“Give me a single panel cartoon any day.”

“Give me a single panel cartoon any day.”

So said Bob Mankoff, this year’s keynote speaker Nov. 7 at the Mandel JCC Cleveland Jewish Book Festival in response to being asked how how his absurdist, pointillist illustrations in The New Yorker and other major publications stack up against other forms of humorous social commentary like “Saturday Night Live,” “The Daily Show” and the abundance of content found in cyberspace.

Cleveland Jewish News profiles cartoonist/editor Bob Mankoff prior to his upcoming appearance there.

“There’s a Golden Age of cartooning happening right now in terms of available material,” said Mankoff, “but it is the Lead Age of making a living creating it. I wanted to create something that not only promoted the publications publishing these cartoons but financially benefited the cartoonists themselves.”

 

 

 

2 thoughts on ““Give me a single panel cartoon any day.”

  1. It’s not the same business model as most things because without some availability and exposure gag cartoons will be forgotten. If baseball was never on TV for free, and it’s getting far less so from decades ago, kids are going to be less interested, and they are. So gag cartoons need to be out there as a teaser of how great they could be, and when they’re good they can be very good.

    The blanket statement of supply and demand doesn’t address the complicated situation of how the tease the public while not convincing them that because it’s free content, it is value.

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