What A New Yorker Rejection Slip Looks Like (In Case You Didn't Already Get One, or Thirty)

I did not get thirty, or hundreds, like some aspiring New Yorker cartoonists. I only got the one. 

And I deserved it because I sent in some sub-par stuff. Which I knew at the time was sub-par. 

So why send it? To just get the mental ordeal over wit of making the attempt. It was something I was only half-hearted about doing, because I don't see myself as a New Yorker cartoonist (and neither do most other folks). I actually think 90% of their "modern" cartooning -- pretty much anything past the golden era featured in all those coverless hardcover books you find in thrift shops -- is reprehensible. Blithe, glib, pithy upper-class Manhattan sitcom observations with mostly forgettable artwork. many of them work without the art, most of them don't make me laugh. So why aspire? For the money, of course. And the credit. 

But you don't get either if you half-ass it. And even if you do half-ass it, you're supposed to keep half-assing it and keep sending in cartoons for a long time until you either quit or, uh, full-ass it. One day you might score with a wine gag, or two white people in an apartment the cartoonist can't afford discussing some aspect of current youth culture they find silly. ha ha, I'm being mean. Sorry.

You read about cartoonists who have kept sending material in, gathering enough rejection slips to paper the rooms. I am a coward and a wastrel, and I just wanted to get the endeavor over and done with because something inside my brain was urging me to try. I was relieved when I got the rejection slip, it was over, and done. I sent a lot of stuff to Nickelodeon and MAD, most or much of which was rejected. Bt I felt like I was in my lane, my neighborhood. I'm not a super mature person, I'm not clever or brilliant or knowing enough or facile on that kind of level. I'm funny, or at least, I've been told I'm funny. And I do midbrow and lowbrow. I yam what I yam. Sometimes I'm okay with that, but, unfortunately, I'm smart enough to wish I was smarter than I actually am.  

Sending stuff to The New Yorker was like my asking Michele Graziano out in high school. The only girl I asked out in high school, by the way. I absolutely knew I was out of my league, but I couldn't move on until I got that mental rock out of my shoe. Michele was very kind about it as she got the flamethrower out.  Which was okay, even if, at the time I thought I was melting in hot shame. But I walked in looking to get shot. I just needed to move on. Same as with the one New Yorker submission. 

There were ten cartoons in my submission. I don't think I even tried to reformat any of them for MAD or for Dork. So, yeah, I'm not sure I learned anything or had an epiphany but it allowed me to move forward and worry about more realistic things. I did the same exact thing on two other occasions in my life. The first time was when my mother pushed me to apply to Cooper Union, which required me to send in a portfolio of drawings. I did not want to go to Cooper Union. I was not good enough to get into Cooper Union. I sent some bad drawings in to get my mother off my back. Totally half-assed it. Maybe even third-assed it.

The second time I readily walked into a fire after dousing myself with gasoline also involved the family. My grandfather ended up meeting some close relative of Jeffrey Katzenberg in whatever goddamned Florida retirement community they were in or something like that. And they got to know one another a bit. And my grandfather mentions that his grandson draws and likes animation (he would have not used the word "animation", he might have said "the cartoons" and/or "the funnies") and Katzenberg is at Disney and one thing leads to another and oh, god, grandpa shut up, shut up, no, I don't want to work at Disney I'm no longer interested in that kind of animation and I want to do comics and I also am not a good enough draftsman for animation work of that sort and oh god please don't mention this to my mother and oh goddamn shit I'm pressured into making up a portfolio to send to Jeffrey Katzenfuckingberg. I sort of tried a little on this one, in case an inebriated blind executive at Disney might be handed my artwork and drunkenly rubber stamp me in for the training program. Someone in the office replied that I should continue to pursue my comic book interests, which was a very polite way to reject my weak artwork. I may have three-quarters-assed it, but it wouldn't have been good enough if I twice-assed it. Or thrice assed-it, even.

I'm not beating myself up unnecessarily here, by the way. My drawing ability was simply way behind where it should have been at the time I sent in either portfolio. I would never have submitted a thing except it got people who didn't really understand how things work off my back. Just because you draw doesn't mean you can fit any slot in 'art". But, whatever.  I wasn't mature enough, I was scared, and even more importantly, I didn't have the chops.  

Anyway, back to typing about The New Yorker. As usual, this was supposed to be a quick post, but, as usual, it's gone out of control.  This is also why I'll never be a radio deejay or the like. Blather, blather, rinse and repeat. 

So. Yeah. New Yorker stuff. 

I've met folks who would go up to the weekly New Yorker gathering where cartoonists would pitch stuff and critique and wish one another dead and cry and faint or whatever, I think that's how it went. I also know someone who has done pretty well and placed a lot of cartoons there over the years, who kindly offered to take me up to one of the meetings. But I couldn't do it. Too nervous, too self-conscious, too anxious and scared. It's why I was a chattering wreck the few times I was in the writing room on Space Ghost in Atlanta. I am not built for it. I either ramble, or fuck up a joke, or do something rude. At least back then. I'd try harder, now, for my therapist if nothing else. Ha ha. 

An aside: the New Yorker cartoon idea that I remember thinking was actually good was the one about The New Yorker, which would feature a cartoonist in the cartoon editor's office. Editor says, "I'm sorry, but we've already done a cartoon with a black person in it". Or something like that. I didn't send that one. I'm not nuts. But I have a real problem with that sort of thing. Biting the hand that feeds me, or barely feeds me, or doesn't feed me. That's on me, I know. But the first thing I think about is the institution or situation in question, and then my head goes where it goes and I come up with a joke that attacks me and/or my benefactors. 

Or I'm unable to come up with something that I can take the teeth out of, or dial down. I believe satire should be sharp, not dull. I generally like to attack the subject at hand, not chide it or elbow it in the ribs. I rarely sold any writing to MAD, partly because I couldn't adjust my approach. I couldn't water down the better, "meaner" ideas, I couldn't come up with just the right, acceptable level of snark. Very few of my rejected MAD gags were worth recycling for Dork. Which says something. I self-edited too much, or went for the throat too hard on a subject that had an expiration date. Or I just wasn't doing a good job of being funny, there's always that possibility. Let's be fair and honest. Sometimes you just suck. Or you half-ass it. 

Of course there are things I like at The New Yorker, although I haven't paid any attention in a while.  These are zombie years, forgive me. Also, I'm a grumpy little philistine. Roz Chast is and always has been swell. And continues to be swell, last I checked. Maybe she's tweeted some horrorshow stuff about minorities, I hope not. But I'm not a New Yorker cartoonist, or reader. Despite how cheap the subscription offers get, I know they'd sit and get recycled after I frown at the cartoons and, like very, very many other people, think to myself that "I can do better than that!". But, actually, I can't. Not for that magazine, and not the way I think and do and approach life. There are so many reasons someone is in a spot and you're not. A lot of it has to do with "you". 

It's not sour grapes, honest. I'm being snarky and making jokes, but let's be honest. I have hungry freelancing eyes and a fragile ego and a lot of ideas, like many people. I can't do everything, succeed in every area, put my foot inside every door. The desire is there, but not the fire. I don't want it that badly. Obviously. I've succumbed to fear and uncertainty often in my life, but I pushed through it enough to be doing what I do. I can't draw Beasts of Burden, I wasn't comfortable trying to write Black Panther 2099, I've always shied away from writing mainstream superhero stuff that "mattered".  Sometimes it's anxiety, sometimes it's knowing my limits and what to put my time and effort into. 

I'm a MAD cartoonist (or, was). And I didn't laugh at 90% of MAD material, either. Including things I was paid to draw. And I'm sure a lot of people didn't find my own contributions funny. Ultimately, that's the way it goes with humor, whatever the market or audience. Every once in a while I come up with something that I think could possibly -- just possibly mind you -- pass muster with The New Yorker. But I don't act on it. They're definitely good enough for Dork, and the Patreon. I think they're funny, and maybe even a bit clever (gasp). Maybe I'll let you know which ones those are when I get around to drawing them. 

Maybe. 

Now I'm second-guessing them.

It's a funny thing, trying to be funny.