The New Yorker's 98th Birthday Party

A recollection on the Eve of its 99th

The Birthday Cake was baked by illustrator and New Yorker Softball team assistant coach, Teresa Mathew.

Editor’s Note:
I’m publishing this journal entry on the eve of the New Yorker’s 99th Birthday. I didn’t publish it at the time because I hadn’t quite collected my thoughts or feelings about the event. The notes I made on the night are the hasty scribblings and sketches of a madman, but I finally managed to make some sense of them.

I’m sad to say that a large number of the people I was in the room with that night have since been fired by Conde Nast, or have left of their own accord for one reason or another. Many of the magazine’s best and most influential cartoonists died in the ensuing year, including Ed Koren (April), and Sam Gross (May) shortly after we lost Lee Lorenz, Sempe, and George Booth; all giants in their field. I think Emma Allen has had to write more cartoonist obituaries than any Cartoon Editor in the magazine’s history.

The New Yorker itself has gone through a lot of changes since that night, so I’m glad we had the opportunity to get together when we did.

The following is a grammatical mess. Apologies. I don’t have an editor. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the read.

Journal Entry:
February 21st, 2023
New York, NY

“Christ, it’s hot!” I heard someone behind me sigh, as I dabbed my head with a grubby napkin. I turned around to see a man with a beard and glasses whose face looked vaguely familiar. I wish everyone was wearing nametags— I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to recognize people from their Stan Chow byline portraits.

---

---

It really was steaming hot and only got hotter as more bodies filtered in. Someone had cranked up the heat, and everyone dressed for February weather was now sweaty and kvetching. A great way to kick off the festivities at the World Trade Center for the 98th Birthday of the New Yorker.

There was a small selection of finger food near the window. I snapped up what I could before hitting the bar and bumping into a batch of cartoonists I hadn’t seen in years. In fact, this was the first time most of the attendees had been in the same room since the offices shut down in March of 2020— it felt like meeting at the other end of a war. Who survived, who moved to North Carolina, who grew a beard, etc. So much to catch up on. So much eavesdropping on writers talking about what they think of other writers not in attendance…

A Batch of Cartoonists

Matt Diffee, Lars Kenseth, Ivan Ehlers, and Lonnie Millsapp were a sight for sore, sweaty eyes. They and the rest of the LA contingent caught up with the East Coasters in an ever-growing huddle of shop talk and buffoonery. Seeing everyone again was like taking a big gasp of oxygen after being underwater for 3 years.

You can see the full list of cartoonist attendees in the post Michael Maslin wrote the day after the event here.¹ I didn’t get to catch up with all of them, or write about them here, sadly. But I’ve given it a red hot go.

The curious thing is, those who knew each other all just kind of clicked back into place as if it had been ten minutes between drinks. Old jokes, esoteric cartooning references, it all just falls out of us; There’s a shorthand with cartoonists that I don’t have with any other group of people. It’s pretty special. And very silly.

Faux Leather Pas

I wandered out to the bathroom to cool off and found someone had graffitied the urinal. Impossible to know who it was; everybody in the room carries a pen. I re-entered the sauna to eavesdraw a conversation with two colleagues who had just met in person for the first time. One was wearing fake leather boots. The person they were chatting to committed the crime of calling them shoes. Disaster.

I slunk away to see New Yorker contributors I’d only emailed/DMed with online²— cartoonists like

Zoe Si

and

Brooke Bourgeois

as well as my favourite ornithologist/painter Jenny Kroik. She was talking about wrens over microscopic hors d'oeuvres with Jeremy Nguyen, who was casually rocking the most impressive blazer in the room. If I’d dropped acid in the Uber I’d have been squinting at his lapel for forty minutes.

Meeting John Cuneo

I glanced up from blazertown to see John Cuneo talking with

Liza Donnelly

and my knees buckled. I don’t know what it is; I get sort of starstruck with artists. Movie stars and famous Comedians? Totally fine. Artists whose work I admire? Fuggedaboutit. I’m a puddle of piss on the floor.
And don’t even get me started on The Comma Queen³.

Liza and her husband, fellow cartoonist

Michael Maslin's Ink Spill

came by to say hello, and kindly offered to introduce me to John. I was so nervous I had to swig another plastic thimble of cheap Rose to steel my nerves. I was sweating like a Trump footsoldier at a deposition.

I wandered over to the corner he was wisely hiding, and my mind ran blank. I’d just watched John do a live stream with him and Joe Ciardello just drawing and shooting the shit— Easily the best thing I’ve seen on YouTube. I shook his hand. I don’t remember what I said to him, nor him to me, but I know I walked away with a dry pair of pants. The best I could have hoped for.

Mort the Fort

The most well-recognized cartoonist in the room was also one of the most prolific; my old friend Mort Gerberg.⁴ Mort was in town from his new home in Colorado where he moved during the pandemic. We spotted Emma Allen, the Cartoon Editor, who we’d last seen on Tuesday, March 3rd.

[Here’s a photo of Mort on the morning of what we’re now aware is the last ever Cartoon Meeting at the New Yorker. He looks like he knows something’s up.]

Note the hat: Pergola Des Artistes is the (now closed) restaurant a bunch of New Yorker cartoonists used to go for lunch after pitching their batch of cartoons every Tuesday. You can read more about ‘the lunch’ here.

Emma’s last words to me that day were about her leaving to fly to Texas for SXSW, and details about her impending nuptials. She never got to attend South-by, on account of Tim Ferriss raising the alarm at the last moment about it ‘probably not being a great idea to get together during an impending pandemic.’ She has however, since married.

As Mort leaned in and said “What’s going on with this room? I’m schvitzing!” I overheard a couple of longtime contributors talking behind me:

Emma mentioned it was the first time she’d met many of the contributors who had joined the cartoonist stable in the intervening years, and that one of the staff had drawn an amazing Eustace Tilley on the birthday cake.

The cake was baked by illustrator/photographer/writer/New Yorker Softball Team assistant coach Teresa Mathew. It was the highlight of the night. Also, delicious.

On the Clock

Mort and I had dinner reservations downtown at Harry’s, where his wife Judith was enjoying a pre-dinner cocktail with the more entertaining Chatfield. They texted to say they were at the bar and ‘not to hurry’. Nonetheless, we were on a clock. He was hustling us out the door between goodbyes.

I chomped into the birthday cake as the New Yorker’s Editor in chief took the microphone to make a speech. He said…

By the time I’d finished my slice, he’d concluded, “We are part of an amazing ongoing idea, a cause, an enterprise. I drink to your health, and to the health of this great thing of ours.”