Flipping through the latest New Yorker and admiring the cartoons brought a sense of loss, too. While the New Yorker and Playboy had long been the epitome of the art, paying the premium rates for work that matched the highest standards, almost every magazine ran cartoons, at least as fillers in the back sections. These days, though, hardly any of them do.
When I was in high school, the wit of fellow Buckeye James Thurber became a model, along with the Addams Family even before the TV series. And then there was Gahan Wilson’s mordant pen. But who’s come along, say, in the past decade to fill the ranks? Not in magazines, as far as I see.
Or in newspapers, where having an editorial page cartoonist was seen as a badge of distinction. (Except at the New York Times, of course, which abstained.) In the collapse of the second newspaper in most markets – and the elimination of afternoon editions – the ranks of those cartoonists have also been evaporating. Even before we get to the recent rounds of attrition.
It’s not a laughing matter.
Jnana's Red Barn 