Emdashes. Modern Times Between the Lines.
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
A Web Comic: The Wavy Rule
Before it moved to The New Yorker:
Ask the Librarians archive
About Emdashes | Email us
Features & Columns:
Headline Shooter
On the Spot
Looked Into
Sempé Fi: Cover Art
Sempé Fi: Turkey Run
Filed under: Sempé Fi Tagged: art, covers, Emily Coates, George Booth, Michael Quinion, Pollux, Thanksgiving, turkey, words
Pollux writes:
The November 30, 2009 cover of The New Yorker gives us the traditional Thanksgiving images of Pilgrim and Turkey. However, in the hands of an experienced artists like George Booth, the relationship between Pilgrim and Turkey is turned upside-down. Booth gives us a “Thanksgiving Skedaddle.”
Booth’s executioner is not the hale and hearty pilgrim he used to be. He cuts a pathetic figure, his shirt flapping in the wind, his belly button exposed. The old pilgrim is skedaddling and skedaddling as fast as he can.
The angry turkey has overpowered him. It displays its colorful feathers in an angry ruffle that dominates the cover. The bird’s cruel talons cut through the November air like corn threshers. They near their target.
It must have been a sudden coup. Perhaps the turkey remained quiet and cooperative until it rested its head on the chopping block, waited until the pilgrim raised his axe, and then -a sudden explosion of anger and rebellion. The pilgrim’s axe still spins in the air.
George Booth creates the illusion of rapid and sudden movement with his combination of narrow, black brushstrokes and wider, colored ones that capture the chaos of angry bird chasing surprised man. Splashes of imperfect spots and lines add to the chaos in this scene. (The word “skedaddle” may in fact derive, according to this piece by word expert Michael Quinion, from the Scots skiddle, meaning to splash water about or spill.)
Instead of a genteel, calm scene of Thanksgiving splendor, Booth gives us humor in a scene in which the Thanksgiving tables are turned. As Emily Coates points out in her article on New Yorker cartoonists, “chaos typically reigns in a Booth cartoon. Auto body shops, junkyards and shanty interiors establish the ambiance. Cats and dogs hang about. Characters squabble.”
Coates’ article also points out that Booth is part of an older guard of New Yorker cartoonists whose work appears less often in recent years. Nevertheless, Booth’s brush still wields enormous power to amuse and entertain. His work remains funny, effective, and interesting. I give thanks for Booth.
About us
Hello! We're a small band of media enthusiasts, culture addicts, and journalists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, formerly a New Yorker fan site, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, politics, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
You'd like to know more about the writers and artists and what our column titles mean? We live to serve!
We welcome tips, questions, comments, and corrections, and are always on the lookout for ardent, obsessive new contributors. Click here to email us.
We host occasional book giveaways. Publishers, please email us for our postal address.
Tell me more
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
- Writing on theater: reviews (for Time Out Chicago; imperfect but workable search results)
- 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)
Blogroll highlights
- Box Office Boffo
- World of Pollux
- Jonathan Taylor
- Carolita Johnson
- Songs for blogroll lovers (more links)
- Follow us on Twitter
- Befriend us on Facebook
- Get a t-shirt at the Emdashes store
No fear
Everything you tell or send us is off the record unless we ask for your permission to use it.