New Yorker Rejects #16 - Process/Content

So, somehow I’ve continued to have an active batch of cartoons submitted to The New Yorker for the past three years. Which means I'm not technically a complete loser YET, because I have 10 cartoons pending rejection.

They're not rejected, and they are submitted, which means they are in the review process. And that at least gives me a chance. It's a slim chance, and one that has struck out the past 160+ times, but at least there's a chance!

It’s fine, because you know, really, to be kind of insane enough to do this, you kind of have to believe in Process over Content.

Somehow, that belief has led to some incredible things over the past three years. Both in my personal and professional life. Some good, some bad, but probably truer to the life I want to live.

So screw it: Process over Content.

And the process is drawing cartoons.

I read Gary Larson (of The Far Side fame) once say that his cartoons were basically his journal. And when people would say they liked his work, he'd think Hey! Somebody's been reading my journal!

I think that's great advice for any artist. A journal is a place to put down your thoughts and feelings. But through creative work, you can actually reach a bit further. You can make something that you aren't quite sure the meaning of. You just know it suits your tastes. And that's pulling on a deeper, wiser, and richer place than a list of all your crushes.

Anyway, I'm not comparing myself to Vivaldi, I'm just saying that these are my thoughts and feelings. Sure–they're weird. But I'm a cartoonist! What'd you expect?!

On to the rejects.

Let me first acknowledge that I have had repeated feedback from other cartoonists that phone jokes aren't funny. They’ll never work, I'm told. But I think that if we extrapolate the amount of our attention our phones consume, it's basically an extinction-level threat. What organism could survive if it literally never paid attention to its environment?

They'd be toast. And that would be kinda funny.

But also, would we even care? If we went extinct?

As long as we had AI cats doing kung fu moves on Tik Tok, do you think anyone would even notice?

I have this weird feeling that even if the apocalypse did come, it might not even make that much of a difference to our phone addiction.

It might just be so ingrained in our metabolism that we need to stare at screens and hit "click" that we're in a completely new era of biology: the Dumb-ozoic. Where all lifeforms basically conform to the overpowering message of mindless consumerism.

That's a kangaroo, by the way. And I apologize for the swearing. If there are young children (or my mother) reading this, please cover your eyes.

But if you are reading, Mom, don't judge, because children can be very sensitive to parental criticism. This is something I'm exploring in therapy, and am consciously trying to avoid doing to my own children (even though there's TONS to complain about, like flush your own poops!).

Inevitably, they'll be haunted by something.

Now the topic of why I've tried dozens of different banana cartoons has NOT come up in therapy yet. But once I clear a few things out of the way I'm hoping to get to it soon.

I think banana cartoons are funny. I can’t quite explain it. I mean–just replace a human in a horrible situation with a banana, and BOOM–instantly funny.*

Bananas are like tragedy-antidotes. Do you know anyone who takes bananas too seriously? There are probably a few. But by and large they're a source of potassium and ridicule, as they should be.

How long will I continue to submit banana-themed cartoons? Probably for decades to come, I can't be certain. I just know that the other most popular recurring theme in my collection of rejects is table water.

Table water is water that you get at the table at restaurants. Water is by far the most important resource for biological organisms. It couldn't possibly be more valuable to us as a species. But you also just get it for free when you sit down at a table in a restaurant.

I don't know, doesn't life seem bizarre to you, too?

It's very reassuring for me to think about things from the perspective of a different species. Animals have so much wisdom, cuz they just don't give a muroid rodent's gluteus maximus about stuff. They live, they eat, they mate, they defend themselves. They don't overthink ANYTHING.

That's a beautiful way to live.

I mean, take, for example, aggression. In the animal world, no one's spending their lives plotting up new ways to destroy each other. There are aggressive species, sure (pandas), but animals aren't paranoid about attacking each other. They just do their thing.

It seems like a very human thing to get into unnecessary fights.

Obviously, we do it because we're afraid of death. And so we're producing the planet's ecological collapse as a result of our temper tantrum.

It's a bummer, but ultimately, we're a really powerful ape who's a scaredy cat about its own mortality. Heck of a combo, but it's how we see the world.

And how you see the world shapes what you produce.

Which, I do believe, brings me back to Process.

See if the end result is Content, well then you're just fighting your own destruction, which is inevitable. No matter what you create, it's all eventually ending up as spacedust.

But if the focus is on Process, then you're engaged with something entirely different. Something dynamic. Fluid. Alive. Just stand there, on the vast edge of creation, and catch a wisp of inspiration from the heavens.

That's what Process is.

Ungraspable.

And that's an excellent reminder, because this journey has not been without its speed bumps. I've gone through an awful lot to achieve these rejections, and they're precious to me. Creating them was a beautiful experience.

So maybe, I'm not a loser. Maybe a lot of people, or even just one person, feels the same way I do. And appreciates something I've drawn. That would be wonderful. It would really be fantastic to share this incredibly profoundly overwhelmingly compelling experience with someone else.

And that's happened! I've been on podcasts and the lecture circuit to talk about this stuff. I've collaborated with leaders in veterinary medicine to showcase humor as a powerful tool to carve up diseased areas of the profession. I've written a book, articles, and a bunch of silly cartoons and somehow gotten almost all overwhelmingly positive feedback.

I kinda can't believe it. So maybe all the positive things that have come about from these cartoons is a lesson.

Innnn... something important, I'm sure.

*Enough for me to spend hours drawing it up, not for publishing in The New Yorker.