THE NEW YORKER is giving Roz Chast Entirely Too Much to Do

In My Humble Opinion
1

Roz Chast.

A modest woman, Connecticut mother of two, with a modest talent for drawing cartoons.

Since the late 1970s, Roz Chast has been contributing a couple of cartoons (excuse me, drawings) to the NEW YORKER magazine every month. Through the 1980s and 1990s, she’s also managed to have a few books of her more clever cartoons published. According to Amazon.com, all of these are now out of stock or out of print (some books she’s illustrated are still available, however).

After Tina the Terrible left the NEW YORKER for (heh) greener pastures, the new editor (can’t remember his name, which puts me in good company) has decided to give Roz Chast an INORDINATE amount of space…she now provides about three out of the four “Back Page” features, which fill an entire page at the end of the magazine.

I’ve been watching her material with growing horror.

She’s attempted a series called “Mixed Marriage,” which seems to be about a woman who’s a screaming, gibbering neurotic, and a man who’s an easy-going, po’-faced boob. In the three which have run to date, the punch line has involved the woman bellowing insanely, her head swollen to horrid proportions, at the cowering husband.

Roz’s interpretation of Jew and Gentile? Let us go on.

Last week’s presentation was a one-paneller entitled “Seder Plate at the Olde Yankee Inne.” Among the offerings were a leftover Chinese spare rib, some canned fruit cocktail, a wedge of iceberg lettuce, and Russian dressing for dipping.

Roz’s subtext seems to be that New Englanders are either sociologically clueless reptiles, or blatant anti-Semites who straightforwardly offer pork to observant Jewish families which for some reason venture north of Westchester to celebrate Passover.

Roz Chast.

What the fuck?

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Agreed. I always feel kinda jittery and uncertain about her humor. You live in NY - isn’t there a method to let them know what we think about TOO MUCH FRIGGING ROZ AIRTIME…FOR CRYING OUT LOUD @&#^%$(@!_!!!

What would Sweet Sue do in a time like this?

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Here in Oz, our dollar has recently plummeted in value. One effect of this is to make the New Yorker work out at about $13.00 a copy - so I can no longer afford it! I promise to have a good thorough browse next time I’m in a newsagency that carries it. I think I know who you mean, but I’d need to check.

Glad to know somebody else reads it - all my friends find it bewildering. They don’t get the jokes, and they are amazed by the small display ads in the back. “Look at this tacky brooch for $590!!” “Who ever wants their pet’s portait painted in oils?”. I mean I agree, but it’s the New Yorker; they have to have those ads.

Redboss

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Reptiles. We’re reptiles. Some of my best friends are Jewish. :slight_smile:

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Reminded of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine doesn’t get the joke in the New Yorker carton so she goes to the editor and asks him…he doesn’t get it either.

If you can, get your hands on a copy of a book long out of print - “The Best of the New Yorker Cartoons 1925 -1975.” Full of very sly, very funny stuff.

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And, given the years covered, entirely Rox Chast-free!

Redboss: Most recently she did the posters for the Broadway play THE TALE OF THE ALLERGIST’S WIFE, a show that had the most revolting radio ads in history. They were pulled very quickly, as I suppose there were complaints.

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I have a theory that humorists have five good years in them (which makes me suspect my Movieline columns ceased to be amusing oh, around 1998 . . .). Roz Chast was hilarious sometime back in the '80s, but she has not even made me crack a smile in a good ten years. Same with Dave Barry. Hell, I’m old enough to remember those five-year windows when Joan Rivers, Bill Cosby and even ERMA BOMBECK were actually funny!

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A-freaking-men to that, *Ike! Her hit rate of funny to not funny has dropped below that of “Family Circle,” and she’s almost as predictible.

And as long as I’m aggreeing with your rants, UGH! to those “Allergist’s Wife” commercials, too. What was that, a rip-off of the “I’m going to see it two more times” ad from about a decade ago? Whatever it was, it seriously detracted from the dulcet tones of Judy DeAngelis on weekday mornings.

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Thank you for your (ducking under the table) bold support, manny. I’m glad somebody else witnessed those horribly nasal WINS ads…otherwise I’d be fearing a recurring, hangover-induced hallucination.

(I’m also pleased that someone else visualizes Judy DeAngelis in fishnets, garter belt, spike heels, and nothing else as she reads off the morning headlines)

(If you do not actually do this, please disregard the previous parenthesis)

Eve: I recognize the merit in your hypothesis, and salute THE NEW YORKER for not putting dried-up, unfunny cartoonists out to pasture, maintaining their employment instead for decades and decades. But couldn’t they give a full back page to George Booth or Robert Weber instead? THEY’RE still amusing.

And surely art director Art Speigelman keeps up with his old chums in the Underground Comix movement…Justin (BINKY BROWN MEETS THE HOLY VIRGIN MARY) Green would probably appreciate a nice check now and then. S. Clay (CHECKERED DEMON) Wilson would enjoy the opportunity to purchase a better grade of whiskey. R. Crumb’s daughter is probably ready to have her college tuition covered.

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Heh. No, Judy falls squarely into my “good girl” fantasy realm. I imagine her shuffling into my bedroom at 6:00 each morning, wearing one of my dress shirts and bunny slippers, telling me to dress warm and take the E, because there’s a water main break causing delays on the 1/9.

You know, that reads a lot weirder than it is. No, really.

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Mine, too…fishnets, spikes, and garters ARE part of my “good girl” fantasy. You probably don’t want to know about my “bad girl” fantasy.

Okay, enough of this banter. Back to the Roz Chast libel and slander.

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My New Yorker subscription lapsed years ago, so I can’t comment on Miz Chast’s current downward turn. I’ll take your word for it, Ike. I tried to view the Yankee Seder one on the website, but the print was too small to get a good gander. I do remember when she started in National Lampoon (? or Playboy), and her style was really innovative. Now, the neurotic napkin-scrawl style has become commonplace.

My WOW of the week is the fact that Art Speigelman is the art director for tha NYkr. I really oughta pull my boots out of the Hickbog every decade or so…

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The New Yorker is giving Roz Chast entirely too much to do?

Well, I guess if she’s Chast, she has too much free time.

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(politely ignoring Finagle’s odious pun)

This week’s NEW YORKER arrived with the afternoon mail, complete with a witty Harry Bliss cover painting of a giant rabbit skeleton.

The “Back Page” feature was passed over to the brilliant Frostback artist/writer Bruce McCall, who handled the tricky assignment with typical Canadian aplomb!

Rozzie-baby was reduced to a small yet extremely unfunny interior cartoon about graveyards.

(elelle: I don’t think Chast has any NATIONAL LAMPOON background…perhaps you’re mixing her up with he much more talented Shary Flenniken, of “Trots and Bonnie” fame?)

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Visited newsagent, browsed - oh her!

Uke Ikeyou hit it exactly when you said “a modest talent”. Ee-nough!

I also support you on the idea of sending some work the way of Crumb and Green and other less-than-fashionable workers.

And I’d like some John O’Hara short stories in there as well thanks.

[Note - “I also support you…” so much nicer-sounding than “Me too!”]

Redbrowser

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::donning my full protection suit::

I’m not sure where the objection is directed here -
Is it that an entire page is devoted to a cartoon? Or, is it that Roz Chast’s cartoons had that position?

I did see both cartoons that were mentioned here, as well as this week’s cartoon by Bruce McCall. I thought the cartoon about the couple was about lack of communication between couples and thought it was kind of funny. Insightful? No. Subtle? Not really. But…I laughed.
I thought the cartoon about the Seder plate at Ye olde Yankee Inn (subtitiled: Hey, we tried) was about how people’s values translate to others’ values. Did I laugh? No, but it’s not the 1st time. I did think that I “got” the joke, though. Kind of reminds me of the time I spent Thanksgiving alone at an “Old Country Buffet.” I really do enjoy reading the New Yorker here in the midwest. It offers some great short stories, some very good insights and opinions, and best of all, cartoons to flip through.

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Yeah, midwest, sure…come out from behind the cutain, Roz! We know ya!

I certainly don’t mind that an entire page is given over to a cartoon; the cartoons are the best thing going in the NEW YORKER these days. If my OP was unclear, I thought my objection was pretty well stated in the topic line:

I don’t necessarily need to see Roz Chast and her babies thrown out into the snow, but I don’t think that her gifts entitle her to more than the absolute minimum of magazine space. Fine, let her have two cartoons a month…she might be able to summon her Muse every fifteen days. But no more “Back Pages.”