March Update: New Yorker Centoonial

The biggest news last month was my trip to New York. It was the 100th anniversary of the New Yorker. There are so many cartoonists these days, and I assume shrinking magazines means shrinking budgets for parties, so most of us weren’t invited to any kind of official New Yorker Parties. So some of the cartoonists took it upon themselves to organize an unofficial party. I flew into New York and so did many other cartoonists from as far as Texas and even England! 

We started the day at L’Alliance where they had a show of New Yorker cover paintings and drawings. It was so cool to see the actual paintings and drawings in person that I had previously seen on the cover. Man, it made me really want to paint and draw on paper. 

We all got name tags and spent as much time introducing ourselves to each other as we did looking at the art. It was so cool to meet some of these people that I have only known through their cartoons or through social media. Next we headed over to the Society of Illustrators which had a show of New Yorker cartoons, like the actual, physical drawings on paper. Again, it was amazing to see some of these drawings in person, cartoons that I know and love that I’ve only seen in print or online. Again there was more socializing with the other cartoonists. 

One cartoon that really stood out to me was an original drawing by Barbara Shermund from the early days of the magazine. It was big, at least compared to the size that I draw. I’ve been reading the recently published book about her, so it was cool to see that drawing in person.

My wife was with me on the trip and we ended up sort of buddying up with Sam Hurt, the cartoonist from Austin, Texas, and we followed him and his friend on a scenic route to the next stop. We marveled at architecture and went through Grand Central Terminal, which I had never been in before, and eventually found our way to the New York Public Library which had another show about the history of the New Yorker with all kinds of artifacts. Again, it was a great show, but it was pretty packed with people and by that time I was pretty tired. My wife and I headed back to the hotel and rested for a bit before heading to the main event that night, a fancy party with probably something like 100 New Yorker cartoonists in attendance.

Where do I even begin? I met so many people. I talked to Liza Donnelly. Amazing! I talked to Michael Maslin. Amazing! He actually chatted with me a good bit and was just a really sweet guy. I talked to David Sipress. Amazing! I mean he is just one of the funniest cartoonists, and he was so nice to talk to. After chatting he came back up to me a little later on and said something like, “hey, I just realized you did that Elon Musk cartoon. I really liked that one.” Holy shit. David Sipress told me in person that he liked one of my cartoons. Wow.