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My 14 Rejected New Yorker Cartoon Submissions That I Decided To Share Here
The legendary Bob Mankoff, who recently stepped down as cartoon editor at the New Yorker (1997 to 2017), said it took approximately 2,000 submissions to the magazine before ever getting an acceptance letter.
I don't know why this information inspired me when it should have left me in a fetal position, whimpering for my mother.
Obviously, I have no illusions that winning at this sort of endeavor comes easy— especially now, with so much talent sending their cartoon drawings to the same address every week.
To paint an accurate picture, the number of drawing ideas reviewed weekly at the New Yorker is roughly 1,000. The number of these funny cartoons in each issue is about 12 to 20? I've always been a bit of a hack when it comes to math, but even I can see the New-Yorker odds and myself are waving at each other across an almost immeasurable expanse.
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#1
Final score:
174points
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172points
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156points
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144points
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Final score:
77points
#12
Final score:
64points
#13
Final score:
57points
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What do you think ?
Zori the degu 8 years ago
Those are interesting. But, to be honest, I have hard time understanding some of them. Not because I don't have a sense of humour, but because my vocabulary is a bit limited, since I'm a foreigner.
Daria B 8 years ago
I feel you. But it's not the language for me, but the cultural differences.
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glowworm2 8 years ago
They are. I've watched a tv segment on these once and the guidelines are pretty strict. There's no real set criteria for getting accepted but usually the reasons for rejection are that they are "...too lowbrow, too politically incorrect, too dark, too weird, too political, too difficult to get, too dumb, too bad, or too dirty. " to quote Matthew Diffee who was one of the cartoonists who has managed to be successfully published more than 200 times in the New Yorker.
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John Moreno (Post author) 8 years ago
Thank you all for your thought-provoking comments. Even the less-than-favorable ones mean a lot. My only objective will always be to improve. This helps!
Zori the degu 8 years ago
Those are interesting. But, to be honest, I have hard time understanding some of them. Not because I don't have a sense of humour, but because my vocabulary is a bit limited, since I'm a foreigner.
Daria B 8 years ago
I feel you. But it's not the language for me, but the cultural differences.
Load More Replies... glowworm2 8 years ago
They are. I've watched a tv segment on these once and the guidelines are pretty strict. There's no real set criteria for getting accepted but usually the reasons for rejection are that they are "...too lowbrow, too politically incorrect, too dark, too weird, too political, too difficult to get, too dumb, too bad, or too dirty. " to quote Matthew Diffee who was one of the cartoonists who has managed to be successfully published more than 200 times in the New Yorker.
Load More Replies... John Moreno (Post author) 8 years ago
Thank you all for your thought-provoking comments. Even the less-than-favorable ones mean a lot. My only objective will always be to improve. This helps!
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