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Funniest Cartoon This Week
Filed under: Pick of the Issue Tagged: cartoons, Drew Dernavich, Ed Koren, Jason Patterson, newyorkette, Peter Mueller, Sam Means
“New Cocktails” by Sam Means, p. 84. The Jason Patterson drawing (p. 80), which is strange and spooky, is also good. (Here are all the current cartoons.)
This post to be expanded as I see fit, with my favorite pieces, etc., from last week and what I’m looking forward to reading first this time around. But I can tell you now that my favorite cartoon from last week was Drew Dernavich’s “How were you supposed to know he was the sex critic for the ‘Times’?” I also liked “Mind if I change melons?” (Peter Mueller), “You can’t spend your political life hiding behind being Canadian” (William Haefeli), and “Am I having an affair? Why? Am I allowed?” (Carolita Johnson). Ed Koren, I always like.
By the way, I just opened my email to find that “New Cocktails” is also the magazine’s own Cartoon of the Week, which is a coincidence, but also suggests that everyone can see how funny it is.
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Hello! We're a small band of culture writers, editors, and artists based in New York and Los Angeles. Emdashes, which spent its formative years as a New Yorker fan blog, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Reviews: theater writing (for Time Out Chicago)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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- World of Pollux
- Jonathan Taylor
- Carolita Johnson
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Comments
The deadpan descriptions (“Doorman talking to call girl as he prepares to announce her arrival”) are at least as funny as the cartoons themselves.
My favorite piece in The Media Issue is Ben McGrath’s “It Should Happen To You.” McGrath’s writing has quickness, freshness, fizz! It’s the only piece in that issue that grabbed me. I was surprised when I turned to the “Contributors” page to find he’d been omitted. What, is McGrath not considered a contributor? Is he being taken for granted? I hope not because right now he’s one of the magazine’s hottest writers.