The Cartoon & Poem Supplement
The Cartoon & Poem Supplement
"When I was a kid, we didn’t have smartphones."
I meant to send this only to the paying peeps but I clicked wrong so now everybody gets it, huzzah!
Poems:
“Cirrus” by Rosanna Warren: Past suicidality gives way at the midpoint to nature description, which does or does not reflect the interior pathetically. (Ruskin’s meaning, not ours.) The half measures the second half takes certainly risk less than either an indulgence in metaphor or a commitment to unadorned description might; of course, they also say less. The idea, I think, is that it’s Warren’s much-delayed paper on Rimbaud, indulging in symbolism as a tribute to the past teen self that Rimbaud never advanced beyond. Clever — but maybe not much more.
“What I Meant to Say Was” by Sophie Cabot Black: A rewrite and reimagining of Bradstreet’s “Verse Upon the Burning of our House” that unearths an imagined secret anger and resentment. Something maybe troubling politically about the ahistorical presumption of what Bradstreet wants, and what she prays for — the address to God crops up late — but as a poem it works. As the New World burns, as the fascists claim puritanism and defile it, one looks to Bradstreet, whose trauma was more lonely than ours, less overfull of information, barer, and thus perhaps more lovely.
Cartoons:
Here's where to find the cartoons, with credits, in order.
Cover: Not sure how I feel about a non-anniversary-edition Eustace cover. It risks oversaturation, and I’m not sure this is clever enough to make that risk worthwhile.
Pg. 13: Not easy to draw all twelve quizzical apostles and keep things legible.
Pg. 15 [Sketchpad]: Lacks wit.
Pg. 19: Not sure who the metaphorical target is supposed to be here. Trump merch sellers? And you want them to… have more merch that’s not pro-Trump? Why, though?
Pg. 20: If this is an excuse to smuggle in your list of funny band names, it’s a good one.
Pg. 27: I don’t care at all about this joke, but it did remind me of “I’ll just keep drawing horses.”
Pg. 28: Last item moves way too far from the initial joke of “funny ways of describing foods.” A banana is simply not a pear in any way.
Pg. 32: This one liner doesn’t benefit from being luxuriously illustrated with lots of distracting NYC-specific detail, but it’s still a very good one liner. Best of the Week.
Pg. 35: The well-written caption rescues this, even though it’s sort of a banal observation – you know you can add seasoning after-the-fact, right? – and despite it being basically that one Annie Hall joke without the twist.
Pg. 36: More “troubling portrait of alienation” than “laugh riot”, but I dig it.
Pg. 40: Good drawing. Not-Pam has just the right not-expression on her face.
Pg. 45: Why are they having one side of a conversation on the signs in their window? Too big of a zany leap for me to make.
Pg. 48: The oxygen tank in the pig nose is superb.
Pg. 50: Hmm, two “bad therapist” panels in two weeks. Are the vibes shifting?
Pg. 55: Show me a hobbyist that gets meaningfully better over time and I’ll show you a professional that just also has a different job.
Pg. 57: This is one of those phrases that turns anything into a bad caption contest joke.
Pg. 60: A baffling and infuriating feature of contemporary life and thus a good target. I’m not sure this one nails it, though.
Pg. 65: Genuinely a new fun fact for me that your taste buds perceive less salt at high altitudes. So this is a learning moment and a decent caption, despite my go-to plane order being “ginger ale in the can no ice.”
Pg. 66: Gonna have to dig deeper if you really want to do Sesame Street material.
Pg. 74: Quite good, and strangely reminiscent of the best plotline in season four of Arrested Development.
44 Years Ago Today
the existence of a “new moon” and a “blue moon”
suggests the possibility of an “old moon” and a “borrowed moon”