Joe Dator: Westminster Dog's Revenge

Original art by cartoonist Joe Dator depicting a dog show winner was published in The New Yorker of June 14, 2021:

The title of this post, Westminster Dog's Revenge, is Dator's own, swiped by me from his eBay listing which, truth be told, I also swiped in full. The title I came up with on my own, Dog Show Schadenfreude, is, to put it bluntly, not a prizewinner.

The dog's thoughts are an inventive variation, it seems, on a popular quotation that takes several different forms, including "It is not enough to succeed; others must fail."

Joe Dator's signature

Verso

Joe Dator
eBay listing ended January 9, 2022

https://www.ebay.com/itm/284599180012?hash=item42436edaec%3Ag%3AEPkAAOSw9S5h2J9Q&nma=true&si=64J6TuENCQvl%252FEQuIbsoMEcDQlw%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Joe Dator
eBay item description

Note:  The origin of that familiar quotation (or family of quotations) that Joe Dator must be riffing on here is surprisingly muddled. In 1959, W. Somerset Maugham, perhaps channeling La Rouchefoucauld, reportedly said, "Now that I’ve grown old, I realize that for most of us it is not enough to have achieved personal success. One’s best friend must also have failed." This was reported to the world by Bennett Cerf in his column. Then other writers ran with it and created shorter variations. You can read all about the complicated history from Quote Investigator here.

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