Thursday, May 7, 2020

Sundown you better take care



The New Yorker has always been known for its humorous one-panel comics. Which means, of course, that they've had a lot of practitioners of this format. A select group really stand out for me. Gahan Wilson is one, obviously. Danny Shanahan is another. I know very little about him personally. There's no Wikipedia article about him or anything. But he perfectly nails the dry, low-key absurdity.

2 comments:

susan said...

For many years I loved most of the New Yorker cartoons, but in the past few years the quality of the art and the humor hasn't been up tp previous standards - at least for me and I do try not to be too cranky. While Gahan Wilson was undoubtedly the best I was also very fond of Leo Cullum's contributions to the magazine.

I like Danny Shanahan too - a fine example of his dry style is his illustration of a guy in shorts sitting on the doctor's exam table smoking a cigarette with the physician telling him 'You should relax less.'

My favorite of the cover illustrators is Peter de Seve.

Ben said...

I'll have to have another look to see if I agree with you. Generally when I see the New Yorker cartoons it's at the library, where I haven't been for a few weeks for obvious reasons. The humor can be hit-or-miss because some of the practitioners are relying on in-group references, or at least an acquired in-group tone.

Leo Cullum is very funny indeed. I like the "you don't get an office, you get cargo pants" especially. He has a gift for facial expressions.

While I like the look of Adrian Tomine I think I'm with you as far as de Seve being my favorite. The witch making eyes at the cat in the window is just darling.