Peter Steiner's Original Cartoon Art for "On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Dog" Sold for $140,000

There are some gag cartoons that just resonate, have a life of their own and are eternal. Some that come to mind:

Bob Mankoff's "How about never? Is never good for you?"

 

Charles Addams' wordless skier cartoon,

 

 Chon Day's great wordless show salesman cartoon,

Peter Arno's classic,

Sam Gross' frog legs cartoon, 

and then there's Peter Steiner's cartoon from 1993. The most licensed, maybe best known cartoon in recent times:

The original art for this cartoon, one that appeared at the very beginning of the internet "thing" in the world, was sold at auction on October 6, 2023. 

Attempted Bloggery is where I first heard about it:

"Bidding opened at $20,000 with an estimate of $40,000 to $60,000. The day prior to yesterday's auction, no bids had been placed.

"When the hammer dropped yesterday, the bidding had reached $140,000 plus a $35,000 buyer's premium. That's a higher realized price by far than any work of original New Yorker art yet documented on this blog. My guess—and it's just a guess—is that the competing bidders were, for the most part, not the usual cartoon and illustration collectors, but tech millionaires competing to claim a cultural touchstone of the internet age."

 

Here's a video of Heritage Auctions' Robert Wilonsky talking with cartoonist Peter Steiner and Bob Mankoff: