The Bells of St. Fred’s

“In my library, I have a shelf devoted to cartoonists: it’s just the one shelf (the poets take up many more), because the cartoonists who’ve touched me are few in number. They are rare birds. Like the sonneteers, those birds of passage who ink and color cartoons for the ages come only a handful in a lifetime. At least, in my lifetime. The New Yorker’s stable charmed me for much of the 20th century, though the magazine’s lost its way in the 21st. And what way would it be that The New Yorker has lost? What is it that makes for great cartooning? Well, I can tell you. It’s something sweet, poignant, and inscrutable. And like pornography, you know it when you see it. It rings, and rings, and rings in your heart. Like the Bells of St. Fred’s.”—Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

Addison

By Mark Addison Kershaw

ATLANTA Georgia—(Weekly Hubris)—1 March 2022—Editor’s Note: Mark Addison Kershaw has salted my life with wonders. Every morning—these days, after tackling Wordle and Byrdle—I turn to his wall on Facebook, er, Meta, to see what he’s captured with his pen in the last 24 hours. In my library, I have a shelf devoted to cartoonists: it’s just the one shelf (the poets take up many more), because the cartoonists who’ve touched me are few in number. They are rare birds. Like the sonneteers, those birds of passage who ink and color cartoons for the ages come only a handful in a lifetime. At least, in my lifetime. I began with Lear, Seuss, and Thurber, and went on to Schultz, Groening, Larson, Kliban, and Sempé. In Europe, as a child, I wondered at Quino,  René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, and Arkas. The New Yorker’s stable charmed me for much of the 20th century, though the magazine’s lost its way in the 21st. And what way would it be that The New Yorker has lost? What is it that makes for great cartooning? Well, I can tell you. It’s something sweet, poignant, and inscrutable. And like pornography, you know it when you see it. It rings, and rings, and rings in your heart. Like the Bells of St. Fred’s.