Hi All,
Another lifetime ago, actually just back in 2017, I was the cartoon editor of The New Yorker. I really liked that job but not so much that I wanted to stay on, especially after I was asked to leave.
I really had to go then, or I would have been arrested.
But why was I asked to leave? I like to think it was for appropriate behavior: selecting the cartoons that I thought were the best regardless of the identity of those who did them. I still think that’s the best way to increase diversity without sacrificing quality.
Now, this might sound like sour grapes, but it’s not, anyway, not now, because leaving that great job has allowed me to do something I could have never done while there. So those grapes are turning out to be quite sweet.
That something was to launch, one year ago, CartoonStock.com (now CartoonStock.com), where you are right now. You might be here because of the blogs or the caption contest, but the real reason for the site is to become the Google of the single-panel cartoon. That’s Google when its motto was “Don’t Be Evil” rather than “Give Us All Your Money.”
Google’s original stated mission was to “organize the world’s information.” Ours is to organize the world’s great cartoons, which means many more than just cartoons from The New Yorker (although we’ve got the best of those–thousands of them). We also have thousands of great cartoons from Esquire, The Wall Street Journal, National Lampoon, Weekly Humorist, Narrative, The Rejection Collections, Wired, Air Mail, and many exciting collections to come.
This is the first of many missives to come from my desk so stay tuned or, if you like lame wordplay, “tooned.” Now go and support us and our cartoonists by giving us all your money.
Yours in Good Humor,
Bob