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"I suppose you seafaring men just love the ocean" "Oh, I don't know. It's changed so lately." |
Or:
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| "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.
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| "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.
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| Detail of the two speakers |
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| Barbara Shermund's signature |
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| Detail with another couple |
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| "Now tell me all about the engines!" |
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| Detail of the seafaring man with a big neck |
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| Detail of the flapper |
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| The publication date |
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| Rush |
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| Barbara Shermund eBay listing ended January 19, 2024 |
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| Barbara Shermund eBay item description |
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"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 |
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| "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 |
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| Cartoons by Eldon Kelley and Barbara Shermund |
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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 only the artist's response. That's what a century of hidsight will tell you.
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| 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 |
March 8, 2025 Update: Today's Ink Spill by Michael Maslin reports that Barbara Shermund's drawing was reused in the magazine as a spot illustration four years later. This is a rare and possibly unique example of the repurposing of a drawing in The New Yorker.
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