Cast of Characters

by Thomas Vinciguerra

  Always he was consumed with believability. Once, after scrutinizing for two minutes a possible cover of a Model T wending its way along a dusty back road, he insisted that the artist draw “better dust.” During World War II he was so concerned about the details of the torpedo tubes and the windshield in a drawing of a PT boat that he insisted that the manufacturers approve of the rendering. It took him a long time to run Arno’s rendering of a man drowning in a shower and desperately signaling to his wife to open the door. A man couldn’t drown that way, Ross reasoned, because even if (a) he couldn’t turn the faucets off or (b) the drain was hopelessly clogged or (c) the door was sealed utterly tight, then surely (d) the water would spill over the open space at the top of the shower itself. The editorial assistant Dan Pinck would never forget his art-meeting encounter with Ross that hinged on a drawing of golfers that Ross insisted had “too many goddam clubs” in it:

  The cartoon showed two caddies standing on the green, one holding the pin in back of the cup. They each had a bag of clubs slung over their shoulders.

  I started to take the cartoon away, and put another in its place, but Mr. Ross said, “Bring it back, son.”

  I replaced it on the drawing board.

  “Is the caddy allowed to go on the green with a golf-bag?” he asked.

  Nobody answered him.

  Then I did. “No, sir,” I said, to everyone’s surprise. “A caddy is definitely not supposed to carry his bag on the green. At any time.” Then I added, “I’m pretty certain of that.”

  “Have you caddied?” Mr. Ross asked me.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “I used to caddy for a former National Open Champion. Lew Worsham. I’m from Bethesda, Maryland, near the Burning Tree Country Club, where Worsham used to be the pro, before he won the championship.”

  “Did you ever caddy for him in tournaments?” Mr. Ross asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, this needs checking,” he said. He waved his baton at me, and I put another drawing on the board.

  His attention to detail extended across issues. Upon being informed that from 1936 to 1947 the magazine had published twenty cartoons on the theme of counting sheep—including five in 1947 alone, with two in the art bank—Ross wrote to Weekes, “Drawings of sheep jumping fences are not to be run oftener than once in six months. (We had two in successive issues recently, which was certainly very bad.)”

  Just as Ross was obsessed with risqué themes in the work of Woollcott and O’Hara, he would ask of the art, “Is it dirty?” He didn’t always get the right answer. In 1930 he printed a full-page Garrett Price drawing of an astonished young woman on an operating table exclaiming to an entering surgeon, “Why, Henry Whipple, I thought you were still in medical college!” without realizing that one of the instruments on the nurse’s tray was a double-spoon curette, used in abortions. On the other hand, he knew exactly what he was doing by running an Arno of a motorcycle cop being approached by a young woman and a harried-looking man holding a car seat saying, “We want to report a stolen car.” It has been widely reported that the editor was so ignorant that he didn’t realize why it was only the seat, as opposed to some other part of the car, which was left behind. Not so, he told O’Hara: “I wouldn’t have bought it if I hadn’t known what it meant. It was not one of those pictures that could be interpreted two ways.”

  For a while, Ross tried dealing with artists one on one. With rough sketches spread in front of him, he would stride up and down, shoulders hunched, his head sunk, and growl, “Not a bad idea . . . think it up yourself? . . . You can make a better drawing . . . this drawing stinks . . . the guy looks like a peddler . . . ought to look like banker . . . haven’t found yourself . . . an artist’s best friend is his editor.”

  But that process was hopeless. There was simply too much art to consider, and the editor needed to rely on more than just his own opinion. Then too, said the artist Carl Rose, “The strain of looking into the stricken eyes of cartoonists who had been asked to redraw something for the umpteenth time may have been too much for Ross.”

  So in addition to Ross and Irvin, the meetings would come to include Katharine White and at least one other editor. All would participate in the cross-examination, punctuating their comments and questions with their own knitting needles. Daise Terry acted as secretary. Sometimes her notes on a particular specimen would simply read, “Try,” meaning that the contributor should develop it more fully, or “Get idea,” meaning that the material should be purchased but given to an artist better suited to convey the point. More often her reminders reflected the many ways that a piece of art could go wrong and need improvement. Here are some of Terry’s excerpts from the art memo of August 29, 1933, at which forty cartoons were deemed to have at least some merit that could be developed:

  SOGLOW

  King dressing in cowboy costume to receive a delegation from Texas or Oklahoma. In fourth picture have the attendant hanging robe up and show king’s heel leaving picture. Make it Oklahoma instead of Texas.

  HILTON

  Man leaning over parapet speaking to girl down below. “Hello Mrs. Pennyfeather. I’m pouring hot oil on you.” Better picture.

  SORETSKY

  Girls reclining in chairs. “Were you ever kissed and kissed and kissed and kissed?” Do in coherent style.

  ANTON

  Patent attorney’s office. Eager inventor “Do you think I can get a basic patent on it?” Another gadget.

  PRICE, GEORGE

  Colored mammy. Man sitting in lap. “Beggin’ yo’ pardon Mars’ Dan’l, but ain’t it ’bout time yo’ all outgrew this habit?” Make man southern colonel, black tie, and goatee.

  STEIG, WM.

  Woman and newsboy. “I thought you said he was found dead!” Caption vague. Why is he?

  HOKINSON

  Woman in department store dressing room. “This isn’t exactly what I had in mind!” Not a corset. Strange costume.

  ALAIN

  Tourist asking way of flashily dressed woman. “Pardon me, Madame, is Cook’s this way?” Tone down and put clothes on woman in doorway. Take out numbers.

  And here are the summations and comments on the all-important cover ideas that were taken up at that same meeting:

  DECKER

  INFORMATION DESK in department store with girl smiling in midst of confusion and Bewilderment on part of public. Make fewer heads and bigger faces.

  BARLOW

  Couple in bed asleep. Child and toys. Try from another slant.

  HARVEY

  Thanksgiving over. Couple entertaining in crowded room with some guests having to sit in hall. Make it definitely an interior; more people, no monocle on man, and host and hostess should be young and poor.

  OTMAR

  Picnic and thunderstorm. Make strap plain black.

  BARLOW

  Woman finding large queer-shaped package under Christmas tree. Try again.

  REA

  Man in club being served tiny bit of turkey. Man ought to be farther removed to show that its [sic] a club. Should be alone.

  REA

  Pumpkin sketch. Pumpkins should be stacked on lawn not on stands.

  For several years, the actual conveying of such criticisms to the artists fell to Gibbs. There was a certain logic to this assignment. He had a good aesthetic sense and enjoyed sketching offbeat subjects, especially dinosaurs, self-caricatures, and faces in general, many of them distinguished by their grotesque features and fierce teeth. As a sketchbook he sometimes used a copy of an obscure novel called The Crime in Car Thirteen, which, thanks to a bookbinder’s error, was filled with nothing but blank pages.

  Gibbs may also have unwittingly ensured his place at the art table by publishing a brief essay called “The Cartoon Situation” in the December 28, 1929, issue. He observed that in the past year, “American newspapers and magazines published something like three hundred thousand topical cartoons” on such diverse and contentious issues as Prohibition, crime, censorship, birth control, a
nd big business. In all cases, the point was the same: “some person or principle is to be abandoned or demolished in favor or some other person or principle.” He protested, though, that the welter of symbols, labels, and other methods of visual shorthand the cartoonists employed to make this identical point was overwhelming and disconcerting.

  To avoid any confusion, Gibbs suggested supplanting all future cartoons with “a sort of Master Cartoon, an abridged editorial commentary on all crises, all campaigns, all crusades.” His candidate was “Dropping the Pilot,” which had appeared in Punch back in 1890 following Bismarck’s forced resignation as chancellor of Germany. It depicted a haughty Kaiser Wilhelm II, complete with crown, regarding Bismarck as he stolidly descended the gangplank of the ship of state, preparing to enter a tiny launch. Here, Gibbs said, was the ideal editorial cartoon template:

  The ship in every case can represent the American People; Bismarck, whatever person or principle it is believed desirable to eliminate; and the Kaiser, the individual or organization responsible for its downfall. In treating the Eighteenth Amendment, for example, we might label the ship, the American People; the Kaiser, Public Opinion; and Bismarck either Liquor or Prohibition, depending on our personal convictions. It would be as simple as that.

  There was one final, important reason that Ross wanted Gibbs at the art meetings. Consistent with his peculiar ideas about chains of command and production systems, Ross specifically preferred that a nonartist deliver the bad news, feeling that contributors would resent one of their own passing judgment.

  Yet for all his qualifications, Gibbs was a curious choice. “A great deal of what was put before the art meeting was extremely unfunny,” said William Maxwell. “Gibbs was repelled by the whole idea of grown men using their minds in this way and seldom said anything.” This lack of enthusiasm was apparent to the artists he dealt with. Gibbs, recalled Syd Hoff, “always seemed uncomfortable at this chore, and impatient for me to leave.” At the opposite extreme, he could be exasperatingly exacting. Michael Berry, an émigré from Nazi Germany, recalled that both Gibbs and Ross “would make you redraw cartoons five or six times with minor changes. Weeks passed each time before you were able to see the editors again. That made me very nervous and I soon gave up.”

  Some sense of the tortuous process of refining the inchoate thoughts and drawings that crowded the art meeting until they were finely honed comic gems can be gleaned from this letter to Arno:

  Arno:

  There’s so much here that I guess a note is simpler.

  On the cover, I’m afraid that the meeting wasn’t as favorably disposed as I was. They all feel it isn’t up to your standard, and isn’t a cover you yourself would like to see on The New Yorker. Ross thinks that there are possibilities for a lot more humor in both figures and for a more colorful or interesting background. He also complained that the little man looked more like a street-cleaner than a janitor. I’m afraid I started all the trouble when I sent you Hall’s sketch, lending you to follow too closely the layout of a not very inspired artist. I hope you’ll be willing to try the thing again because everybody likes the idea, and I’m sure you can work it out.

  On your own cover idea, the hunt dinner, we think the idea certainly merits a sketch.

  “Dammit, I said julep”: they liked this idea, but think it would be clearer if the jap [sic] had brought the tulip in a little vase instead of this glass. As it is, there is some confusion, a couple of people getting the idea that the jap [sic] had just brought a rose in a julep glass, missing the tulip idea altogether.

  “My God, what happened to LaGuardia?”: We weren’t quite sure what your idea here was. Is it still supposed to be LaGuardia’s car with LaGuardia missing, or another car altogether [sic]. I’m sure it’s the latter, and in that case, I imagine it could be a lot clearer, and perhaps funnier, if the cops suddenly found themselves escorting a little guy in a model T Ford. If it’s clear, it’s good, Ross says.

  “Frankly, Mr. Digby . . .”: the meeting decided that quadruplets were a little excessive, and would prefer triplets. They’d also like the father to be an older man, “less nondescript.” A normal-looking man, but getting along, that’s all.

  I’m afraid it was no on the others.

  Gibbs

  Reportedly, only two artists were immune from constant requests for revision: Gluyas Williams, whose clean, graceful renderings of comically cluttered situations had a delicacy that belied their strength, and Helen Hokinson, who poked fun at the foibles of clubwomen and matrons with an eye that was never malicious. As for the rest, they simply had to accept whatever recommendations were made. The system didn’t always work. Once a drawing by Alice Harvey was accepted but languished in the art “bank” because no one could devise a satisfactory caption for it. As weeks went by, letters flew back and forth between Harvey and The New Yorker, with Harvey becoming increasingly impatient for payment. After yet another disgruntled letter from her, an exasperated Gibbs wrote to Ross, “Want me to run up to Westport and bump off this girl?”

  Gibbs could have avoided making that offer simply by turning Harvey’s work over to White, The New Yorker’s caption whiz. Confronted in 1928 with a Carl Rose sketch of a mother and a tot at a dinner table, he came up with the archetypal exchange “It’s broccoli, dear.” “I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.” When it came to art, though, White gave the magazine far more than captions. He gave it an utterly original contributor in the form of Thurber himself.

  It is startling to consider that Thurber, whose New Yorker pictures would become as well known as his New Yorker prose, published none of the former for his first few years on the staff. But to hear him tell it, he was more of a doodler than an artist: “For years I had been scrawling drawings on pieces of yellow copy paper and throwing them on the floor or leaving them on my desk. I began drawing at seven, mostly what seemed to be dogs, and carried the practice into the years of so-called maturity, getting a lot of good, clean, childish fun out of filling up all the pages of memo pads on the office desks of busy friends of mine, seeking to drive them crazy.” Thurber succeeded; Gibbs observed that those busy friends regarded this manic activity “as a hell of a way to waste good copy-paper, since his usual output at a sitting was twenty or more.”

  In drawing up a storm, even famously doing so on office walls—portions of which were preserved for posterity—Thurber was not simply working off nervous energy. Forever seeking to be the center of attention, he was practically begging to be noticed. Eventually he was. “It was White who got the mad impetuous idea that my scrawls should be published,” he recalled, “and, what is more, paid for with money.”

  “I don’t remember just when I began to take Thurber’s drawing seriously,” White said. “I didn’t really know art, or draftsmanship, but the drawings seemed funny, above anything else.”

  It took White a while to get others to feel similarly; his first attempts to have Thurber’s drawings published met with firm rejection from Rea Irvin. Then in 1929 the two collaborated on Is Sex Necessary? or Why You Feel the Way You Do, a lighthearted look at the eternal male/ female divide, couched in part in mock-clinical terms. Among the highlights were Thurber’s fifty-two illustrations. When they met with their editor, Eugene Saxton, at Harper & Bros. and White spread the drawings on the floor, Saxton beheld the flaccid, misshapen, sexless images and said, “These, I take it, are the rough sketches from which the drawings will be produced?”

  “No,” White replied, “these are the drawings themselves.” As he explained in closing the volume,

  [I]t was I who, during those trying months when the book was in the making, picked up the drawings night after night from the floor under Thurber’s desk by gaining the confidence of the charwomen, nightly redeemed countless other thousands of unfinished sketches from the huge waste baskets; and finally, it was my incredible willingness to go through with the business of “inking-in” the drawings (necessitated by the fact that they were done in such faint stroke
s of a broken pencil as to be almost invisible to the naked eye) that at last brought them to the point where they could be engraved and reproduced.

  Is Sex Necessary? sold fifty thousand copies in its first year, an extraordinary figure considering that it appeared just as the stock market was collapsing. Ross was not exactly enchanted. “How the hell did you get the idea you could draw?” he asked Thurber after seeing a copy. The editor was annoyed; he distrusted publishers in general and didn’t like that two of his top people had sold some of their best work elsewhere.

  Still, he knew he had a new artist of sorts on his hands. Thurber’s first drawing in The New Yorker appeared in its 1930 anniversary issue, part of a series called “Our Pet Department” that spoofed newspaper pet columns. In setting down such outlandish creatures as a moose that is actually a horse with antlers strapped to its head, and a fish with ears, Thurber was not only expressing his rich whimsy. He was beginning to break new ground in what kind of nonsense could be put on paper and accepted by an appreciative public. As the years went on, Thurber’s flights of fancy became ever more exotic. A perfect example of how his infectious wordplay combined with ingenious artistry was his “New Natural History,” depicting words as they might appear in animal form. “The Chintz” is an especially prim, precious chinchillalike critter; “The Upstart” is a close relative of a gull just beginning to take flight. Thurber’s prehistoric animal “The Stereopticon” naturally has two enormous eyes, while “The Hexameter” appropriately has six legs and might pass for a strange hamster.