To commemorate tax season, Dick Buchanan writes with another superb scan from his cartoon clip files. Who among us hasn't been tempted to resort to a little hyperbole when dealing with the Internal Revenue Service? To anyone who may have been audited or otherwise pestered by the IRS, Leonard Dove's beleaguered taxpayer from a 1961 Look magazine cartoon surely evokes empathy. The man's language is understandably hyperbolic, but whether he is aware of his own exaggerated rhetoric is not clear from the drawing, which depicts him as simply earnest and overwhelmed.
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"Which stake do I get burned at?" Leonard Dove Look, April 11, 1961, page 122 Scan by Dick Buchanan |
Dove, of course, was a New Yorker regular, which means this cartoon may very well have been rejected by the venerable magazine before it was shopped around and picked up by Look. Four years later, though, The New Yorker too would have its chance to play around with hyberbole in the setting of an IRS office. Amazingly, cartoonist James Stevenson manages to pull it off with a simple, wordless gag. The wry smile shown by Stevenson's taxpayer, in contrast to Dove's, indicates this man is very well aware of his own clowning around. Stevenson's cartoon appeared almost four years after Dove's and is memorable, a New Yorker classic.
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James Stevenson The New Yorker, December 19, 1964, page 66 |
Is there room for another great cartoon on this topic? (Would I ask if there weren't?) You might think James Stevenson gets the last word, wordlessly, on the subject of exaggerated reactions to the tax collector, but his character's mimicking of a holdup victim does not quite end our story. In a cartoon dating from the 1972 tax season, cartoonist George Booth takes the taxpayer's overreaction up a notch into the realm of pure slapstick. As with Stevenson, the hyperbole is physical, not verbal; it is the flustered taxman who is left to refute the taxpayer's antics with some commonsense talk.
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"Other folks have to pay taxes, too, Mr. Herndon, so would you please spare us the dramatics!" George Booth The New Yorker, March 18, 1972, page 45 |
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Cartoon by James Stevenson. Ad by Chanel. https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1964-12-19/flipbook/066/ |
Note: My thanks to Dick Buchanan for his beautiful scan of the Leonard Dove gag from his matchless cartoon clip files. Dick, you may recall, contributes regularly to Mike Lynch Cartoons, most recently a post entitled "From the Dick Buchanan Files: Certified Vintage Gag Cartoons 1940 - 1961." Dick is the only one I trust to certify gag cartoons as vintage. He also represents me at audits. This is Dick's 61st contribution to Attempted Bloggery, a record unlikely to be broken ever, or at least until tomorrow.
I'll jump at any excuse to highlight the work of Leonard Dove, James Stevenson, George Booth, and the like. Feel free to send such excuses in my direction.
Surely there must be other cartoon examples out there of hyperbolic reactions to a tax audit. I mean, is there really any other kind of reaction? Please let me know if you are aware of similar taxing cartoons that fit the bill.
By the way, who might be P, the spot artist from 1972? Anybody?
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