Barbara Shermund: Flirting at Sea

Let's begin with two very different captions appended to the same 1926 New Yorker cartoon by Barbara Shermund. The drawing is set on the deck of an ocean liner where a young flapper is flirting with a member of the crew. Here are the two captions, presented in alphabetical order. Which of these is the better caption?

"I suppose you seafaring men just love the ocean"

"Oh, I don't know.  It's changed so lately."

Or:

"Now tell me all about the engines!"

That first one is the somewhat cumbersome two-speaker type of caption that predominated American cartoons at the time of The New Yorker's founding in 1925. It's essentially two lines of dialogue where the first serves as the setup and the second is the punch line. The second caption is the more modern single-speaker caption that was just starting to come into its own. It was soon to be championed by Peter Arno and eventually every cartoonist at this magazine and others.

Both of these distinct captions are authentic period creations. The curious thing is that the shorter, punchier caption is Shermund's own, handwritten on her original drawing. The longer, more antiquated, and somewhat stilted caption somehow replaced it between the drawing's submission and its publication in The New Yorker. Who wrote it and why was it deemed superior to the artist's original caption? What was the editorial reasoning here? Ninety-eight years have passed. It's likely we'll never know.

"Now tell me all about the engines!"
Published as "I suppose you seafaring men just love the ocean"
"Oh, I don't know.  It's changed so lately."
Barbara Shermund
Original art
The New Yorker, August 28, 1926, page 21

The original art was sold on eBay just last month.

Detail of the two speakers

Barbara Shermund's signature

Detail with another couple

"Now tell me all about the engines!"

Detail of the seafaring man with a big neck

Detail of the flapper

The publication date

Rush

Barbara Shermund 
eBay listing ended January 19, 2024

https://www.ebay.com/itm/155557268082?itmmeta=01HQMAJFK3XGTQDR0KVBEH7VMF&hash=item2437ef8a72:g:RT8AAOSw0zVkY6dv&itmprp=enc%3AAQAIAAAAwLDPUPQFgXaRbkWBObdAZYcF1moxJhmFEiyocwpsVXLR9FDsBjAMoi2uEieVr1xMK21QEOVJoKN7%2B0ly555TsMp%

2B2nLgHw84GQ4C1ZCNu2ayDHjAEBj0VFJnhjcQ06tbooQhq8S6mGtIppNGob5yZ9d9OXTU9vNURWxv62nVo5lEXW7iqsyphL40H7Hj2hb0U6cshVVOvuxBw6dfZMYiyD0yPDgWfUItmluwOYlU%2BilczReYsnCVKpd8lSYVG4vMJw%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR8z5yYq9Yw

Barbara Shermund 
eBay item description

"I suppose you seafaring men just love the ocean"

"Oh, I don't know.  It's changed so lately."

Barbara Shermund

The New Yorker, August 28, 1926, page 21

"Now tell me all about the engines!"
Published as "I suppose you seafaring men just love the ocean"
"Oh, I don't know.  It's changed so lately."
Barbara Shermund
Original art
The New Yorker, August 28, 1926, page 21

Cartoons by Eldon Kelley and Barbara Shermund

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1926-08-28/flipbook/020/

Eldon Kelley's cartoon on the page opposite Shermund's is another plodding example of the two-speaker gag. It would work just as well or better with just the artist's response. That's what a century of hidsight will tell you.

Old Man:  What d'you call that, young woman?
Artist:  That's Love in Spring!  What did ya think it was?
Eldon Kelley
The New Yorker, August 28, 1926, page 20

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