Edward Frascino cartoon © The New Yorker/Condé Nast
On November 15, 2020 Edward Frascino celebrated his 90th birthday. For the past 55 years of that time Ed has been contributing cartoons and drawings to The New Yorker (and for seven years before that he was a gag/idea man for the magazine’s other cartoonists).
MM: You were providing ideas for nearly seven years (1958-1965) before selling your first drawing. That’s quite a wait.
Ed Frascino: That was quite a wait until I sold a drawing. I always liked Winston Churchill’s, “Never, Never, Never, give up.” Although there seems to be some question about it being taken out of context. In any case during the long wait I was selling cartoons elsewhere. Magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Look, Esquire, The Saturday Review of Literature, British Punch, and Playboy were buying New Yorker rejects
I continued submitting weekly to The New Yorker. After about two years, I was tenacious, the batch returned to me was missing a cartoon. I pointed this out to the receptionist who called inside and told me, “You have an OK.“
Michael Maslin conducted a fine email chat with Edward Frascino covering his experiences
at The New Yorker and some other career tidbits, including some handpicked cartoons.
Wish Mr. Frascino The Best; and welcome him, as an active member, to The Club.