Cartooning “tweets” has been a rage of late. I’ve reported that Paul Sabourin started pairing New Yorker cartoons with Kanye West’s tweets and yesterday I posted news that Tina’s Groove creator Rina Piccolo was drawing original sketches of other people’s tweets. And with that post, I learned that BECK has been doing this for a year and sold his first “mashup” yesterday. He reports the original tweeter takes half of the fee).
But back to the New Yorker/Kanye West’s cartoons. How does the New Yorker feel about the use of their cartoons? Robert Mankoff, the magazine’s cartoon editor, has officially responded:
My first reaction to the idea of replacing New Yorker cartoon captions with Kanye West tweets was, “Hey, get the hell out of my bed,” and then, “At least stop hogging the covers.” But since the damn thing went viral and there is as yet no vaccine to halt its spread, I figured it might provide material for, as they say, a teachable moment on the Incongruity Theory of Humor, as defined by James Beattie (1735-1803) in his “Essay on Laughter”:
Unintelligible banter or genius. Hmm.
I really like Robert Mankoff, but I’m still laughing over this. I used to work in the Philosophy department at IU and his response reminds me of some of the professors.
The next time I reference somebody, I’m going to be sure to give their birth and death years. That’s the clincher for me.
My mom (1935-2006) would appreciate that.