Dec. 22--There are 110 good reasons to buy "The New Yorker Book of Technology Cartoons," and they're all inside the new book.
But don't ask Bob Mankoff to tell you which one is the best.
Mankoff, a New Yorker cartoonist since 1977 and the magazine's cartoon editor since 1997, had to whittle down the selection to 110 from hundreds of wry entries penned over the years by his fellow cartoonists.
"I have no one favorite; they're all my children, and I don't want to make any of them jealous," said Mankoff, who pores over 600 or 700 submissions each week before selecting 15 cartoons for the magazine.
There is an one technology-related image, however, that Mankoff said is the most re-published of all the magazine's tech cartoons, and has become -- for better or worse -- "an icon of the Internet."
It is cartoonist Peter Steiner's 1993 illustration of one dog -- his paw resting on his master's computer keyboard -- telling another: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."
To date, said Mankoff, that image has generated revenues of $100,000 in reprint fees.
Like other themed New Yorker cartoon books -- there are two more out this year, one on politics and one on literature -- the topic of technology was ripe for harvesting.
"Technology holds out this wonderful promise of a life made frictionless, and it never fails to break that promise," quipped Mankoff, who is an admitted gadget devotee.
The book, which features the work of 45 cartoonists, comes with a first for the magazine's cartoon anthologies: a CD of the tech cartoons, allowing readers to send the images to their friends over the Internet for free.
The book appears to be a hit with holiday gift-buyers in the valley this season. "We're selling it well. We have it on our humor display tables up front, as well as in the humor section itself," said Clark Kepler, owner of Kepler's Books in Menlo Park. "They (the New Yorker magazine editors) are always choosing book topics that are timely and speak to the culture, and certainly technology speaks to the culture of Silicon Valley."
At the Barnes & Noble store on Stevens Creek Boulevard in San Jose, all of the New Yorker books of cartoons are selling fast, said spokeswoman Lorraine Antonucci.
The CD-in-a-book relates to another segment of Mankoff's professional life -- as founder and president of the Cartoon Bank, a New Yorker Magazine Company that allows the works of New Yorker cartoon artists to live on forever, as it were, in digital archives.
The Web site, www.cartoonbank.com, offers New Yorker cartoon fans an easy way to navigate through thousands of cartoons published over the decades.
According to Andy Pillsbury, vice president of business development for Cartoon Bank, Mankoff selected 3,500 classic cartoons from 1925 -- the year the magazine was founded -- through 1986. All of the cartoons from 1986 through today are included on the site.
And there is more: The hundreds of drawings that do not make Mankoff's cut into the weekly New Yorkers are available for use. The artists also can be contacted through the online company to create newly commissioned work for customers and businesses.
All of the images -- published or unpublished -- can be accessed and sent to others online and even over your Palm Pilot, for no charge.
Of course, the more lucrative end of the business for the New Yorker and its cartoonists are the sweatshirts, T-shirts and framed or matted cartoons sold on the site.
There are other customers: Businesses pay for the rights to use the cartoons in sales and marketing presentations. Publications and Web sites often use reprints, as do advertising agencies.
"Before the Cartoon Bank existed, there was a relatively difficult process that organizations would have to go through to get art work and permission to use cartoon," said Pillsbury.
"Cartoons are a great way for a company to make a point," said Pillsbury. "They help companies make a connection with their customers in way that statistics or written material often cannot do."
Silicon Valley companies have taken advantage of the opportunity. At the Intel Museum's latest exhibit, "The Birth Of The PC," three New Yorker tech cartoons are featured.
The New Yorker Book of Technology Cartoons (Bloomberg Press, 110 pp, $24.95).
To see more of the San Jose Mercury News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sjmercury.com
(c) 2000, San Jose Mercury News, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
No comments:
Post a Comment