What is the meaning of this Gahan Wilson cartoon?

Cafe Society
1

Since I was a kid, I’ve been a fan of the cartoonist Gahan Wilson, whose humorously morbid cartoons have been a regular feature in Playboy, the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the old National Lampoon, and The New Yorker.

But for decades, I have wondered what the punchline is for this uncaptioned cartoon, which originally appeared in Playboy: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e5/ee/98/e5ee988a3bce9697624a66fb5609d15c--illustrators-painters.jpg

It depicts a man in a room with an enormous egg shackled to his wrist, who has been hung with a noose.

This has bugged me for years.

Any ideas?

2

If this poster I found on the internet is correct, it requires knowledge of an ad that was popular at that time.

ETA, there are other guesses on the webpage I found the above on, but only the cahed version is working for me.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:g9f25BG65sEJ:comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2010/12/03/hanging/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

There’s a nest below the egg, so he wants to protect his “nest egg”, yet he’s so unhappy he wants to die.

3

Not a clue. But I only ever “got” about half his stuff.

4

I remember reading that his shrink could tell when it was time for another session by keeping an eye on Wilson’s cartoons.

5

Interesting. The take-off on the older ads seems likely!

6

This one?

7

Nice find!

8

Looks like a long running Chase Manhattan ad.

Another one.

9

When I tried to click on the link in the OP, it went to an instant download. Careful! Hopefully it’s just something weird with my set-up, but I’ve reported it for investigation by a mod.

10

I checked and it did the same for me - sorry! Best not to click it. That was the only copy I could find online.

11

Yep, that seems to be the source of the joke. Thanks very much, that was bothering me for years!

12

[Moderating]
Yes, the link does that for me, too (Firefox, OSX). I’ve seen that sort of thing happen before, and I have no idea why, or if it represents some sort of a risk.

Hang on a moment; I’ll be right back…

13

OK, the folks over in GQ say that it’s just a mis-configuration over at the server hosting the image, and that it shouldn’t cause any problems beyond being an annoyance.

14

Thank you Chronos.

I really didn’t like it. It was an invasion. Entered my home without permission.

Good to know it wasn’t lethal.

15

Thank you for checking it out!

16

I got the impression it was he couldn’t stand being chained to an egg any more so he offed himself.

17

My browser asked me if I wanted to open it with XnViewer, which is my default handler for .jpg files–it’s just a picture, no biggie, probably the hosting server doesn’t want the bandwidth from a hotlink.

18

Nah. If he didn’t want to protect the egg, there wouldn’t be a nest underneath it.

19

That’s just a feature of the Chase ad campaign. Of course, his nest egg would have been in a nest until he found it unbearable.

20

Guy looks kind of like Sean Connery.