Readers of Michael Maslin's Ink Spill learned last week that over the course of his career cartoonist Alan Dunn (1900-1974) published an astonishing 1,981 cartoons in The New Yorker. Today we look at one that got away.
In 1948, Dunn sent an original cartoon along with a typewritten letter to "Brother Hodgson," apparently a fellow Phi Gamma Delta, or more commonly Fiji, fraternity brother known either from his days at Columbia University or from the national organization. Dunn explains that the cartoon nearly saw publication. "The New Yorker once okayed the idea but asked for a few minor changes. Being long repressed about 'changes' I decided to assert myself. 'Either take it as is or don't take it at all[,]' I meekly shouted. 'Very well, they rejoined, 'We won't take it at all.' So here it is."
Hodgson was evidently affiliated with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, because Dunn offered the original drawing to him for publication in Tarnation, the student humor magazine. They should have been thrilled to publish it, but did they? Quite possibly. An exhibition on humor at the library of the University of North Carolina notes that Tarnation was published between 1947 and 1954, so there was adequate opportunity to get it into print.
Dunn ends his letter with the motto "Perge!" It is this that identifies him as a Graduate Brother, as one is called, of Fiji. It means "Press on!" or "Persist!" There can hardly be a better creed for a cartoonist, particularly one of Dunn's prolific achievement.
The cartoon itself shows Dunn's fascination with newfangled technology. Car phones were first introduced in the United States in 1946. In Dunn's gag, set at the site of a downtown fender bender, the new invention is already being exploited by lawyers. But how would they manage to obtain the correct phone number in less time than it would take to walk down the stairs? One wonders what "few minor changes" The New Yorker had insisted on. Were the editors eager to change the silly name of the law firm, perhaps?
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| "Good morning, sir—I represent the law firm of Lolly, Mire and Fish..." Alan Dunn Tarnation [?] |
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| Alan Dunn's signature |
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| Alan Dunn TLS |
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| Alan Dunn eBay listing ended August 31, 2020 |
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| Alan Dunn eBay item description |
Note: Can any Tar Heels tell me whether this cartoon came to be published, and when?
Perge!
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