DownWithTyranny!: "No cliché is an island," says "New Yorker" cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, and he reports on his cliché challenge to readers

"Relax, honey -- change is good."

by Ken

Last week New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, in the newsletter-blogpost "No Cliché Is an Island," issued a challenge to readers, having to do with clichés in cartoons. He had been set off by a blogpost by Teju Cole, "In Place of Thought," which bemoaned "too many standard formulations in our language" that "stand in place of thought" yet are proclaimed "due to laziness, prejudice, or hypocrisy -- as though they were fresh insight."

"Cole's statement resonates with me," Bob wrote, "being a lazy, prejudiced hypocrite."

Yet, for me, the best examples of sloppy thinking are not those that Cole imaginatively conjures but those standard formulations known as clichés such as “Change is good” or “Go with the flow” or “Think outside the box.”

For a cartoonist, thought doesn’t die with clichés; instead, they’re opportunities to deconstruct thought and reconstruct it as a joke.

And Bob generously offered three specimens of his own creation -- the one at the top of this post and these two:

"You and your 'go with the flow.' "

"I'll start thinking outside the box
when the box is empty."

Bob proceeded to rattle off a laundry list of "clichés that New Yorker cartoonists have used for the same purpose":

* "Long story short"
* "You can't legislate morality"
* "A word to the wise"
* "No man is an island"
* "Playing hardball"
* "It's not all peaches and cream”
* and a whole bunch more

Bob wasn't fooling around; he had a slide show at the ready to back him up -- 22 cartoons in all which "send up these phrases." Before the reader headed off for the slide show, however, Bob issued his challenge:

Put your humor hats on and see if you can think of a cartoon in which one or more of these phrases works as the caption. [You'll find the complete list in Bob's original post.] When you’re done, send your best idea to newyorkercartoon@gmail.com and I’ll have the best one drawn up for next week’s newsletter.

Now we have "No Cliché Is an Island: The Sequel." And Bob appears to be kind of grumpy.

Well, it turns out that many of you rose to meet my cliché challenge and gave a hundred and ten per cent. The challenge, you'll recall, was to offer a cartoon scenario for which a cliché could serve as the punch line. That task proved to be a tough row to hoe. Perhaps you put your noses too close to the grindstone, or maybe being babes in the woods at this sort of thing, you couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

Part of the problem was that the cliché cartoons of The New Yorker cast a long shadow over the contest. For example, Garret Green sent an okay-but-sort-of-gruesome suggestion for a prison scene in which an "inmate is getting a lethal injection by a guard who happily says to another guard: 'Yep, do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.' " That entry brought to mind this superior cartoon by Mike Twohy:

"I'll quit when it stops being fun."

At this point Bob puts on his cartoon perfessor's hat and offers four pieces of what he considers constructive criticism, each illustrated by a submission that triggered the criticism. You can read those onsite. We're going to cut to the chase. The premise, you'll recall, was that Bob was going to pick the best idea submission and "have it drawn for next week's newsletter."

I guess plans change. Bob -- after "taking cheap shots, beating a dead horse, cursing the darkness rather than lighting a candle" -- owns up that the ball is in his court to pick the suggestion to be cartoonified. And he punts, declaring, "Right back at ya, dear readers!" Instead, he serves up "three finalists to choose from":

A. The scene is the three wise men arriving with their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The shepherd whispers to them: "A word to the wise: think gift card next time."

B. A woman is talking to her husband and saying, "So, short story long."

C. One guy says to another at an anti-gun rally in which a dog is marching "That dog won't hunt." [As Bob notes, in his constructive criticisms he has already criticized this idea for violating the principle, "In a cartoon with a caption, someone has to be speaking."]

Readers are invited to make our choice by filling out a survey, for which we will need a password. It's "cliche."

As if that weren't a gross enough abdication of responsibility, Bob has the temerity to cadge a favor: our online approval votes for a talk of his. Well, if that's the way he's going to ask, I'm going to answer: No, sir, I don't think so. But don't let me deprive you of making your own choice. I'll just leave this between you and your conscience.