Another Market for Gag Cartoons Is Going Going Gone

Above: Bob Vojtko's poignant 2003 cover to the gag cartoonist industry mag Gag ReCap. 



There isn't an funeral service or formal news article. This will have to do.

The new issue of Reader's Digest is on the stands. And there are three cartoons in it. Not bad. One was originally published by The New Yorker magazine some years back. The cartoon was then bought by RD this year from the New Yorker's Cartoonbank. There is a cartoon from Cartoonstock, an online site full of cartoons to buy. The last appears to have been an original buy. So, only one cartoon may be unique to the Digest.

The Digest used to have its own cartoons. There were maybe four or six an issue. And there were also some special issues with more. But the cartoons are going. At least it looks like cartoons that are unique to the Digest are on their way out.

Bob Vojtko drew a cover the old Gag ReCap magazine of a cartoonist (who looks very much like Bob.) standing at the "Cartoon Submission Cemetery," look at tombstones with names of magazines that had stopped running cartoons, lamenting, "Good by old friend."

Good Housekeeping. First for Women. Chronicle of Higher Education. National Enquirer. They stopped running cartoons some time ago. Recently, I have heard that Harvard Business Review will stop. Barron's is "rethinking its cartoon policy." Every year I hear rumors that The New Yorker will stop too.

Like I said, there's not a ceremony to mark the passing of these cartoon markets. They just quietly go. It's the loss of an art form. So, I thought I would mark it here.