“Everyone is saying that it lacked context, that there should’ve been a caption or text, but I think the point came across pretty clear. What level would you have to take it to, to make it clear that it was satire?

“It seems that more people are worrying about people not getting it, than people actually not getting it.”

Josh Fruhlinger

editor of The Comics Curmudgeon and cartoon columnist at Wonkette

“I think it’s a funny cover, but unfortunately, because of the insanity that is modern political discourse, I heard about the controversy before I saw the cover.

“I think it’s a truism in comedy that if you have to keep explaining the joke, then the joke hasn’t worked. The cover assumes a set of shared assumptions, and if you don’t share those assumptions, you might react different.

“I always bitch about those cartoons where every single item has a label on it—‘oh, this horse represents the Fed’—but I look at several dozen political cartoons a week. If you’re someone who doesn’t do that, it might be hard to find your bearings on that.

“It makes me sad, because all controversy just makes everything blander.

“From a technical standpoint, I think it’s very clever. It’s not just talking about a specific thing, it’s extending already ridiculous interpretations of other people’s view points.

“In the current time, you have to realize, when you create an image, that it will be seen out of context. It works in the set of expectations that people bring to what’s on the cover of The New Yorker.

“I’m very against making things dumb or bland, but if you’re only assuming that everyone who reads this is exactly like me, then there’s the problem of everything becoming an in-joke.”

Keith Knight

author/illustrator of The K Chronicles

“There was a time that i didn’t know what The New Yorker was, and if i had looked at the cover and didn’t know what The New Yorker was, i could see how it could be construed differently. The satire isn’t obvious. It’s really subtle.

“As a good cartoonist you want to be good, funny, make a point, be sharp. And most of the time, you’re more of one, and less of the other. This is a case of that; the point isn’t as sharp as it needs to be.

“Personally, I’m not into being totally outrageous just to be outrageous, but it would be really great to make a point and be funny and be outrageous.

“I didn’t even get a chance to see it without it being couched in ‘shocking revelations and controversy.’”

Bill Bramhall

editorial cartoonist, New York Daily News

“My response is my cartoon in today’s paper.”

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