November 30, 2005
The curious incident of the dog cartoon in the dimly lit bar
Many of my readers already know this, but I have a new job. Much as I enjoyed being a freelance copy editor at Cargo, the siren call of health and dental benefits has lured me away to Sterling Publishing, where I am now working as a puzzle editor. Apart from the obvious changes this entails (such as suddenly being called upon to test-solve way too many sudoku), it also means I no longer have ready access to the Cargo art department's scanner, on which I scanned many a cartoon.
However, my scanner withdrawal has inspired me to finally figure out how to work the discarded scanner that my friends Amber and Jeff salvaged for me from two of their friends. I don't have a Six Things for its maiden scan, unfortunately, but I do have a quick sketch I dashed off, for which there is a story:
I went to a bar in the East Village to see a 10-minute play that my pal Veronica was acting in. There were five playlets on the bill, one of which required props that the company had forgotten to bring. After some frantic rummaging in a bag, a woman asked if anyone knew how to draw. I was right next to her and said, well, sort of. She asked if I could draw a bench, a dog, and a horse. (At first I thought she said "a bitch, a dog, and a horse," and asked how I was supposed to differentiate between the bitch and the dog, but I was soon straightened out.)
Anyway, my bench and horse were at least recognizable as such, although they were very crappy drawings even by my standards. (Thirty-second renderings of things I don't draw frequently are pretty much bound to not come out well, I think.) But I liked the dog cartoon, so I saved it. And here it is.
Since caption contests are all the rage right now, feel free to leave comments with possible captions for the above cartoon, whether appropriate for the New Yorker or inappropriate, funny or intentionally deathly. I know it's not an automatically hilarious setup, lacking anachronisms or easy openings for pirate jokes, but I feel certain you all can rise to the ad hoc challenge nonetheless. I'll start you off:
"Man, that is some sloshy water. It almost makes me think we're about to have an earthquake, but if that were the case, then I'd be running around in a panic instead of sitting here calmly, since animals can sense earthquakes."
"You paid how much for this at Les Halles? You were ripped off."
"I'm glad they've started feeding me dog food, but I wish they would take me out of this birdcage."
Posted by Francis at 02:11 AMI don't have an entry for the caption contest, but do have a subliminal message for what you can scan: En comic book!
Good to see a new entry in Heaneyland.
Posted by: Ellen at November 30, 2005 07:07 AM"Just pondering before I eat... Do you realize that man spelled backwards is 'nam? Perhaps that's why we failed there given that man's inability to force its will from a distance over a native people is similar to his inability to keep me from eating the poop out of the cat box."
Posted by: bad dad at November 30, 2005 09:33 AM"Dog food again?"
(I'm sure I've seen such a cartoon/caption before, so maybe it's not original, but it's the first thing that came to mind.)
Posted by: Ken/Cazique at November 30, 2005 09:41 AMMy first caption thought:
"Snoopy wouldn't put up with this crap!"
Posted by: Erin at November 30, 2005 10:03 AMSeeing the flames arising from the oil slick in his water dish, Spot was alternately saddened and angered. Cursing the petrochemical industry, he vowed to renew his Greenpeace membership.
I knew you were working at Sterling now, but I have no idea where I heard. The people, they talk about you all the time.
Posted by: Orange at November 30, 2005 10:39 AM"He got it wrong again. The rabbit gets the lettuce, I get the kibble!"
Posted by: David. at November 30, 2005 11:52 AM"The crazier Mariah Carey gets, the more I want to f**k her." or "It's not the dog food that's making me forlorn, it's this K3 ripoff."
Posted by: Beegee at November 30, 2005 12:11 PM"Oh great ... they didn't give me the dressing on the side AGAIN."
That's a damn good drawing for something you sketched out so quickly. BTW what pen did you draw it with?
Posted by: Toonhead! at November 30, 2005 12:32 PMThanks! (Of course, the secret is that most of my drawings are done that quickly; it may just take me many tries to get the hastily-drawn cartoon that looks right.) To answer your question, I use a Pilot Razor Point with what they call a razor-fine tip, although it's what I use for my thick lines.
Posted by: Francis at November 30, 2005 12:38 PMI have suddenly realized that your cartoons remind me of James Thurber's.
This is, I believe, on balance a good thing.
Posted by: Columbine at November 30, 2005 12:45 PM"Is this Atkins?"
Posted by: Col at November 30, 2005 01:11 PM"OK, I'm a dog, that's one, and the food dish is two. Now, I just have to think of four more things..."
Thanks,
-V.
"Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the dog of Science Diet."
Posted by: Rich at November 30, 2005 05:14 PMThe only caption that made me giggle was Col's "Is this Atkins?"
Posted by: Orange at November 30, 2005 06:04 PMIt's PUPPY. Soylent Green is made out of PUPPY!!!!
Posted by: angela at December 1, 2005 01:43 AMIs that you, Michelle? Hey!
By the way, Francis -- scanners are very cheap and I'm sure your friendly neighborhood Admin asst. would be willing to get you guys one through your company office supply catalogue... you could always say it's for scanning and sending puzzles (and maybe you could even use it for that every now & then?) I love the cartoons.
Posted by: Col at December 1, 2005 10:05 AM"Why couldn't the sick fuck draw my two-dimensional body actually DRINKING the water? God, I'm so thirsty..."
Posted by: Josh at December 1, 2005 02:18 PMAnd Josh's caption is also funny!
Posted by: Orange at December 1, 2005 02:29 PMMy favorite caption so far is your own "birdcage" one. Break that fourth wall, baby!
Mine:
"I approve of the Szechuan cuisine, but I question whether it was necessary to replace my left foreleg with a chopstick."
(This, by the way, was my previous draft:
"The new food looks good. But was it worth having my forelegs replaced with an uncircumcized penis and a chopstick?")
Could I eat Sterno?
Yeah, I could eat Sterno.
I'm with Columbine - Thurber sprang to mind as soon as I saw the picture.
After that, a kangaroo sprang to mind (the back legs), and then a pig (the nose). It's a kangapog! A Thurber kangapog, no less. And far more doglike than my attempts at a 30-second dog, I must admit. (I have tried to draw a dog on the board in the classroom precisely once. When the students were writing the dialog I'd asked them to do based on the picture, they kept arguing about whether it was a horse or a pig.)
My caption:
"Oh, crap, not again! Just because I'm a hastily drawn dog they think they can give me hastily drawn water. I just KNOW it's going to go up my nose, and I HATE that."
Posted by: BadAunt at December 3, 2005 11:53 AM"I am on the Internet, yet everyone knows I'm a dog."
Posted by: Francis at December 3, 2005 06:45 PM"Uh-oh. My bowl's on fire again."
Posted by: Victoria at December 4, 2005 12:16 AMHealth coverage? Woo hoo! J9 was worried about Rose. Hope things are well.
Posted by: ACW at December 8, 2005 12:48 PMthe picture was very good
Posted by: charlotte at June 27, 2007 10:53 AMSame shit, different day!
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