NEW YORKER CARTOONS

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This is a lovely present Leentje got me for Christmas. She knows me too well and my preoccupation with cartoons. Unlike her father, Albert, I can't draw and am reduced to either appreciating the cartoons of others or messing around on Photoshop to make a point.

I should add that these two volumes weigh a ton, so I am leaving a volume open on a stand to flick through a few more pages from time to time.

My intention is to share some of the cartoons that I most appreciate here with you as I read the volumes. As I don't want this post to be too long I'll have to be extra selective and just include the crème de la crème.

"What's the next best medicine?"

I used to be a great fan of the Readers' Digest when I was young and they had a cartoon/joke section entitled "Laughter is the best Medicine". It's actually true and I have never forgotten it.

Speaking as a photographer, I think this joke is on the photographer. Love it.

"I'm turning into my mother."

This is a work of genius. I have seen it before but didn't know where it came from. A moving picture in two dimensions. It reminds me of the EBRD logo competition. Jacques Attali announced the competition for a logo and specified there should be no birds. This was because the French acronym for the Bank is "La Berd" and he foresaw all sort of smart remarks being made about flying on one wing and so on if there was a bird in the logo. Well the entry that won it was simple, two interlocking links in a chain inside a circle representing the globe. In my view, the absolute best of the entries.

But you can never be up to these arty farties. See what you think.

"I'll be damned. It says. 'Cogito ergo sum'".

This from 1958, anticipating AI in a big way, and we're not all the way there yet. Anticipates Arthur Clarke by a decade. "Open the Hatch, HAL!".

"Nice, but we'll need an environmental-impact study, a warranty, recall bulletins, recycling facilities, and twenty-four-hour customer support."

This one speaks its own volumes. Have we too much red tape, or too little. Is the tape the right colour or should it just be black and white like the Keffiyeh?