HBO Premieres Doc on New Yorker Magazine Cartoons

[Frank W. Baker]

“The New Yorker expects to be distinguished for its illustrations,” wrote the magazine’s founder, Harold Ross, and far as cartoons go, he nailed it. They have become the benchmark for the art and spawned a minor industry. The drawings are sold in books, in separate volumes for numerous subject categories: dogs, lawyers, teachers and more. There are even collections of rejects.

In short, they’ve been a ripping success, a story that’s told in the new documentary, “Very Semi-Serious: A Partially Thorough Portrait of New Yorker Car...(premieres on HBO December 7, 9pm)