A Typical Cartoonist's Day

I'm out of town right now, but here's a slice of NYC cartooning life from 3 years ago, when I would go up to The New Yorker in the big, fancy Conde Nast building in Time Square every Tuesday for "look day."

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Valentine's Day in Midtown Category: Jobs, Work, Careers Double knotted the snow boots and trundled off to the subway. Took the F train to 42nd Street. Stopped at the ATM, then to the Conde Nast building. My ID didn't work, but security called Stanley, the 20th floor manager, and I got cleared to take the elevator up to the New Yorker offices. The elevators have those little TVs in them that flash news and headlines. They're from a company called captivate.com. I don't look at them because I don't like them. A cartoonist colleague of mine tried to sell them his cartoons. Captivate was interested in his work. It got so far as them talking about money, and they laughed, saying they do not pay for content. Jerks. So, I silently avert my eyes and grit my teeth. When I got off the elevator, I was in an institutional hallway. This was weird, since normally -- for years at least -- there is a wonderful art gallery on the 20th floor that Stanley runs. One time there were paintings by cartoonist Sid Harris. Another time Stan had framed originals of Ed Koren. Wonderful stuff. Stan told me that the gallery is closed. The Big Boys (He didn't give me any names) will bolt some framed NYer cover prints on the wall permanently and that's that. A sad day, said Stan. Dropped off a batch at the New Yorker. I've been going to Cartoon Look Day for a couple of years now. Decades ago, all magazines had one day of the week when cartoonists would do the rounds in person. NYer is the only place to keep that tradition. I mailed cartoons in for a couple of years, and have been coming in person since 2002. I have yet to make a sale. Cartoon editor Bob Mankoff's assistant renewed my ID, and I left. Sometimes I stay and see Bob and then go to lunch with some of the cartoonists. But I don't feel I have the time this week. Walked to the post office, where I was going to use one of those automatic kiosks that weighs your packages automaticallly so you don't have to stand in line. It was broken. Stood in line. When I got to a real postal employee, she weighed the envelopes and then put on three 83 cent stamps, and then searched and found three 4 cent stamps, and put them on. Why she didn't have one of those machines that spit out the exact postage on a sticky I don't know. Heck, I got a drawer full of stamps. I could have done this at home. Well, OK then. 3 more batches to 3 other magazines mailed out. Hope springs eternal!