With artwork by New Yorker cartoonist Brendan Loper, passed on by John McIntyre on Facebook, for the beginning of school (I laughed out loud):
(#1) The original seer-consulting cartoon, from the New Yorker of 12/5/22, had the caption: “The answers you seek shall be revealed to you by shutting up and paying attention to what happens in the movie.” The academic caption was created by someone, maybe even Loper, for Shutterstock
For some reason, Loper hasn’t appeared on this blog before. Odd, because he does a lot of penguin cartoons, like this New Yorker daily cartoon of 7/13/17:
(#2) Sending messages
August 29, 2023 at 4:49 pm |
For a second, by “original seer-seeking cartoon,” I thought you meant the first ever such cartoon. Any idea how this trope began? Is it primarily a New Yorker thing?
I do not get the penguin cartoon. I feel like I am overlooking something obvious.
August 30, 2023 at 4:39 am |
I’ll post about the Seeker and Seer / Wise Man cartoon meme. Unlike some other memes in the single-panel gag cartoon world (Psychiatrist, Desert Island, Grim Reaper, Desert Crawl, Ascent of Man), my quick impression is that this one is indeed very closely associated with the New Yorker. But of course I don’t know the history, have no way of exploring it (I can’t access the archives because the magazine has fucked up my account, apparently irrevocably), and in any case have no time to pursue such a project.
My reading of Loper’s penguin cartoon is that the penguins have been sending out icebergs / ice floes as messages (this being the only means of communication with humans that they have), but of course without getting any responses. If I’ve misunderstood Loper’s intentions, then Loper’s intentions are hard to discern, or I am dense, or (most likely) both.