You'll never guess who drew tonight's first cartoon -- but you can't possibly miss the second

"I forgot my skates."

by Ken

I don't know about you, but I think this cartoon is pretty darned funny. Oh, it took me a moment. At first it seemed too ridiculously obvious to be even amusing, and then the preposterousness sank in, and the damned thing has lodged in my brain.

However, I have to agree with New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff -- in his latest newsletter-blogpost, "Funny Little Things" -- that there's not a chance in hell I would have guessed who created this cartoon, even though it's the New Yorker debut offering of a cartoonist whose name I dare say is a household word. And even with a hint that broad, I wonder if you can guess. As a matter of fact, I'm not going to tell you. You'll have to get the information from Bob's post. If you're not astounded, I will be.

"Funny Little Things" is the latest in Bob's sensational series devoted to the first New Yorker sales of some now-iconic cartoonists who were brought on board by his predecessor, Lee Lorenz, in the '70s. Two weeks ago I wrote about the post devoted to Jack Ziegler ("The Journey of a Thousand Cartoons"), and referred back to the one devoted to Mick Stevens ("It's Nacht Just Musik"). Last week it was the turn of Michael Maslin. (Bob told his own "first cartoon" story in September 2010.)

To get back to this week's post: As a matter of fact, Bob doesn't say "there's not a chance in hell" that we might guess the identity of Cartoonist A. What he says is: "I’d bet my last chent that you’re as likely to guess [name deleted] as to find a bie hanging out with a sood."

Um, Bob?

He explains, sort of: "Chent? Bie? Sood? Have I lost my mind? Perhaps. Or maybe I’m just put in mind of --" and he proceeds to identify the creator of this cartoon, published on July 3, 1978. I'm not going to give you the name just yet. Shockingly, I've gone so far as to snip off the signature at the bottom. I guess it's true that, as Bob notes, this cartoon isn't in the style with which its creator would come to be identified, but its authorship seems to me pretty hard to mistake.


And here's the story that goes with it. The story gives me goose bumps, perhaps because it chronicles the dawn of the career of an artist of whose genius I'm in complete and utter awe.

I remember the first time I sold a cartoon to The New Yorker very clearly. It happened in April of 1978. Since graduating from college, in May of 1977, I had been taking an illustration portfolio around to various magazines. I had been doing cartoons on and off since I was a kid, but didn't think that anyone would like them, because they were very personal and peculiar. I thought I would have better luck with illustration. I sold a couple of illustrations, but at a certain point, I thought: this isn't really so great, so I might as well try doing what I want to do -- cartoons.

My parents were longtime subscribers to The New Yorker, so I knew that the magazine used cartoons. I didn't know anything else, like names of editors, how one submitted cartoons, or how many to submit. I called up the offices to find out when their drop-off day was. It was Wednesday. I got together a large number of cartoons -- I'm guessing around fifty or sixty -- and put them in one of those brown envelopes, the kind with the elastic band around it. I didn't have any expectations whatsoever of selling a cartoon. I dropped my cartoons off at the transom.

When I came back for my portfolio the next week, there was a note inside that I couldn't read. I asked the somewhat alarming red-haired lady who sat at the transom desk to translate. It said, "Please see me. Lee." I asked who Lee was. She said he was Lee Lorenz, the art editor, and buzzed me in. I walked down a hallway to his office, where I have a vague memory of a lot of old guys standing around. I was very, very, very, very anxious. I went in to see Lee, and he told me that they were buying a cartoon. I was pretty flabbergasted. The drawing was, in many ways, the most peculiar and personal of the lot: Little Things.

I think I was too shocked to show any emotions on the surface. Lee asked me if I was glad, and I said yes. We talked a little while, I can't remember about what. Here's a horrible memory: after they bought this one, I actually asked him if he would like to take another look at the huge pile of cartoons I'd submitted, if perhaps there was another one in there that he had missed. Cringe-o-rama. He kind of laughed. He told me to keep coming back every week, and explained a little how it worked. That's what I've been doing ever since, more or less.

Bob adds this P.S.: "Roz has now published twelve hundred and two cartoons and fifteen covers. Little things have turned out to mean quite a lot." ("Roz" is the incomparable Roz Chast, of course.)

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