A cartoonists' eye view of 2016: great moments from the "New Yorker" "Daily Cartoon's"

"I blame the media."

by Ken

"It's definitely been one year," concedes The New Yorker's Colin Stokes as he looks back on 2016 in introducting "2016: The Year in Cartoons, a slide show drawn not from the heap of cartoons published in the magazine but from the website's "Daily Cartoon" blog, for which, on a rotating basis, stalwarts from the magazine's Cartoon Corps stand watch over the cartoonable universe, "getting up every day, " notes Colin, "reading the news, and forming it into a cartoon." It has to be, you would think, a markedly different process from their normal creative process, knowing that each day during their watch they have to come up with something worthy of blogposting.

If I recall correctly, David Sipress -- one of the current elite members of the New Yorker cartoon fraternity -- was the first Daily Cartoonist, and the medium seems to suit him; he seems to jump into the rotation considerably more frequently than any of his colleagues and to have no trouble producing at top quality on demand. So it's probably not surprising that as I went through the couple of dozen cartoons in the slide show, pulling out the ones I really liked, David S was heavily represented -- starting with the specimen I've placed atop this post, my favorite of the bunch.

As for the rest, maybe if I really thought about it I could make some useful groupings of the cartoons I plucked out, or then again maybe not. I didn't try. I've just grouped them by creator. I don't know that this is an especially representative sampling of what was on the Daily Cartoonists' minds, but then again, I don't know that it isn't. I know that these specimens all gave me a hearty charge.


DAVID SIPRESS

“Mr. Trump said on Friday that Hillary Clinton started the birther theory. He also said that she came up with Trump Vodka and founded Trump University.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s against my religion to serve middle-aged, heterosexual couples with matching Shih Tzus, wearing skinny jeans and Uggs, and camo shorts and God-themed T-shirts.”

“The crowd goes crazy when I mention waterboarding. So what about the rack? The rack is terrific. Or that thing where they squeeze you into a tiny cage filled with spikes? That’s also terrific.”

“You know what I think was the problem
all along? The exclamation point.”

“I had a dream last night that Planned Parenthood did something new and horrible to a fetus! We need to launch an immediate congressional investigation.”

KIM WARP

“I do plenty -- that meme I posted on Facebook
will go a long way toward healing the nation.”

“The British are leaving, the British are leaving!”

“But if Trump surrounds himself with non-idiots,
it won’t matter so much that he is an idiot.”

EMILY FLAKE

“Oh, look—he must be from one of those fake-news outlets.”

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