On the shelves of a popular independent bookstore I recently noted a sign reading New Yorker Comics. I won't mention the store's name, but it can be found downtown at 12th Street and Broadway in the city with which the New Yorker is principally concerned.
That big white volume at the lower right in the second photo is The New Yorker Album of Drawings 1925-1975. Back in the days when I was introduced to the art form, the magazine made a point of referring to its cartoons as drawings and to its cartoonists as artists. The magazine, today wary of its former elitist reputation, has long abandoned that practice although I, perhaps stubbornly, have not. Regardless, for purposes of clarity, that section of a bookstore concerned with New Yorker cartoons should have signage indicating New Yorker Cartoons. There is nothing remotely useful about the term New Yorker Comics.
These days comics are extremely popular and with much good reason. But they are not synonymous with cartoons. Comics are sequential narrative art. They may appear as comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, or zines. Despite the name, comics do not have to be humorous.
Those clever drawings that appear in the New Yorker each week are called cartoons. The overwhelming majority of them are single-panel gags. A scant few may be sequential; these generally work up to a punch line or site gag in the final panel. These are still called cartoons.
There is, of course, bound to be some blurring of definitions. A few newspaper or online comics may be of the single-panel variety. The New Yorker does occasionally publish work in the form of a comic strip. But for the most part the New Yorker publishes cartoons and that's what they should be called.
Those clever drawings that appear in the New Yorker each week are called cartoons. The overwhelming majority of them are single-panel gags. A scant few may be sequential; these generally work up to a punch line or site gag in the final panel. These are still called cartoons.
There is, of course, bound to be some blurring of definitions. A few newspaper or online comics may be of the single-panel variety. The New Yorker does occasionally publish work in the form of a comic strip. But for the most part the New Yorker publishes cartoons and that's what they should be called.
That big white volume at the lower right in the second photo is The New Yorker Album of Drawings 1925-1975. Back in the days when I was introduced to the art form, the magazine made a point of referring to its cartoons as drawings and to its cartoonists as artists. The magazine, today wary of its former elitist reputation, has long abandoned that practice although I, perhaps stubbornly, have not. Regardless, for purposes of clarity, that section of a bookstore concerned with New Yorker cartoons should have signage indicating New Yorker Cartoons. There is nothing remotely useful about the term New Yorker Comics.
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