The Cartoon & Poem Supplement
The Cartoon & Poem Supplement
"…so then they hid the leg warmers in the closet where Jenny wouldn’t find them–"
Another free week for the Supplement! Enjoy! Remember to pay up if you want to read it every week.
Poems:
“Elegy for A Name” by Kaveh Akbar: A really phenomenal little poem about sex and loss, this is Akbar’s first published poem in years – and the first since his novel Martyr! which is one of the year’s most-acclaimed. Two little stanzas, slightly irregular (one of 13 lines, one of 12, with conjuncted titles appearing at not-quite-regular intervals), on giving things names – sort of the ultimate poetic rosary to finger, since so much of the form is about grasping toward an articulation of the unnameable. Here, new subtleties reveal themselves with every re-reading. Deeply felt, elegant, gutting, pretty perfect.
“The Sterling Silver Mirror” by Nikki Giovanni: Giovanni is famous, but isn’t a regular at the magazine – the (unreliable) online author page indicates she’s been published only once before – in 1997, no less. This feels at first like a straightforward story of heirlooms, but there’s plenty of attention paid to form – note especially the punctuationless stanza endings, and how they open things up to the multiplicity of the unspoken and unspeakable. If this feels, perhaps, self-consciously wise, its wisdom is still genuine, not put-on. A contraband way of seeing the self is passed down at great cost: The mirror, yes, and also the story.
Cartoons:
Here's where to find the cartoons, with credits, in order.
Cover: It says a lot that a 14-8 start merits a cover-art celebration of the Knicks. Cuneo is a master of likeness; the figures aren’t merely recognizable, they’re unmistakable. The KAT’s out of the bag!
Pg. 10: No excuse to not give the pirate trekking poles. Without a touch like that it’s sort of generic.
Pg. 15: Is the joke that friendliness is abominable, or is this just goofy for its own sake?
Pg. 17: Having it be the executioner that’s running things is in theory a funny touch, but it’s not actually relevant to the joke being told; it confuses things.
Pg. 23: MPJ today stands for Mesozoic, Paleozoic, Jurassic.
Pg. 29: More clever than funny. Not sure why the wife is Muriel from Courage the Cowardly Dog.
Pg. 30: Well-written caption, but a “what if animals did human things” gag has to be really special to amuse me.
Pg. 33: This would work even better with no caption, just the woman with her headset on and twelve pissy disciples.
Pg. 34: This newsletter is basically built on a foundation of dumb substitutive wordplay… however, I expect a bit more from a standalone cartoon.
Pg. 39: Well-written caption, but a “what if animals did human things” gag has to be really special to amuse me.
Pg. 41 [Sketchbook]: Witty, charming, and information-dense. I love all the little details, like “the pajamas are purely ornamental” and the hallway full of insomniac portraits. The gradually escalating footnotes are a compelling device if not an entirely motivated one. I’d love more work like this in the magazine, which could make itself a home not just for panel cartoons but for thoughtful short comics. Best of the Week, easily, since this batch of panels is pretty rough.
Pg. 45: I think people have been saying “…and the crowd goes wild” ironically for about as long as they’ve been saying it seriously. This could be pushed a lot further.
Pg. 49: Not quite close enough to an actual thing doctors say to feel clever – it’s just grim instead.
Pg. 53: The rare double MPJ!1 This one stands for Multiple Prayers Justified.
Pg. 54: Do actual artists really act like this? I know it’s the cliché, but in my experience most serious “creatives” are eternally starving for thoughtful feedback.
Pg. 58: If the North Pole was a western workplace, Santa would be a boss! So says this panel, as well as just about every schlocky Christmas movie.
54 Years Ago Today
but i can tell you anyhow
That’s “mid pet joke”, if you haven’t yet been informed. ↩