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Amazon.com ReviewEach week The New Yorker receives more than 500 submissions from its regular cartoonists, who are all vying for one of the 20 coveted spots in the magazine. So what happens to the 75 percent of cartoons that don't make the cut? Some go back in a drawer, others go up on the refrigerator or into the filing cabinet ... but the very best of all the rejects can be found right here in these pages.
The Rejection Collection Vol. 2: The Cream of the Crap is the ultimate scrap heap of creative misfires--from the lowbrow and the dirty to the politically incorrect and the weird, these rejects represent the best of the worst ... in the best possible sense of the word. Handpicked by editor Matthew Diffee, these hilarious cartoons are accompanied by handwritten questionnaires and photographed self-portraits, providing a rare glimpse into the minds of the artists behind the rejection.
With appendices that explore the top ten reasons why cartoons are rejected and examine the solitary nature of the job of cartooning--plus a special bonus section of questions asked of and answered by cartoon editor Robert Mankoff--this sequel to The Rejection Collection offers even deeper insight into the exercise in frustration, patience, and amusement that is being a New Yorker cartoonist.
Warped, wicked, and wildly funny, The Rejection Collection Vol. 2 will appeal to every New Yorker fan--and everyone with a taste for the absurd.
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|  A Cartoon from Matthew Diffee
Here's a cartoon that's very different from the rest of mine. This one, unlike the others, has never been rejected by The New Yorker magazine. I did it especially for Amazon. Would it have been rejected if I had submitted it? I think I can safely say yes. That's not to say it isn't any good. It's just the mathematics involved. Like all the regular cartoonists in The New Yorker, 90 percent of my work gets rejected. Yep, it's sad, isn't it? We all do ten or more cartoons a week, pitch them to the magazine, and on a good week they'll take one of them. The rest disappear forever--at least they used to. Now we save our rejects up and put the best of them in The Rejection Collection. This is volume two, and just like the first one, it's full of cartoons that make the cartoonists laugh and the editors cringe.
That's because, in most cases, these are wildly inappropriate for the pages of a sophisticated literary magazine. I think you'll see what I mean when you take a look. And if you ask me, just knowing that these gags were ever submitted to The New Yorker at all makes them a little bit funnier--maybe 6 percent. --Matthew Diffee |
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Made me laugh so hard my eyes were watering (Rating: 5 out of 5) I read this with my wife, and we laughed so hard that we were choking for breath. These cartoonists are far stranger and more imaginative than their editors want you to know.
Nice to know someone else's good work is often rejected (Rating: 4 out of 5) Exceptionally funny. Well drawn cartoons often too edgy for publication in NEW YORKER. Great reading especially nice for the new artist's ego seeing some peers rejections.
Rejection Collection No. 2 (Rating: 5 out of 5) I loved Rejection Collection No. 1 so much, I had to buy Rejection Collection No. 2. I recommend both of these books for anyone with a sense of humor!!!
Darker, Funnier Side of New Yorker Cartoonists (Rating: 5 out of 5) Diffee begins with a series of Venn diagrams demonstrating the small overlap between the cartoonists creative oeuvre and the amusement of New Yorker editors. Then, he allows a brief (alas, all too brief) view into the world of each of 38 eminent cartoonists. This is includes a collage of photographs, a brilliantly crafted- and usually more brilliantly executed - questionnaire, and a handful of cartoons. These brilliant gems are almost always hysterical (including many laugh out loud hysterical), and always obvious why they were not published in the New Yorker - too rude, sexual, political, etc. Although, I have not read the first volume, completing this volume spurs me to run out (errr, zip online to Amazon), and order the previous volume.
Better Cartoons, Worse Questionnaire Than Vol. 1 (Rating: 5 out of 5) If you've gotten to this page, there's a good chance you've either seen or bought the first volume, The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, and Never Will See, in The New Yorker.
I thought the cartoonists' responses to the questionnaires in the first collection provided a fascinating look into the creative mind. In this volume, the questions seemed more convoluted and the answers more conventional.
The cartoons, however, struck me as being funnier in this volume. Two of my favorite cartoonists (Sam Gross and Gahan Wilson) are featured in both volumes.
If I could only buy one, I would buy the first volume, but both collections are enjoyable.