How To Get Rich Writing Blurbs

(But you’ll have to give blood, too)

Cartoon courtesy The Weekly Humorist

I know readers what to read about getting into the New Yorker…those not getting in, those getting in, what everyone thinks of the cartoons. I hear a lot of feedback. But I have to put a pause button on that as 1) I have nothing to advance that conversation anyway. 2) What’s on my mind are the troubles of political cartoonists holding on to their jobs, or cartoons afraid to say anything that can remotely be construed as polarizing, or how politically correct any cartoons need to be.

Let’s just address the last two. Gag cartoonists out there…how many of you feel frustrated censoring yourselves before even doing up sketches? Seeing other cartoons published in the different publications that are paper-thin in meaning? Cats exchanging puns?

It’s not easy coming up with a cartoon that is both funny and also says something. For me, I’ve been trying to come up with something to say about AI or global warming that’s not preachy. Not easy. I have pitching sketches on these two distressing topics but with zero luck (I haven’t sold a single cartoon). I know in better hands, it would be done. Some like Leo Cullum, could tackle anything.

I toss and turn at night, instead turning the news on it’s head as I was taught we are supposed to do. Hard to do and all the more frustrating seeing cartoons of squirrels or kids saying snarky dialogue beyond their years, get rewarded. I want to call those out and say, do you know what’s happening out there? Europe is turning into a frying pan and our country’s billionaires are trying to play pickleball on the moon. Okay, so I tried there.

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