Attempted Bloggery: pig

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Monday, June 8, 2026

My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #993

In The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #993 from the issue of June 8, 2026, three pigs are seated at a trough in a restaurant looking at the menus. The one on the left is speaking. My submission is shown below. The drawing is by Avi Steinberg.

"Could you explain for my brothers the advantages of having a brick oven?"

These captions weren't quite good enough for me to serve up:

"Is the slop fresh?"
"I don't suppose the catch of the day is wolf?"
"It appears the house specialty is bacon."

June 21, 2026 Update: The Finalists

June 27, 2026 Update: I voted for the caption from Pamplona.

July 4, 2026 Update: The Winner

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Saturday, August 3, 2024

Rob's Copy of The Art in Cartooning

The book is The Art in Cartooning: Seventy-five years of American Magazine Cartoons, published in 1975. The original owner was named Rob and he had the good sense to get his copy at a signing with multiple cartoonists present. The four who signed and decorated his book were Gahan Wilson, Sam Gross, Marvin Tannenberg, and Bill Woodman. The cover art is, of course, by Charles Saxon.

Inside the book, the cartoonists play off each other's sketches, top to bottom. Wilson starts it off in his macabre manner with a drawing of a waiter serving his customer: "This what you asked for, sir?" Gross changes the culinary subject to frog legs, a convenient reference to his most famous cartoon, which appeared in the National Lampoon: "No, you yo-yo / He asked for frogs legs." Tannenberg supplies a missing frog leg on his self-portrait with "What's this craziness with frog's legs[?]"

What's on the menu? Woodman takes us out of the dining room and into the kitchen where a chef is in the preliminary stages of preparing dinner. With a full page (or at the very least half of one) to himself, Woodman shines.

The Art in Cartooning
eBay listing ended August 2, 2024

https://www.ebay.com/itm/204890575268?epid=2911644&itmmeta=01J4AZMZ64DACWYWKGTV6M9R3X&hash=item2fb46e11a4:g:WtwAAOSwzFtk1BCX&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA8Oz%2F1S0dmyDe7H2Y4X6i22p5vCV7MZPCQyGxvEkZG5ra%2FNVuozwauT2KyCj15RYCcZGnvvG%2BHesoDlO%2BeCG1o6lb7%2Fd9YyEpCAFKBEWvVU7MMJ%2FMfcu97t

ufa%2FsdO6hSiLkl%2BWilTk1Y812aAo4L Hrmgo%2BbaDGqVtOvcBiuoCKhRgjaDlZXYAgeErEl1GOGEUE1SeZ5S2jyjWegGW4LCNAq604XGAk6g5ic%2Bir6deftQunh03Mz5%2BI5VINWjXvFa9PU8vjP6leJfp56vbEzI9ujeR%2BrJtxG7Wpwl%2F%2ByFVNLqmZPiYMo2t0WgvtCOHKL9DQ%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR5Tz09-iZA

The Art in Cartooning
eBay item description

A best offer of $175 was not accepted. A counteroffer of $195 nevertheless sealed the deal.

Note: This is the tenth very special copy of this book to appear here on the blog. Scans or photos of other personalized copies from book signings of yore are welcome.

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Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Ronald Searle: C'est la vie

A neckless and nearly formless man strains to pull a cart bearing a large pig across a vast, desolate plain. The title gives it away. C'est la vie is Ronald Searle's humorous allegory of life itself. The 1975 original ink and watercolor drawing was sold in Frankfurt on November 25 for a ridiculously low 300 euros (and that was after the sale ended, I believe). That Moderne-Auktion crowd just didn't appreciate a good allegory.

Ronald Searle
Auktionshaus Arnold listing accessed November 16, 2023

https://www.auktionshaus-arnold.de/auktion/moderne-auktion-10/

A variant was exhibited in New York at the Nicholls Gallery in 1976. It appeared on a black and white postcard promoting the Searle show. The original art either has wash or some watercolor.

C'est la vie, 1975
Ronald Searle
Nicholls Gallery postcard, 1976

Note: You know, I wouldn't mind receiving a good photograph of the Nicholls Gallery variant or of any other variants of C'est la vie that might be out there. Oh, who am I kidding? I'd love to see any Ronald Searle original art.

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Wednesday, August 9, 2023

Best Copy: Ralph Steadman's Animal Farm by George Orwell

Ralph Steadman, who can illustrate damn near anything, created a pictorial edition of George Orwell's Animal Farm in 1995 to celebrate the book's fiftieth anniversary. In June, Peter Harrington of London offered a signed and dated copy of the reissued classic with an original sketch of an Orwellian oinker. It is not signed to anyone in particular. The volume has subsequently been sold for somewhere in the neighborhood of 980 GBP.

Ralph Steadman

https://www.abebooks.com/signed-first-edition/Animal-Farm-Fairy-Story-STEADMAN-Ralph/31525122365/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=readmore_high

Note: To be clear, there's nothing remotely scientific about my new term Best Copy; it's completely subjective. This is indeed the best copy of Animal Farm I've come across, but I'm hardly familiar with what else might be out there. If readers wish to submit copies of Ralph Steadman's Animal Farm that are as good as or better than the one here, I'll entertain posting them.

August 10, 2023 Update: Right out of the gate, contributor Scott Burns produces an even more superior pig. I mean, all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Image courtesy Scott Burns

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Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Ronald Searle: Idyll

Ronald Searle's Idyll (1973) is a sweet yet somewhat mystifying evocation of spring. His cats were generally popular and, to his frustration, sold lithographs far better than did his non-feline satirical work. Here one of his delightful cats prances about outdoors piping music. Add to that a few dozen unappreciative birds, many of them nesting, and a single reticent pig, and you have—just what, exactly? You have an idyll without an audience.