Personal History: “It’s For You”
According to a quick run through of The New Yorker‘s archives, there have been at least ten cartoons published in its history with this exact caption: “It’s for you.” The earliest belongs to Richard Taylor (it appeared in the issue of March 8, 1941). Charles Barsotti had one in the issue of May 18, 1987, Donald Reilly in September 10, 1990, Mick Stevens in June 13, 2011, and Danny Shanahan in the issue of June 11th, 2001 (below).
For whatever reason, the other five of the ten are my responsibility. The first, shown at the top of this post appeared in The New Yorker issue of October 10, 1983. The next four: July 12, 2010 (clown and pie), December 3, 2012 (clown and banana peel), and August 4, 2008 (fish and hook). The most recent was in the issue of June 24, 2019 (peacocks).
As you’ll see below, clowns appear twice, but otherwise the drawings have nothing much in common except the caption and the cartoonist.
One might think (and I’ve wondered it myself) if I’ve returned over the years to this caption because it’s been good to me. The answer is: mostly no. Obviously, I have returned to it, but not on purpose. All five of these ideas came to me, as ideas always do, unexpectedly, in a great rush, and outta the blue. Will there be a sixth “It’s for you.” That’s for me not to know at the moment, and for me to find out.
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Article Of Interest: Pia Guerra
From Michael Cavna in The Washington Post, August 23, 2019, “How Pia Guerra became one of the Trump era’s most moving political cartoonists”
Ms. Guerra began contributing to The New Yorker in 2017. __________________________________________________________________________________
Today’s Daily Cartoonist & Cartoon
David Sipress on Trump. Mr. Sipress has been contributing to The New Yorker since 1998. See some of his work here on The New Yorker‘s Cartoon Bank site.