newyorkette

(Sold—and then unsold—cartoon by carolita johnson.)

The story behind this cartoon is that it was not actually rejected! It was bought. Then it was un-bought. Why? The cartoon fact-checkers found a very similar cartoon in their archives by Charles Addams (from 1978), “nearly identical,” they said. But I haven’t seen it. In fact, I’ve searched all over the internet, but haven’t found it. Anyone? If you know where it is, I’d love to see it. In any case, I’ve been told to take comfort in the old adage, “great minds think alike.”

I might add that this cartoon was inspired by a true story.

This is the second cartoon that turned out to be nearly identical to another cartoonist’s cartoon. The first time was four years ago, and I forget who the cartoonist was, but it was a 1937 cartoon showing a man counting sheep that have fallen from exhaustion and are snoozing wherever they’ve landed on the other side of the fence. I guess there’s a reason we TNY cartoonists all come together! When we do nearly identical cartoons, I guess it means we’re all cut from the same cloth! (The same, crazy, itchy cloth!)

Let this be a lesson to everyone out there who thinks anyone has ever “stolen” their cartoon idea! Get over it!

Now, back to my chores!

UPDATE: the author of Jesus & Mo has kindly taken the time to search The Complete New Yorker in order to find the Addams cartoon in question! Here it is!
FURTHER UPDATE: I gave my cartoon to my exterminator this Saturday, which made him very happy. I just consider it giving back to my community. (I told him the story behind it, as well, which didn’t stop him from wanting it!)

(rejected cartoon by carolita johnson)

I thought I hadn’t sold a cartoon yesterday, so was a little grumpy all day. Then the email “ok” came at about 9:30pm. I guess conde nast has a really slow email server, because I got another email from our sales rep at midnight. Anyway, to celebrate, I’m putting up a recent reject. It’s very silly. Think of me what you will, but I like it. It’s gone into the pile of submissions for Diffee’s upcoming Rejection Collection II, for yet another shot at rejection.

(copyright: carolita johnson]

It’s just so easy! When New Jersey was looking for a new slogan, I called in with, “New Jersey: what’s that smell?”
(This cartoon ended up published in The Rejection Collection, and is also part of the Cartoonbank’s repertoire now. I’m pretty sure they can make t-shirts and other prints of images from the RJ, even though they’re not in the catalogue yet. Will check on that today.)

Anyone not from New York will know that I’m referring to that infernal gas smell that overtook the city yesterday. I was working at Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans, and at around 9am was to be seen sniffing around the kitchen, wondering where the gas leak was. Of course, there was no stove so I was mystified! Spent the morning looking at Gothamist on my cell phone.

We still don’t know for sure where it came from, but urban legend leads us to blame New Jersey.

(image: carolita johnson)

If your kid (I mean your child, not your baby goat) is a pain in the neck, chances are you’ve been buying him or her too many toys. You should have been buying books instead. My parents said “no” to everything except a book. Can I go out and play? No. Can I have some money? No. can I get this book about geology? Yes.

Teach your kid how to ask better questions (also, I don’t know any kids who got hurt reading a book, unless they were reading it while walking home and walked into a lamp post) (okay, that was me): give books.

BTW - the above was the full range of my advice regarding children. I haven’t got anything else.
For kids (baby goats) I can recommend the English translation of Madame Bovary, and the French translation of Moby Dick that begins, “Je m’appelle Ishmael.” (“My name is Ishmael.”)

Click on the cartoon for the larger version. (Image: carolita johnson)

I just heard the schmaltziest “op-ed” on NPR (about the so-called “War on Christmas “) from someone whose cred was that she does something for a site called “beliefnet.com.” If you can’t say something good about a person, it’s better to just make fun of their website’s “Why my pet is a blessing” feature with a few screengrabs and giving then the same treatment as the cartoon above:

Jude: “A saint of a dog”
Lisa-Dora: “God sent her to me.”
Sheena: “She saved my kids.”
Nevaeh: “Heaven spelled backwards.”

My other idea had been to put a health check next to each animal, a la: “Sparky: high-blood pressure, a stomach ulcer, and morbidly excessive licking of the entire living room carpet due to too much emotional responsability foisted upon her by owner, Sandy.”

BTW - this cartoon never even made it to TNY —I rejected it myself! It always made me chuckle, but it never seemed right for submission.

Click on the cartoon for the larger version. (Image: carolita johnson)

Not sure what to wear for the office holiday party?

(Image: carolita johnson)

Here’s another rejected Venus. I don’t know why I got so interested in Venuses (Veni?), but there you have it. There’s even more where this came from!

Perhaps I find them so amusing because they seem like the Barbie Dolls of Antiquity. And who doesn’t like to take a shot at Barbie Dolls? Anyway, having been on the wrong side of the definition of beauty for so long before the world finally approved of me, I can appreciate the rancor on the side of the Venus on the left.

In case anyone doesn’t know, the Venus on the left is the “Venus of Willendorf”, and the one on the right is the “Mazarin Venus.”

And here’s a modern Venus I really like, too!

(image: carolita johnson)

Inspired by all the old folks still doing rock concerts, if it wasn’t rejected just because it’s dumb (highly possible!), another factor would be that The New Yorker does not condone puns. This was one that simply had to come out, though! So, no regrets! (My brother, a more inveterate ACDC fan than I am—not that I’m not a fan myself, just not as in the know—said he looked up ACDC and couldn’t tell if they’d retired or not, said it seemed they were still performing. Anyone know more?)

(image: carolita johnson)

Thanksgiving is looming up and bringing back memories sitting around on the living room floor, watching old B movies. When I was a kid, we didn’t have cable (other people did, my parents just wouldn’t pay for it!—I’m not that old!), so the old movies consisted mostly of Three Stooges marathons, and Abbot and Costello classics, like “Abbot and Costello meet the Mummy!”

(image: carolita johnson)

Last time I went to Brighton Beach to spend a couple of peaceful weekday hours in the sun with my New Yorker magazine, I stopped in a kosher deli to get a bottle of water. The man behind the counter was an orthodox Jew who looked at me with playful acuity and demanded outright: “You speak Yiddish? You look Jewish—are you Jewish?”

I explained to him that I was not Jewish, but that there was some question as to whether or not my father was Jewish.
“Ahaaa-a?” he cawed encouragingly.
“Well,” I said, “He says he’s not Jewish, but his mother’s name was Anna Blumenstein.”
“Aha.”
“And her mother, also named Anna Blumenstein, was remarkable for going to business school in Philadelphia in 1917 for business studies, and turned out to be a very shrewd businesswoman…”
“Aha.”
“And my father used to drink Manischewitz wine…”
“Aha!”
“But then he stopped.”
“Aha?”
“Because he found a cheaper wine…”
“Aha!”
“It came in Tetra-Pak cartons, and he’d transfer this cheaper wine into the empty Manischewitz bottles he’d saved and keep them in the refrigerator.”
“Ah…haaa…”
“So, what do you think?”
“I have a feeling,” he said with a mischievous smile, “It’s just a feeling, but I think ma-a-a-a-ybe…,” and here he paused with his finger in the air, and his eyes looking sideways at his finger, then turning back, nodding his head complicitely at me, “...your father’s Jewish. It’s a feeling I have.”

I speak as much Yiddish as the next New Yorker, which is plenty. In fact, when my South American grandmother came to New York, she thought that the English word for “God bless you” (as part of the sneezing protocol) was “gesundheit,” which she pronounced, “Gasoonti!”

(Image: carolita johnson)

(Yes, I’m late! I got waylaid painting the bathroom!)

I’ve always been intrigued by those personal ads along the lines of “interested in friendship, romance, or more.” More? I mean, if you’re resorting to the personal ads, should you really be pushing it?

Does anyone remember that commercial years and years ago for “Oliver!” the musical? Where the gruel man says, “MORE???” in the most flabbergasted voice when Oliver asks for more food? My buddies and I would jump on any opportunity to say, “MORE???” to eachother. Well, I searched high and low on the net for a video clip of that scene, which surely is a classic, with no luck. But for that famous scene in David Lean’s beautiful version of “Oliver Twist,” click here.

And don’t worry, I encourage all my friends to go for broke! Always ask for more! What’s the worst that can happen? You might actually have your cake and eat it, now and then! (It’s been known to happen!)

(image: carolita johnson)

This rejected cartoon is posted in honor of my friends who have seen fit to repopulate the world, making up for my refusal to do so! Thanks, Juan! Dankeschön, Chrissi! Hello, Lucrezia! Hallo, Oskar!

But seriously, it works every time!

(image: carolita johnson)

I left this one rough so you can see the kind of thing my editors have to put up with. I didn’t like the castaway’s head, but I liked everything else about the drawing and didn’t feel like re-drawing. So I did the head on another piece of paper, cut it out, and glued it on. If you look carefully, you can see the outline around his head. It’s a “rough,” after all! If it had been bought, I’d have had to redraw it on better paper, and without the ink splotches that I photoshopped out, to be courteous.

(image: carolita johnson)

This cartoon was inspired by my being obliged to buy myself a pair of this season’s requisite “skinny pant.” No, not because I’m a fashion victim. (Well, not that kind, anyway!) I bought them as part of my modelling uniform. I have to prove I can do fittings for whatever the fashion industry will be feeding the masses for the next couple of seasons. I also can’t show up at my “go-see’s” looking like last year’s leftovers, unfortunately. (I spent many years happily looking like several years’ leftovers, having thrown away my flesh-colored thong and quit the fashion industry, for the third time… how I miss those days! But perhaps I don’t miss waiting on line with the homeless and displaced to take a tepid 12-minute shower for 7 francs at the municipal baths quite that much.)

I thought this cartoon was an apt observation about what fashion does to a woman. This season’s hottest new thing is always the opposite of last season’s hottest new thing. It’s the most annoying thing about fashion, really, besides the expense. I knew this cartoon didn’t stand a chance when I opened up this week’s New Yorker and saw Marisa Acocella Marchetto’s skinny-pant cartoon, which, I have to admit is better than mine!

What’s odd about her cartoon is that I have the exact same haircut and often wear the very outfit the shopgirl is wearing (but Marisa assures me she was not thinking of me when she drew her). And, I’m proud to say, I’m not that skinny, either. I eat my Wheaties.

And as much as I hate to admit it, the skinny pant is really very handy for tucking into my rainboots, a lot easier than folding my boot-cut jeans into socks, and a lot easier on the ankles (no bunching). So I bought another pair. What a fashion victim!

BTW: let this be an example to paranoid cartoonists everywhere—Marisa and I never see each other’s cartoon submissions. (I just cringe whenever I hear of someone whining that they submitted a cartoon and then saw a very similar cartoon appear soon afterwards. It’s not even coincidence: we’re all exposed to the same current events and trends, and surrounded by the same cultural tics and contradictions that make for humorous situations and gags. We’re bound to come up with similar cartoons!)

(image: carolita johnson)

Ever notice those guys who walk around in impeccably pressed, untucked “dress shirts” on a Friday night? This is what I always think is going through their minds. Or else, they’re thinking, “Woah, I’ve taken off my tie and not tucked my shirt in! That means I’m up for anything! I mean, almost. Ha ha.” It’s kind of sweet.

I’ve found a lot of lost things (and lost a lot of things as well), while unpacking in my new apartment. One of the things I found was this photocopy of the image that inspired my “I never thought turning eighty would be so much fun,” cartoon:

This image had been tacked to the “idea board” at Peter Som’s, where I’d been fitting at the time. Read the rest of this entry »

(Click on the image for a larger size.) Image: carolita johnson

Well, I can’t complain, I’ve nearly finished unpacking—just one room left to clear before getting down to painting—I’ve sold a cartoon today, I have a cartoon published in The New Yorker this week (yay!), and I’m eating my dinner as I type this, thus combining two of my favorite activities: eating and writing.

First, the reject. It’s a cartoon I’ve been meaning to do for at least a year, since the last time (or should I say, “umpteenth” time?) someone managed to squeeze a mention of Proust’s madeleine into their writing. (If I had a penny! Or better yet, a madeleine!) I imagined poor Proust, turning in his grave every time someone refered to that madeleine. I imagine him snarling, “Why, why, why did I ever write about that saloperie de madeleine,” as he gnashes his teeth. Whenever someone wants to put a highbrow touch to their literary laziness, they get out a can of madeleine. I’m all for handing out tickets with fines. The madeleine has become literature’s “Freebird.”

Play “Freebird,” Marcel!

As for the published cartoon, here it is! It’s the result of considering a frequently heard question that I’ve always thought was very very silly to ask. After all, you really are only expecting one answer to that question when you ask it. The answer that you really don’t want to hear, I mean. Why ask, when accusations serve one so much better?

(Rejected cartoon: carolita johnson)

To honor the last day of fashion week, here’s another—rejected—fashion cartoon for you to throw rotten tomatoes at! Yes, it’s a bridal cartoon, but did you know that the bridal outfit has a special place in fashion shows? Nearly all fashion shows end with a bride or bride-equivalent. It’s a great honor to be the last one out, especially because it often means you get to kiss the designer while cameras flash and everyone applauds. So I suppose it’s the happiest day of a model’s life when Jean-Paul Gaultier chooses you for the finale.

Being the first one out is also an honor. You’re the first thing the audience sees, and your outfit often represents the inspiration or the show’s theme. You’re also quite soon forgotten, so most models prefer being last.

One day, however, I arrived backstage for what I knew was my very last Jean-Paul Gaultier runway show. I routinely checked out my rack and noticed that my first outfit had a polaroid snapshot (of how it should look once everything was in its proper place on my body) with the number “1” Sharpie-d onto it. I was thrilled! What a nice way to go out, I thought. The outfit was an Inuit-style suede pullover parka. I was all rouged up to look like a genuine red-cheeked Inuit, and they were spreading artificial snow on the runway when suddenly Bjork came sashaying around to my rack, wordlessly inspected my outfits, then sashayed away again.

Moments later, Jean-Paul came rushing up to me looking rather sheepish. He explained that Bjork had not liked her one outfit of the show (she was to do the cameo). So J-P, being the gracious man that he is, proposed that she have a look around everyone else’s racks and choose another outfit. Something about my outfit had caught her eye. (Could it have been the number “1”????). I, being a gracious model, surrendered my opening outfit to Bjork. (How do you like that, Bjork? I cried a sentimental tear of frustration on my last day as a runway model because of you!) But I got over it, realizing I was finally leaving the fickle world of runway fashion, and should be relieved.

I did years more of showroom work with Jean-Paul, which was rewarding in many other ways. And this is all that’s left on the internet of that outfit on La Bjork.

(rejected cartoon: carolita johnson)

Some people believe your clothes say a lot about you. Others believe, further still, that your clothes are actually speaking for you. When I was a fashion student I found all those clothes speaking at me from all directions to be a rather oppressive presence. I’m glad I don’t hear those voices anymore, or at least not as loudly! When I pass Bryant Park during fashion week these days, I try not to listen at all because the clothes the fashionistas are wearing always say things like, “Ha ha, I’m dressed better than you,” while my clothes are saying, “Who asked you?” or “Why don’t you go eat a sandwich!”

This was a cartoon inspired by the dressed up dogs I saw in the East Village, when I used to be a resident there. I was always amused by the little biker outfits owners would put on their little chihuahuas. I wondered if they ever got in trouble for it…

(image: carolita johnson)

This is a very, very old rejected cartoon, which I’ve dug up in honor of Fashion Week. And speaking of how cheap it is to please men, here’s a little story of transcendent love for you.

When I began modelling in Paris, I had not been instructed in such basics as wearing a flesh-colored bra and thong to work. (I was one of the “non-modelly models” of the late eighties.) I still wore my old size 14 Carter’s underwear that my Mom used to buy me (those Carter’s last a long, long time! I think they had a motto that went something like, “If only their childhood outlasted their Carter’s”).

You know the kind: the elastic band way up by your belly button, covered in balloon or floral prints. I threw them out as they wore out, and replaced them with nicer panties (finally learned my lesson and bought a thong after being obliged to borrow one right off another model during a fashion show when I unexpectedly got stuck with a totally transparant dress). But I never really thought about their “M-appeal” till one day, at Jean-Paul Gaultier, my (hopefully gay) French dresser burst out one day with, “Look at zose culottes de bonne soeur! Your boyfriend must ‘ate zem!” And I simply replied, “My boyfriend never notices my underwear! He removes them immediately.” Which was true.

That’s the kind of man you want. Not the type to ask you to go to much trouble to please him with your wardrobe, which should be irrelevant because of his all-transcendent desire for you. But we have to spend money to impress our women friends, and just so, I suppose, since they’re the friends women must fall back on when their men run out on them (once they’ve noticed their girlfriends’ ugly underwear).

(image: carolita johnson)

During a fitting yesterday just off Bryant Park I noticed through the 12th floor window that the park was covered in some sort of white substance, like a giant spider web. It was the fashion tents! Fashion week starts tomorrow! For anyone who likes that kind of thing, here’s the schedule, thanks to NY Magazine.

For me, all it means is that all my usual haunts will be crawling with very skinny women in very silly outfits. Actually, the outfits are not so bad, it’s just the way they’re worn that’s silly. Seeking attention and approval. Well, it’s all right for some, and I love the parade it all constitutes, but I think the thing that carries off a look that might otherwise be silly is a person’s innate sexiness. Being sexy starts where self-consciousness ends. Be sexy, and you can wear a burlap bag and pull it off (or have someone else pull it off). (Burlap bags are very inexpensive, by the way, and one size fits all, just ask Sue Spiegel.)

Which brings me to this rejected cartoon. It has not only been rejected by The New Yorker, but it’s even been rejected by fellow cartoonist Matt Diffee, when submitted to his “Rejection Collection,” coming out on October 3rd! (I’m in it!) How rejected can you get? I’ve been told it’s a “ladies’s cartoon,” and that may well be the case, because only ladies know just how ridiculous that phrase, “I think I’ll go slip into something more comforable” really is. Something more comfortable might be: sweatpants.

NB: By the way, in case you’re getting revved up to complain that the clothes being shown in the tents aren’t made for real humans, rest assured, they will all be refitted afterwards on people like me, bringing the fit closer to the average reality.

Also, this might make you feel better (Spain is banning models with abnormally low Body Mass Index results).