Lecture

Robert Mankoff

Robert Mankoff: Cartoon Caption Contest

ABOUT 

  • ABOUT Robert Mankoff

    Robert Mankoff is the cartoon editor of The New Yorker. More than 800 of his cartoons have been published in the magazine in the past thirty years, including the magazine's bestselling cartoon of all time. He is the author and editor of dozens of cartoon books in addition to The Naked Cartoonist: A New Way to Enhance Your Creativity, his book about the creative process behind developing magazine-style cartoons. Profile
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People more liberal, people who like more avant-garde art—they will tend to like cartoons that have…less resolution, less closure.       

The New Yorker’s cartoon editor Robert Mankoff created the precursor to the magazine’s weekly caption contest in 1998. Over the course of the 185 contests since, he has received more than a million entries. Built on his extensive caption library, he traces the intersection of individual experience and cultural climate in the creatopm pf a common comic landscape. He also offers a peek behind the scenes: what his colleague Farley Katz does at work, letters from writers of rejected captions, and insights into the history of the magazine's cartoons.

Presented in partnership with the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan.

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Broader Investigation

Lecture

The New Yorker Cartoonists

The New Yorker's cartoonists Pat Byrnes, Roz Chast, Ed Koren, and Robert Mankoff deconstruct the elements essential to the magazine’s famous cartoons and particular brand of humor.

Panel

The Not-So-Funny Situation of Alternative Comix

Michael Miner hosts a summit meeting with Matt Groening, Lynda Barry, Jules Feiffer, and Chris Ware to examine the evaporation of virtually all of their outlets as alternative newsweeklies and comix publishers cease publishing their work in the midst of their own financial calamity.

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