Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I think unique is what they're looking for, Scott. They don't need
another Chast, Koren, Gross, etc., because they've already got 'em.
And I would be surprised if anyone was asked to simplify their
style. Where the "old" New Yorker cartoon style was a product of the
nineteenth century illustrative esthetic, the "new" New Yorker style
is definitely less ornate – whether the artist went to art school
(as many did) or not. 
  

    
Yes, today the Kindle edition of my book is a mere $1.99. As my
friend David Shenk commented on FB, "Dammit, i knew I paid too much
for mine. As I was reading it, I was thinking, 'there's no way all
this research and hard work and travel and intelligence and
cleverness is worth more than $1.99.'" So welcome to the brave new
world where Jeff Bezos gets to decide how much a book – indeed,
nearly every book – is worth. Not much, apparently. 

But buy it quick, because it goes back up to a whopping five bucks
tomorrow! 
  

    
And, no, I had no say in pricing whatsoever. Amazon's New Harvest
published the book, so pricing (or lack thereof?) was among the
compromises I had to make to work with the editor – the awesome Ed
Park – I wanted to work with. 
  

    
And, since royalties are determined by the cover price, you take a
hit. Wonderful. 

Did you get a sense of what the New Yorker's art director, Francoise
Mouly, is like in parts of your conversations with these artists
that didn't make the page? Did any of them have a view on the R.
Crumb controversy, where he up and quit a very nice showcase for his
work?
  

    
Well,  the price drop worked. I bought it for $1.99, so you made a
few cents you might not have made otherwise. 
  

    
um, what was the r.crumb controversy?
  

    
Is this it?

<http://boingboing.net/2011/11/12/robert-crumbs-rejected-new-y.html>
  

    
richard, what was it liked to work with ed park? i liked the one novel of
his that i read...
  

    
Yeah, <frako>, that was it.
  

    
Ed, I believe they base advance recuperation and such on the cover
price(s), so no matter how much they discount it, I still make the
same royalty, should there ever be such. And their electronic
royalty rate is more generous than most.

Françoise Mouly, who I respect deeply, has nothing to do with the
cartoons, so far as I know. It's all Bob Mankoff's bailiwick, with
David Remnick getting the final word. Word is that Remnick doesn't
have the world's best sense of humor, which I believe. And if you've
ever seen him cringe his way through the Jimmy Fallon show's awful
reenactments of TNY cartoons...oy gevalt!
  

    
Ed Park used to be my editor when I wrote a lot for the Village
Voice's books section. So we go back a million years. I love Ed's
writing - both fiction and non – and was delighted when he moved
from Amazon to Penguin a few months ago, thankfully after "I Only
Read It..." hit the streets. I thought the New York Times'
announcement of Ed's departure was a thinly disguised slap at Jeff
Bezos. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/08/business/media/a-major-setback-for-amazons-p
ublishing-unit.html?_r=0

And Ed recently got a two-book deal somewhere, so he's running on
all cylinders these days as far as I can tell. 

As far as editing went, he nudged me in the right direction when
necessary without any major surgery deemed necessary. I'd work with
him again in a second.
  

    
Okay, here's a kind of st00pid question, modified slightly to make
it about 2% less st00pid. 

What are your five favorite New Yorker cartoons? And why? (Hey, I
coulda said one...)
  

    
Heh. The question could be, instead, favorite new yorker cartoons by
decade, which might make it easier.
  

    
While we're talking about Punch : my grandmother (in the late 50's)
had bound editions going back ... forever. I think I read all the
cartoons. (And prepared me for an appreciation of MAD, which my
father bought for us).  It was a tiny two-street village, so they
probably got thrown out or used for fuel.

I still remember one panel (Dressed-up woman talking to tinker in
the street, who's working on some large pots)

W: Are you copper-bottoming, them, my man?
M: No, I'm Aluminiuming 'em, mum

Must have been about the time Aluminum was just coming into
commercial use.

I didn't encounter The New Yorker until I moved to the US and
started transatlantic commuting --- mid 70's when flying on 747's
was still exciting. Back in the days when they still had a rack of
good magazines at the front of coach (now steerage), including Punch
and The New Yorker.  I couldn't make head or tail of the latter.

But then as I got more immersed in current US culture, and less in
UK, I gradually transitioned to understanding the New Yorker and
being bewildered by Punch.

ps I just met a cute girl about my age ... why was an air hostess on
World Two, possibly passing me in Pan Am One in the mid-atlantic.

pps As discussed elsewhere on the well, Sky Mall has gone too.
Killed by mobile online ordering.
  

    
Five favorites? Surely you jest.

Oh, OK, I'll play along.

1. My favorite *type* of cartoon (yes, it's a cliché) are the Grim
Reapers. And my favorite Grim Reaper cartoon is the David Sipress
panel where the GR sez to the guy at his apartment door: "Don't
freak out – it's just a save-the-date." I think I like it because
it's about the funniest thing in the world – you know, death – and
it includes notes of vanity and fake modern politesse and shit. But
mostly I like it because it makes me laugh every time I think about
it.

http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Don-t-freak-out-it-s-just-a-save-the-date-Ne
w-Yorker-Cartoon-Prints_i8476088_.htm

2. Ed Steed, as I've mentioned already, is my latest fave rave. And
this wordless variation on the desert-island cliché is like Sartre's
"Being and Nothingness" and every self-help book in the world rolled
into one. It has levels of profundity I couldn't even begin to
parse. And like every other Steed cartoon, it takes your eye on a
little adventure while being much less than obvious at first glance.
He's the best.

http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/A-man-on-a-raft-paddles-away-from-a-desert-i
sland-with-a-tree-stump-and-p-New-Yorker-Cartoon-Prints_i11952132_.htm

3. James Thurber was the first not-good artist to make it into The
New Yorker. But of course he was actually a pretty great artist. And
the little man cowering in front of the house-woman is about as
iconic as a cartoon gets. I like the Thurber cartoon with the woman
scowling from atop the bookshelf almost as much. "That's my first
wife up there, and this is the *present* Mrs. Harris."

http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/House-and-Woman-New-Yorker-Cartoon-Prints_i1
2839201_.htm

4. The Peter Arno cartoon that coined the phrase "Well, back to the
old drawing board" is like a movie in a panel. Or maybe it's more
like a ballet in the way it choreographs your eye movements, first
toward the plane and then back to the sardonically smiling engineer.
Arno didn't write the gag, and the  name of the guy who did escapes
me. At a panel I moderated a few weeks ago, Sam Gross mentioned the
name of the idea man and Lee Lorenz looked at him askance and asked,
"He did? How do you know?" Gross said, "He told me."

http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Well-back-to-the-old-drawing-board-New-Yorke
r-Cartoon-Prints_i8619153_.htm

5. Any Steinberg cartoon.
  

    
What are yours?
  

    
Directed to all of us? (I hope not just to me!)
  

    
Steinbeck cover of the USA seen from NY. 
Nobody knows you're a dog on the Internet. 
Anything by Rob Coast. 
  

    
My favorite cartoon was from either Playboy or Penthouse (hey, I read it 
for the cartoons!)  I think it was S.Gross, or one of the other New Yorker 
cartoonists though.  (Slumming I guess)

It's a hippie talking to a nun, and the hippie says, "Yeah, I'm a bit of a 
superior mother myself."  Not out and out funny, but I still remember it!

Which leads me to the question of New Yorker cartoonists not in the New 
Yorker.  It does seem the New Yorker is the holy grail, but there are 
other markets for the rejects.  Whats the difference in pay between New 
Yorker and say Penthouse (or some other lesser magazine) And does the New 
Yorker frown on their artists working in lesser or seedier mags?
  

    
John Glashan (probably from punch)

Man with anarchistic beard destroying a bathroom  with an axe, 
under a sign reading 

"Please leave the bathroom the way you would like to find it."

I have a copy I made for a College Magazine, of which I was the
cartoon editor in about 1964. ( Maybe even the original.) 
  

    
Directed to all. As we know, your favorite New Yorker cartoon
reveals your personality. It's a fact.
  

    
Alan, Punch was always a strange conceptual object hovering in the
distance that I could never get my head around. When I was a kid,
the only person I know who subscribed was a liquor distributor who
lived down the block. He was the father of the neighborhood bully,
Willsie Nelson, who used to pummel me with chestnuts at random. Bad
associations. Although I really, really miss the days when you could
get on a plane with a stack of free magazines. 
  

    
That is not the best association, for sure.

My favorite cartoon (what *does* it say about my personality?) was
from a NY cartoons collection my parents had when I was growing up.
Two ladies in a modern art gallery. Air vent has a sign under it:
"Air vent. Do not admire."

Doesn't appear to be at the cartoon bank, although my search skills
may not be up to the task.
  

    
>>Whats the difference in pay between New 
Yorker and say Penthouse (or some other lesser magazine) And does
the New 
Yorker frown on their artists working in lesser or seedier mags?

Money is a complicated issue at TNY, but a few artists address it in
the book. It used to be a *lot* more complicated when William Shawn
was editor but now it's a matter of contract vs. non-contract
artists. The only real difference is that contract artists get paid
more but have to give TNY a first look at anything they create.
According to Charles Barsotti, however, that's mostly a matter of
common sense, and Bob Mankoff won't get offended it an artist
doesn't show him something created especially for, say, Playboy. 

I believe the pay scale for cartoonists starts at something like
$750 and goes up from there.

Playboy is virtually the country's only other serious outlet for
single-panel cartooning – possibly because Hugh Hefner once fancied
himself a cartoonist and still edited all cartoons as of a couple of
years ago. Penthouse's cartoons used to be horrible, although I
haven't seen the magazine in decades. 
  

    
"I only read it for the cartoons".