How About Never - Is Never Good For You?

How does someone become a cartoonist for The New Yorker? What sets that elite company apart? Bob Mankoff, the cartoon editor for that particular magazine, has spent most of his adult life studying just that, and he generously shares this hard-won information in his new, largely pictorial, memoir "How About Never - Is Never Good for You?". Mankoff's instruction is so detailed, that if the reader follows his advice, she has a good chance of having her cartoon published, or at least having her caption chosen for the magazine's highly popular cartoon caption contest. (This feature was created by Mankoff himself, and he devotes a chapter in the book to teaching readers to do just this.)

But before you get your hopes too high you should note that the author's success came from an almost obsessive persistence. Mankoff says that it took him over 2,000 submissions before his first cartoon was published in the magazine. (It's impossible to tell if this figure was exaggerated for comic effect. If so you may assume it's the author's prerogative as a humorist. No one ever said that The New Yorker's comedy is apparent.)

If reading really isn't your thing because you find dense paragraphs of text daunting, have no fear. Mankoff never "tells" the reader something he can't "show" the reader in the form of a cartoon or illustration. He takes us through his history (growing up in Queens mimicking Jerry Lewis and turning his mother's Yiddishisms into all-American humor), discusses his professional development and finding his style, gives us a brief history of cartooning and deconstructs New Yorker cartoons through pictures interspersed with text.

Additionally, Mankoff's voice is so down-to-earth, conversational and downright punchy that you feel like you're read a bunch of cartoon captions. He shows us the "soup-to-nuts process of cartoon creation," where the magazine's cartoons come from and how they're chosen. The New Yorker's comics chronicle the politics and manners of the last century, and Mankoff shows us how, answering the critics who call the illustrations obscure and ending by introducing us to the next generation of cartoonists at The New Yorker who will carry us into the current century.

Mankoff's life in cartoons is both a captivating autobiography and an insightful, behind-the-scenes look at humor and publishing.

"How About Never - Is Never Good for You?"
By Bob Mankoff
Picador
Memoir | $22.00
picadorusa.com