Rejection Collection

Writers Read

When I’m not writing, I’m reading.

I read a lot. I feel this sharpens my mind, keeps me up to breast on what other writers think, and increases my level of suave, distinguished sophistication.

This week, as I begin a new writing project, I want to avoid the temptation to talk instead of write. If I talk about the subject, instead of write about it, then talking relives creative pressure and I never get around to writing. So I won’t talk about my next book, instead I’ll talk about someone else’s—I’ll write a book review in keeping with my level of suave, distinguished sophistication.

It’s never been filmed to appear on Masterpiece Theatre, but my most recent reading has been The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, And Never Will See, In The New Yorker, edited by cartoonist Matthew Diffee (c.2006. Simon & Schuster, Spotlight Entertainment. N.Y. 262 pages).

Anyone visiting our home recently will see why I identify with this panel:

Yes, the cartoons in Diffee’s book have all been rejected by New Yorker editors as unsuitable to appear in that swank publication.

Diffee explains that each issue of New Yorker has room for only 20 cartoons, yet 50 regular established cartoonists submit ten cartoons every week—that’s 500 right there, besides slush pile entries submitted by hopefuls hoping to break into the magazine.

Thus over a thousand cartoons get reviewed each week and only 20 make it into print. Most are rejected.

The Rejection Collection…er, collects these rejections.

Those of us with suave, sophisticated taste, may wonder why such fine cartoons might have been rejected.

Diffee said, “Some of these cartoons are too racy, rude, or rowdy; some are too politically incorrect, too weird: a few are probably too dumb; but mostly, I think, they’re just too many”.

Well, maybe it’s not too hard to understand why some cartoons were rejected; for instance, some degrade blacks, homosexuals, women, married couples, Arabs, dogs, smokers, cats, and Mexicans.

Not all at the same time, you understand, but one cartoon panel at a time.

The book even contains a few rare cartoons which prove tasteless even to my refined taste.

I’ll have to browse the pages again and again to mark the ones which offend me.