In The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #990 from the issue of May 11 & 18, 2026, a couple sitting in a car are stopped at a chicken crossing indicated by a road sign. As they wait for the many chickens to pass, the man, who sits in the driver's seat, speaks. My submission is shown below. The drawing is by Mort Gerberg.
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| "Don't you know any other jokes?" |
May 25, 2026 Update: The Finalists
June 7, 2026 Update: I voted for the caption from Harrison.
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In The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #948 from the issue of June 16, 2025, a judge hands a basketball from the bench to a man in his courtroom. There is a basket set up behind the judge. A witness is in the witness box. An angry lawyer stands on the left. The judge is speaking. My entry appears below. The drawing is by Mort Gerberg.
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| "Now dazzle the ABA and the NBA." |
These captions were flagrant fouls:
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| "Sustained. Take a free throw." "Counselor, give us your spin." |
June 23, 2025 Update: The Finalists
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In The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #929 from the issue of January 20, 2025, a pair of clocks showing different times undergoes couples therapy. The timely drawing is by Mort Gerberg.
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| "Who says we need a reset?" |
These captions wouldn't give me the time of day:
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| "It's not just that. We can't agree on anything." "We work different shifts." "When we met, we were completely in synch." |
February 1, 2025 Update: The Finalists
February 9, 2025 Update: I voted for the caption from Tujunga.
February 22, 2025 Update: The Winner
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New York City's orange traffic cones can be seen all over town. They have occasionally made their way from the streets into the art of The New Yorker magazine. There is, for example, cartoonist Mort Gerberg's seasonally-themed "Sketchbook" from the issue of October 26, 1998:
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| "Sketchbook" Mort Gerberg The New Yorker, October 26, 1998, p. 258 |
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| "Smoke and Mirrors" Christoph Niemann The New Yorker, September 23, 2024 |
Note: Interested coneheads can find the original 1998 art by Mort Gerberg at the end of my post on his New-York Historical Society exhibition here. Christoph Niemann's original art, on the other hand, is presumably not a work on paper and never to be displayed on a gallery wall.
Last month, on his Ink Spill blog, cartoonist Michael Maslin noted how magazine cover art imitates life, citing this 2017 Halloween costume.
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I have no idea whether the Stan Cohen who obtained a personalized copy of The Art in Cartooning: Seventy-five Years of American Magazine Cartoons (1975) was also the sociologist who coined the term moral panic. The original drawings in the book added at a signing by cartoonists George Booth, Sam Gross, Gahan Wilson, and Bill Woodman don't necessarily shed any light on the possibility. If there's panic in any of these four drawings, it isn't particularly moral.
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| The Art in Cartooning Rare Book Cellar listing accessed August 1, 2024 |
Note: There are now nine—go ahead, count 'em—unique copies of The Art in Cartooning posted in the archives here, a claim no other blog can match. Is this then a good place to stop? Of course not. Collectors in possession of their own interesting copies of the book are urged to forward images of the interesting parts to the proprietor of this blog. With a little luck, there won't be any more cucarachas.
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Bauman Rare Books offers a special copy of The Art in Cartooning: Seventy-five Years of American Magazine Cartoons (1975), edited by Edwin Fisher, Mort Gerberg, and Ron Wolin for the Cartoonists Guild. The book is inscribed to one Jack Herbert and has original drawings by Jack Ziegler, Gahan Wilson, Sam Gross, and Bill Woodman. It is listed at $2,500.
The dust jacket shows The Closed Mind, an experimental piece by cartoonist Charles Saxon..jpg)
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| The Art in Cartooning Bauman Rare Books listing accessed April 13, 2024 |
Note: There are now seven copies of The Art in Cartooning posted to this blog. Each is unique in its own way. There are no doubt other fine copies out there with original drawings, signatures, or inscriptions from noteworthy cartoonists. I am always excited to post images from such copies. Please send them along to my inbox for consideration.
If anyone should happen into Bauman Rare Books, please see if you can snap a photo or two of the missing Gross and Woodman drawings for the sake of posterity.
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The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #848 from the issue of May 8, 2023 features two gardeners and two high flyers. My caption is shown below. The drawing is by Mort Gerberg.
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| "I didn't know your parents were dropping in." |
These captions wouldn't take root:
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| "They really ought to be grounded." "Maybe we should take flying lessons too." "We could join them if we hired a gardener." "Their life is good, but we have a better garden." "When do we get our superpowers?" |
May 15, 2023 Update: The Finalists
May 27, 2023 Update: I voted for the caption from Montreal.
June 4, 2023 Update: The Winner
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Last week I worked from home on The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #776 from the issue dated October 18, 2021. My caption is shown below. The drawing is by Mort Gerberg.
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| "I wish he knew as much about fixing a relationship." |
October 27, 2021 Update: The Finalists
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| Johnny Carson Ronald Searle TV Jibes Scan by Tom Bloom |
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| Johnny Carson Ronald Searle TV Guide, August 31-September 6, 1968 |
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| TV Jibes The Young Set J. B. Handelsman Claude Smith Henry Martin Charles Rodrigues Charles Rodrigues Chon Day |
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| TV Jibe: Debatable Tactics TV Jibes Brian Savage Copper[?] Hageman[?] Al Kaufman |
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| TV Jibes TV Jibe: The Younger Set Charles E. Martin Sidney Harris Henry Martin Charles Rodrigues |
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| TV Jibe: It Must Be Football My Fellow Americans... Paul Peter Porges Brian Savage |
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| TV Jibe: And Now a Pause for the Program... TV Jibe: An Evening at Home Sidney Harris Charles Rodrigues Paul Peter Porges Larry [Terence Parkes] |
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| TV Jibes TV Jibe: Poor Reception Charles Rodrigues Larry [Terence Parkes] Mort Gerberg Joseph Farris Val Charles Rodrigues |
Note: First off, my sincere thanks to Tom Bloom for this contribution. As I've already called his scanning heroic, I haven't left myself too much else to add. This is Tom's seventeenth contribution to Attempted Bloggery.
We are not alone. Postino writes informatively about this very TV Jibes cartoon booklet in the blog Insomnia Notebook here.
Numerically speaking, Ronald Searle's centenary closed on March 3, which marked 101 years since the artist's birth. Nevertheless, since the pandemic interrupted any proper recognition of his achievement, I have taken the lead from the Wilhelm Busch Museum in Hanover, Germany, and will continue to celebrate his centenary. Indefinitely.
Three of the cartoonists shown above in the pages of TV Jibes are unfamiliar to me. I will tentatively identify them as Copper, Hageman, and Val, although I am not sure I'm reading the first two signatures correctly. Does anybody recognize the cartoonists or know a little something about them? Do tell.
Also--can anyone tell me with which issue this insert was distributed? I'm kind of a stickler for these things, especially when they're of no importance.
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Don't wait too long to place a bid on my entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #727 for October 5, 2020. The drawing is by Mort Gerberg.
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| "You said you wanted more space." |
Per your request, here’s another signed copy of The Art in Cartooning from my personal collection. This copy is inscribed by all three editors (Mort Gerberg, Edwin Fisher, Ron Wolin) with additional inscriptions and drawings by Bill Woodman, Sheldon Oppenberg*, Jack Ziegler, Sam Gross, Marvin Tannenberg**, Dana Fradon, George Booth, and Jules Feiffer.
* Oppenberg was a cartoon art collector; I don’t think he was a cartoonist himself — although some of his sketches sometimes show up on eBay.
**Under the name Tann, Tannenberg’s gag cartoons were published in numerous magazines including Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Look, Ladies Home journal, Playboy and Saturday Review. He was a founding member of the Cartoonists Guild and served as its first president.
The rest I’m sure you know. Unfortunately, I'm as clueless about the signing circumstances as you — but my guess is that there was probably some kind of opening reception for the book. The “Steve” to whom the signatures are inscribed, I presume had some connection since the inscriptions are a bit more personal than in the other copies I have seen.
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| "Son, your mother is a remarkable woman." Sam Gross The New Yorker, August 15, 1983, page 48 |
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| https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1983-08-15/flipbook/048/ |
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| The Closed Mind Charles Saxon The Art in Cartooning: Seventy-five Years of American Magazine Cartoons The Cartoonists Guild, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975 |
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| The Art in Cartooning AbeBooks Listing Accessed July 9, 2020 |
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| Drawings by Marvin Tannenberg, Gahan Wilson, George Booth, Bill Woodman, and Sam Gross |
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| Drawing by Paul Peter Porges inscribed "Hi, Virgin[i?]a" |
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| https://mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com/2010/12/sam-gross-frog-legs-original-cartoon.html |
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