Twenty years ago(!) I contributed the below piece “Bad Batch” to the month long perch I occupied on newyorker.com (you can see all the pieces from that month if you go to Posted Notes on this site and scroll down a ways). This morning, while looking for a folder unrelated to bad batches, or any other kinds of batches, I started finding other folders labeled in the Bad Batch vein. These are not drawings rejected by The New Yorker (or any other publication) these are finished drawings rejected by me.
Having discussed bad batches on my Cartoon Caption Contest Podcast appearance last November , I found it amusing that these surfaced — and more of them than I remembered. I thought it would be fun to line them up and take a picture. I haven’t looked in any of the folders in years, and may never look in any them. That they failed so miserably they were banished to “Do Not Send” or “Never Submit” folders, suggests it would be painful revisiting them.
One folder is labeled “Never Next.” For some time years ago I had a folder of drawings labeled “Next” — those were the newer drawings that I’d add to daily. I have a feeling that labeling a folder “Never Next” could only have been an attempt at clarification. I don’t use folders anymore. I just pile rejected drawings, submitted, and not submitted — the good, the bad and the rejected — into boxes.
“Bad Batch”
In a recent exchange of emails with a couple of fellow cartoonists the subject of the weekly batch of drawings came up. It’s not an unusual topic between cartoonists, as the batch is what binds us all together, weekly. The batch — “the batch” referring to the drawings you come up with and then submit to the New Yorker — is your grab for the golden ring, or, when things don’t go well, your ball and chain. Without the batch you have no shot at The New Yorker (you gotta be in it to win it!), and sadly, sometimes (or most times) even with the batch, you still don’t have much of a shot.
Every cartoonist has their own system of approaching Tuesdays, when the batch is sent in, or brought in to the magazine’s offices. On Tuesday mornings I take a long hard look at the work I’ve done all week and decide which of the new drawings are worthy to submit. Usually a few –- or on really bad days, more than a few — don’t make the cut. Either a drawing suddenly seems nonsensical, or not quite “there” or just plain awful. How could it be that a drawing that seemed so promising one day appears so worthless the next? I don’t know –- all I know is that it happens on a regular basis.
The awful drawings are never submitted. Instead they’re placed into a folder I’ve labeled “Bad Batch” – it’s my cartoon Siberia, or perhaps, cartoon Hell. I’ve rarely looked through that folder, but when I have, I’ve found myself saying, “And you call yourself a cartoonist!”
Perhaps, for me, the most interesting thing about this folder is why it exists. If a piano falls on me tomorrow, do I really want my children seeing these?
It may be that the Bad Batch exists as a reminder. The drawings within are the very bottom of my barrel full of monkeys (sorry, couldn’t resist). They are the product of muse-less days. I don’t need to look at these awful drawings -– just knowing they’re there is inspiration enough.