tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26410466.post2204953405276954275..comments2023-10-12T03:49:21.321-06:00Comments on Insomnia Notebook: Hard drive in my head filling upPostinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853607848670921106noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26410466.post-72915879318035723382015-09-27T22:44:35.984-06:002015-09-27T22:44:35.984-06:00Kirk, I agree. Addams would have done a great job ...Kirk, I agree. Addams would have done a great job in making the cartoon very dark, but funny. In its own way, I think this joke is pretty good, and I admire Crawford (if he wrote his own caption, and I'm assuming he did) that he could take a pretty straight illustration and caption it in such a humorous way. I also like his drawing.<br /><br />Like you, I have heard that some New Yorker cartoonists used writers. Peter Arno used jokes from other people. I also remember reading that Carl Rose, an excellent illustrator and cartoonist, came in with a cartoon that the editor thought was too well drawn, so he paid Rose for the joke and handed the art chores to James Thurber. It is the famous drawing of a sword fight, where one man has sliced another man's head off, and is shouting "Touché!" Thurber's crude yet appealing cartooning style mitigated the gruesome joke.<br /><br />Postinohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05853607848670921106noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26410466.post-5606222390486084672015-09-27T13:28:35.806-06:002015-09-27T13:28:35.806-06:00I don't know if it's still the case, but a...I don't know if it's still the case, but at one time The New Yorker had writers other than the cartoonists themselves come up with many of the captions. Not every cartoon, and if the artist could think of a good joke on their own, that was great (as it meant only paying one person) but if someone had a unique style but wasn't all that funny, or they were usually funny but maybe going through a dry spell, then the magazine would assign a collaborator. Even Charles Addams, who comedic style would seem to have been uniquely his own, occasionally had captions written by others. I bring all this up because you got me wondering now if it's the cartoonist who knew about the 64-year old magazine cover, or some writer who would have had to then bring the cover to the cartoonist's attention. Even though this particular cartoon has everything in place, it lacks the overall luridness of the cover, as if the cartoonist didn't necessarily get the joke he had to illustrate. <br /><br />Imagine if Addams were still alive. That cartoon would have been right up his alley.Kirkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02155991693956178030noreply@blogger.com