The New Yorker magazine celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. At Wit’s End is perfectly timed to showcase cartoonists and cartoons that have been a consistent part of the magazine since its inception. Wit’s End is a truly fun book and one that diverts from books many of us typically read. The New Yorker has provided readers with hundreds of thousands of cartoons from over 700 cartoonists that delight, capture, and depict the happenings of the time. Whether pop culture, politics, or other, The New Yorker cartoonists drill into topics of the day with skilled artwork and clever captions. With or without captions, cartoonists tell stories within the art of a single-frame cartoon.
It might be that I’ve been a decades long subscriber to The New Yorker magazine for its cartoons and covers. And that may be why I had to get a copy of At Wit’s End after reading a review. Every once in a while, it is fun to spend time with a book that amuses and fascinates. I found that in this book.
In At Wit’s End, Michael Maslin, a cartoonist himself, profiles 50 some of The New Yorker cartoonists selected from the hundreds whose cartoons have been published in the magazine over the past century. Some of the cartoonists have been contributors over many decades and some are newer and more recent magazine cartoon contributors. Ed Koren, for one, is among just a couple of dozen who have sold more than two thousand drawings. A typical reader likely knows little about the cartoonist but will readily recognize their style. That’s why it is a joy to learn about the cartoonist behind the cartoon aptly profiled by Maslin. The cartoonists are uniquely creative with atypical personalities, even eccentric perhaps.
The cartoonist profiles are complemented with Alen MacWeeney’s photographs and a sampling of single-panel cartoons depicting the cartoonist’s style. The New Yorker readers no doubt have their favorite cartoonists. Mine include George Booth, Charles Addams, William Steig, David Sipress, James Thurber, and Robert Mankoff (The New Yorker cartoon editor for over two decades), and there are many more. For the record, mentionable are a couple of well-known cartoon captions – Peter Steiner’s “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” and Bob Mankoff’s “No, Thursday’s out. How about never – is never good for you?”
From 1997-2012 The New Yorker published an annual Cartoon issue. The magazine’s Cartoon Caption Contest began in the 1998 Cartoon issue and has continued as a weekly feature since 2005. The feature, near the back pages of the issue, includes the new contest cartoon, three finalists, and the winning caption.
Cartoonist Michael Maslin is a notable writer as well and whose Ink Spill Blog is “The go-to chronicle of all things New Yorker cartoon.” Photographer Alen MacWeeney is an internationally celebrated photographer whose photographs accompany cartoonist profiles in At Wit’s End.
MacWeeney, Alen, and Maslin, Michael, Alen. At Wit’s End: Cartoonists of The New Yorker. Clarkson Potter, 2024.
