The Cartoon Collections Caption Contest #120

Who could just let the Cartoon Collections Caption Contest #120 roll by? My three entries are shown below. The drawing is by Charles Barsotti (1933-2014).

"Who unlocked your cubicle?"
"Get rid of that new step in your bounce."
"No more rolling with the punches."

These captions haven't been cleared by HR:

"Breaktime is over."
"I suppose you think you can just bounce up the corporate ladder?"
"But we're not ready to roll out the Smith campaign."

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National Doctors' Day: Joe Zeis in the Exam Room

Today is National Doctors' Day in the US. In order to honor physicians for their selfless dedication, Dick Buchanan offers up a 1957 gag from his clip files by cartoonist Joe Zeis:

"Those X rays of yours are in here somewhere."

Joe Zeis

The Saturday Evening Post, June 15, 1957

Scan by Dick Buchanan

Note:  My thanks to Dick Buchanan for nurturing my appreciation of doctors in this special way. Dick, of course, is the custodian of the renowned Dick Buchanan Cartoon Clip Files and a regular contributor to Mike Lynch Cartoons, most recently a post entitled  "From the Dick Buchanan Files: The Search for Happiness Part Three: Marriage 1946 - 1964." Better check it out before you make any lifelong commitments.

The subject of perceived avarice in doctors with too much green on their hands has been visited here before. See, for example, Attempted Bloggery's most recent post (yes, there's more than one) about the notorious wrong bag cartoon.

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My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #749

Has the magic gone out of The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #749 for the date March 29, 2021? My sleight of hand is shown below. The drawing is by P. C. Vey.

"They want me to saw you in two."

This caption was misdirected:

"People are more bored than I thought."

April 17, 2021 Update:  The Finalists

I voted for the caption from Oak Park.

April 24, 2021 Update:  The Winner

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National Doctors' Day: Stanley Stamaty in the O.R.

National Doctors' Day comes around every year on March 30. I always assumed the date was chosen for its proximity to April Fools' Day, but actually it marks the anniversary of the first use of general anesthesia in surgery. And, speaking of surgery, a 1952 cartoon by Stanley Stamaty take us right into the operating room for a dose of medical humor.

"Robert, how much longer do we have to go on meeting like this?"
Stanley Stamaty
Cartoon Humor, Vol. 16, No. 3, 1952, page 80

Steven Boss humor magazine collection

Note:  This 1952 issue of Cartoon Humor is one of more than 5,600 magazines in the Steven Boss humor magazine collection at Columbia University. I took this photograph in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library more than five years ago on March 10, 2016, a time when lovers wearing masks had no particular social significance beyond the confines of the operating room. Today's post marks the fiftieth I got out of that half day's work—so far! I'm overdue for a return visit, but while the Butler Library where this wonderful collection is housed is now open to Columbia students, it is not yet open to the general public. Still, Curator for Comics and Cartoons Karen Green can provide interested parties with up-to-date information on access to the collection.

This issue contains several other full-page cartoons by Stanley Stamaty, but I did not photograph them, a serious error in judgment on my part. I'd like to redeem myself and post these other cartoons too when I get the chance. To that end, anyone with a copy of this magazine and a camera or scanner could be a tremendous help. Otherwise, this issue of Cartoon Humor should be my first stop when I return, eventually, to the RBML.

Stanley Stamaty still doesn't have a Wikipedia page. Shouldn't somebody do something about that?

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Harold Ross: Readopt War Orphans

Harold Ross, as managing editor of Stars and Stripes for the American Expeditionary Force, had been commended by General Pershing and by the French government for conceiving a plan whereby 3,567 children left orphaned by the First World War were adopted by American soldiers serving in Europe. In 1920 Ross, now stateside and editor of The American Legion, urged the nation's more than nine thousand American Legion posts to readopt these same orphans brought home by American soldiers, apparently through financial contributions to their welfare. Ross's publication supplied the copy of this article to newspapers around the country. Ross would later take on the editorship of Judge and then, in 1925, found his own weekly newsmagazine, The New Yorker.

The Progressive-Signal (Greensburg, Kansas19 Aug 1920, ThuPage 3https://www.newspapers.com/image/378632595/?terms=%22Harold%2BW.%2BRoss%22

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Harold Ross and Jane Grant Wed

One hundred one years ago today New York Times reporter Jane Grant and American Legion Weekly editor-in-chief Harold Ross were married. The Times dutifully covered the nuptials of its first full-fledged female reporter after the announcement was made on April 12. Ross was then known for his work during the Great War on Stars and Stripes, which he had been assigned to from its founding, eventually becoming managing editor. In France, Alexander Woollcott had introduced the couple.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/20625904/?terms=%22Harold%2BW.%2BRoss%22

Together Ross and Grant would go on to establish The New Yorker in 1925 with the financial backing of Raoul Fleischmann. Ross, of course, served as the magazine's editor while Grant worked at bringing investors and talent, notably Janet Flanner, on board. The magazine became a success but the marriage did not. The couple were divorced in 1929. Grant would publish her memoir Ross, The New Yorker and Me in 1968.

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David Remnick's Reporting, Signed

New Yorker editor David Remnick's Reporting:  Writings from The New Yorker was collected in 2006. A signed copy found on eBay in 2016 demonstrates the author's borderline-legible scrawl.

David Remnick's signature

David Remnick
eBay Listing Ended September 4, 2016

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Reporting-Writings-from-The-New-Yorker-SIGNED-DAVID-REMNICK-2006-1st-Edition-/371727216502?hash=item568cab2f76%3Ag%3ARUQAAOSwGtRXyzSw&nma=true&si=YQGb25QThn5Fxe78BW8tTy6VzZY%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

David Remnick
eBay item description

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Thomas Kunkel's Genius in Disguise, with a Signed Bookplate

Published in 1995, Genius in Disguise:  Harold Ross of The New Yorker is Thomas Kunkel's full-length biography of The New Yorker's founding editor. Signed copies of this book, his first, are not terribly common and many of them seem to carry the author's signature on bookplates. The dust jacket reveals that at the time of publication Kunkel lived in Indiana with his wife and four daughters. Going on a national book signing tour may not have been a high priority.

"Magazines are about eighty-five percent luck."
                                                            —Harold W. Ross

Author photo

Title page

Acknowledgments

Harold Ross, man of letters

Hooray for Hollywood

Thomas Kunkel
eBay listing ended April 3, 2020

https://www.ebay.com/itm/THOMAS-KUNKEL-GENIUS-IN-DISGUISE-HAROLD-ROSS-NEW-YORKER-SIGNED-AUTOGRAPHED-1995-/153710460039?hash=item23c9db7c87%3Ag%3AgbQAAOSwfVtdwyk1&nma=true&si=WEtIFz5%252FkfY9UxP8WWeB%252FCaqeVQ%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Thomas Kunkel
eBay item description

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The Cartoon Collections Caption Contest #119

There's plenty of misdirection in the Cartoon Collections Caption Contest #119. My three entries are shown below. The drawing is by Carolita Johnson.

"Actually, I said you should try a little levity."
"And do you feel THIS week's session is worth $200?"
"Clowns? I thought you had a fear of magicians."

 

April 3, 2021 Update:  The Winner

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A Treasury of TV Jibes

During the heyday of TV Guide magazine, TV Jibes was a popular feature, consisting of television-themed cartoons created by some leading practitioners of the art. A dozen pages of these cartoons were collected in A Treasury of TV Jibes, which was included as an insert with the magazine. Hence there is no price on the cover. Alas, there is also no copyright date.

Johnny Carson
Ronald Searle
TV Jibes

Scan by Tom Bloom

Even without a date of publication, we know TV Jibes couldn't have appeared before Ronald Searle's TV Guide cover of 1968 featuring Johnny Carson, and most likely it didn't appear immediately afterward either. Hence, a reasonable estimate for the publication date is 1970.

Johnny Carson
Ronald Searle
TV Guide, August 31-September 6, 1968

Here then is the rest of this issue of TV Jibes, the whole kit and kaboodle, as heroically scanned by Tom Bloom.

   TV Jibes                                   The Young Set
J. B. Handelsman                                  Claude Smith       
Henry Martin                              Charles Rodrigues
Charles Rodrigues                                   Chon Day        

TV Jibe:  Debatable Tactics                                   TV Jibes     
             Brian Savage                              Copper[?]          Hageman[?]
                                                                 Al Kaufman

         TV Jibes                                 TV Jibe:  The Younger Set
Charles E. Martin                                       Sidney Harris      
Henry Martin                                                          
Charles Rodrigues                                                        

TV Jibe:  It Must Be Football                                  My Fellow Americans...
Paul Peter Porges                                                 Brian Savage

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]

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.

Cover artist Ronald Searle's extensive TV Guide work is surveyed in Perpetua, the Ronald Searle Tribute blog, here. There's no mention of TV Jibes, though, but that could change. 

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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