W. B. Park: Charles, By the Clock

It just so happens that the very first of the original New Yorker cartoons offered by eBay seller Henning Fine Art in its current run of works from the estate of W. B. Park had been published with an exceedingly long caption. The words are not spoken but instead delivered in the form of a detailed minute-by-minute summary of the action in mock-documentary format. It's practically time-stamped. I recall that it sold in the same range as Park's other New Yorker originals, around $205; in other words, there was no surcharge for all the outsize prose.

     8:28: Charles stood up and strode into the kitchen. Everything was in readiness. He selected a fresh piece of stone-ground whole-wheat bread and balanced it carelessly in his left had. Behind him the electric wall clock hummed quietly. The peanut butter spread easily across the bread, Charles expertly turning the knife this way and that, guiding the creamy paste around the surface. The grape jelly proved more of a challenge, but he was equal to it. At precisely 8:30, he settled back into his chair, back into his reverie, back into the doubleheader.
W. B. Park
Original art
The New Yorker, October 3, 1988, p. 99

Detail, left

Detail, right, with W. B. Park's signature

W. B. Park
eBay listing c. mid-2024 archived on Worthpoint

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/original-yorker-illustration-drawing-4741038895

8:28: Charles stood up and strode into the kitchen. Everything was in readiness. He selected a fresh piece of stone-ground whole-wheat bread and balanced it carelessly in his left had. Behind him the electric wall clock hummed quietly. The peanut butter spread easily across the bread, Charles expertly turning the knife this way and that, guiding the creamy paste around the surface. The grape jelly proved more of a challenge, but he was equal to it. At precisely 8:30, he settled back into his chair, back into his reverie, back into the doubleheader.
W. B. Park
The New Yorker, October 3, 1988, p. 99

     8:28: Charles stood up and strode into the kitchen. Everything was in readiness. He selected a fresh piece of stone-ground whole-wheat bread and balanced it carelessly in his left had. Behind him the electric wall clock hummed quietly. The peanut butter spread easily across the bread, Charles expertly turning the knife this way and that, guiding the creamy paste around the surface. The grape jelly proved more of a challenge, but he was equal to it. At precisely 8:30, he settled back into his chair, back into his reverie, back into the doubleheader.
W. B. Park
Original art
The New Yorker, October 3, 1988, p. 99

With an advertisement for DeBeers and a cartoon by W. B. Park

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1988-10-03/flipbook/098/

Note:  Here then in the archives is an original cartoon by George Booth, possibly unpublished, with another of those very long captions you've been hearing so much about. 

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