March 09, 2006
A Steig example
Come to think of it, everybody didn't grow up with The New Yorker Album 1925-1950, but I sure did. I can trace all sorts of fundamental bits of Weltanschauung (and probably basic sensayuma) to specific cartoons that I puzzled over for years before I learned/discovered what they were really about. There are great depths, largely unplumbed, in the stratigraphies and ontogeny of humor. William Steig is good and dead, so I don't feel that I'm somehow stealing from him or from the much-beloved New Yorker by putting this one up here. It might inspire a reader to buy the (foolishly DRM'd, but nonetheless utterly indispensable) Complete New Yorker:
I've always been especially charmed by the look on the horse's face.
Brilliant. Both cartoon and commentary. You have an extraordinary eye for the telling detail.
Just spent ten minutes running down "sensayuma." Finally got it.
When the light bulb shone, I was glad to be alone.
It's not good to be shown so dim but dogged.