In the most recent (12/28/20) New Yorker — the Cartoon Issue — a Colin Tom Desert Island strip, in which the castaway is importuned by messages in a bottle:
Water, water everywhere
Nor any drop to drink;
Bottles, bottles everywhere
But nothing but a CLINK!
(The Desert Island cartoon meme appears to be indefinitely flexible.)
Colin Tom is new to this blog. From a webpage about New Yorker cartoonists, Tom’s bio:
I’m a Brooklyn-based artist and doodler. I was born in Singapore and moved around a lot as a kid, but I predominantly grew up between the Bay Area, California, and Atlanta, Georgia.
I received a BFA in painting and a BA in magazine journalism from the University of Georgia. As soon as I graduated, I threw all of my things in a U-haul with my friends, and moved to Brooklyn — bartending in night clubs and bars, and art handling in galleries and museums to make ends meet.
I’ve always had a drawing and painting practice while I’ve lived here, but I didn’t start drawing for The New Yorker until I saw an episode of Sixty Minutes on the submission process. I made my first batch with nothing more than the intention of seeing the inside of The New Yorker offices and having a meeting with Bob Mankoff. Once I got a taste for the rejection I kept showing up. I began submitting in 2014 and was published for the first time in 2015.
I am once again impressed by artists, musicians, and writers (not to mention many teachers) who manage to paste together complex lives hustling on the gig economy. (In a number of ways, I have had an extraordinarily lucky life.)
Leave a Reply