New Yorker cartoons

In the main, I don’t get those ostensibly famous and clever cartoons from the New Yorker. I’m probably not sophisticated enough.

But, that said, I treasure the magazine. I believe editor David Remnick walks on journalistic water. 

But when it comes to the cartoons, I suppose I’m in the minority with Elaine Benes, who didn’t get them either. 

Case in point:

   

Okay, I “get” most of them.

They’re just rarely that funny.

I guess it’s one of those culturally divisive markers:

Beatles v Stones

Saving Private Ryan v Thin Red Line

New Yorker cartoons v Wondermark or Ted Rall.

I suppose humour is culpably subjective, and rather particular.  

Case in point: 

When Christopher Hitchens — who’s no slouch in the wit department himself (except when he’s on Islamic themes) — calls Sarah Silverman “a culpably unfunny person.”

I do find Sarah Silverman funny… most of the time. Perhaps she tries too hard at times, working the gross-out factor too hard… but she is funny.  (Then again, my wife Lori doesn’t think Silverman’s funny either. Maybe she’s plotting with Hitchens? In that case, the battle lines are drawn…) 

Okay, so, Hitchens might have been right about Sarah Silverman’s MTV crack about Paris Hilton/special treatment in jail/penis-shaped bars/chipping teeth. It was too easy — like kicking cripples. Gratuitous — and therefore less funny.

But she is good on other counts:

But, I digress… 

About New Yorker cartoons… 

And here’s a tie-in to Hitchens… 

This one is somewhat amusing:

But, for those in the Elaine Benes minority, I can only commend you to the long-forgotten Neue Yolker cartoons, which also have a long — if neglected — tradition.

Search around or keep your eyes peeled. Neue Yolker cartoons were like New Yorker cartoons, only that the former had soul:

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