” which many took to mean that truth is not absolute but based on our...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Cartooning 101
Anybody who makes a living being funny for money—and, as a professional cartoonist, I would count myself among that cohort, which you could consider either blessed or cursed, depending on, among other...
View ArticleOur Favorite Cartoons of 2015
At the end of the year, it’s important to take stock of what you’ve achieved. Or, in lieu of that, to deprecate the accomplishments of others. Being in a non-Trumpian frame of mind, we at the Cartoon...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: A Happy Newish Year to All
I know I’m late on this, and by now you are probably all Happy New Yeared out. But now is not the time to belabor my belatedness. We need to get on with the work that needs to be done. And part of...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: The Ball Is in Our Court
In this week’s Cartoon Lounge, it’s in their court and then it’s in ours, and back and forth and ping and pong. All this frenetic activity took place for a very good cause, at the Big Brothers Big...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: All You Need Is Love
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love,See the rest of the story at newyorker.comRelated:The Most Likely Ways I Will Die in New York CityDaily Cartoon: Tuesday, May...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Schmoozin’ and Choosin’
In this episode of The Cartoon Lounge, we go behind the scenes—actually, you do; I’m already here—to watch as I schmooze and then choose the cartoons to bring to the weekly cartoon meeting with the...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: We Get Mail
Actually, we mostly get e-mails these days in The Cartoon Department. But some of our fans, and some of our foes, still take the time to put pen or pencil or crayon to paper in order to protest or...
View ArticleHelp! We Need You to Choose the Funniest Cartoon Caption Contest Entries
Cartoons have been part of The New Yorker since the very beginning, in 1925. For most of the magazine’s history, you, the readers, participated just by enjoying their wit, whimsy, and social...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Complaint Department
I don’t know about you, but I’m very annoyed by everyone’s dietary restrictions except my own. I’ve thought hard about this, or as hard as I’m able to (read: not hard), and have come to the conclusion...
View ArticleRemembering the New Yorker Cartoonist William Hamilton
The New Yorker cartoonist William Hamilton died on Friday. When someone as witty and clever as William Hamilton passes, you feel the obligation to come up with something commensurately witty to...
View ArticleThe World of William Hamilton
What separates great cartoonists from really good cartoonists is not any single cartoon—many really good cartoonists have done individual cartoons that are great—but that a great cartoonist creates a...
View ArticleWilliam Hamilton
William Hamilton had a lot to say about the nation’s country-club class and how it viewed itself. His cartoons were peopled by ladies and gentlemen of the Park Avenue variety, speaking confidently...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: The Trump Trope
We have been running cartoons about Donald Trump for some time. This is the first one that appeared, back in 1983:See the rest of the story at newyorker.comRelated:The Most Likely Ways I Will Die in...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Give Me an “M”!
In this episode of The Cartoon Lounge, exclamation mark notwithstanding, we half-heartedly celebrate the parental palindrome whose day is coming up this Sunday. We would have gone all in, but we...
View ArticleMorley Safer’s Favorite Cartoons
I was very sad to learn that Morley Safer passed away today. I’ve enjoyed his work for years on “60 Minutes,” and it was a true honor to be a guest on the show, in 2014. When we were taping that...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: What’s Appening
Man, I thought apps were totally over. But, no, just like podcasts, they go on and on and on, whether we want them to or not or not or not. Not that I haven’t downloaded a ton of them on my own...
View ArticleFarewell to Two Long-Lived New Yorker Cartoonists
Ars longa, vita brevis. For cartoonists, especially long-lived ones like Frank Modell, who died two weeks ago, at the age of ninety-eight, or Anatol Kovarsky, who passed away last week, at...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: How Lazy Am I?
As you will find out in this Cartoon Lounge, I’m too lazy even to come up with a title for the episode. However, I’m not so lazy that I won’t make a spirited defense of our cartoon caption contest...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: When in the Course of Human Events . . .
Those are the words that begin the Declaration of Independence. And the rest, as they say, is history. And history—which is, of course, just the course of one damn, all-too-human event after...
View ArticleThe Cartoon Lounge: Trop de Tropes
Don’t get me wrong—I like cartoon tropes, which we all used to call “clichés,” until we switched to the word “trope” because it sounds smarter. While some of these clichés seem like they’ve been...
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