Anatomy of a Cartoon: Vacation Travel

Cartoon critics Phil Witte and Rex Hesner look behind the gags to debate what makes a cartoon tick. This week our intrepid critics take a look at vacations.

Do you miss vacations? Do you even remember them? If vacation travel brings to mind exotic, fun-filled adventures or quiet moments in a cabin by a mountain lake, then we’d like to remind you that not each moment of every vacation is fabulous.

Unforeseeable problems can make vacations stressful, and since humor is often predicated on stressful situations and conflict, cartoons about the rigors of vacation travel abound. So before you bemoan how COVID-19 has upended your holiday plans, we offer this tour of travel cartoons.

First, you must leave your home. Michael Crawford’s cartoon suggests that the entire vacation may not extend beyond this first step. Everyone seems to have the same idea and at exactly the same time. The dark wash he employs underscores the dreary sameness of the situation everyone is stuck in.

Suppose instead of traveling by car you decide to fly. Even in pre-virus days, air travel was something to be endured, not enjoyed. There are many steps before you can even board a plane. First, you need to hand your I.D. and ticket to the T.S.A. agent. In Joe Dator’s cartoon, this can trip up even the most well-meaning marsupial.

Next, you head to security. While normally the security check is a mild form of personal intrusion, P.C. Vey takes this a step further with a multi-tasking agent. This cartoon could only spring from the mind of cartoonist with a wonderfully twisted view of the world.

Congratulations—you’ve made it through security, and now it’s on to the airline gate, where you will wait for your boarding group to be called. There are plenty of cartoons about that interminable wait, but Pat Byrnes nails this gag perfectly with a heavy dose of irony.

Whew—you’ve made into the plane’s cabin, but you still must get to your seat. Bob Eckstein imagines an airplane designed for the passengers’ maximum inconvenience.

Finally, the ordeal is over and the wheels touch down. The situation is especially excruciating when flying with children. Trevor Spaulding offers an unsparing look at the perils of kids on a plane, although one wonders whether to pity the parents or their offspring.

Special mention must be made of family vacations by car, especially involving travel with young children. While the scene in this Roz Chast cartoon appears bucolic, the warning sign alerts the kids in the backseat that danger lies just ahead. An explosion of parental frustration is surely as predictable as the next curve in the road.

Kim Warp considers a similar dynamic with a dramatic overhead view of a car bearing impatient kids asking an age-old question.

Upon arrival, we may feel disappointed with the destination. The reference to cable as well as the speaker’s hair and mustache may date this cartoon by Peter Steiner, but the sentiment that it expresses rings true today, as tourists bemoan the slow internet speeds available in hilly retreats.

English has become the lingua franca of international travel. Now, if only Americans would learn to speak it properly is the message of Robert Leighton’s cartoon.

And so you’ve returned from your travels and find yourself back in the airport, waiting once again, this time for your luggage to arrive. John O’Brien presents a dark vision of this routine situation, with a magician who has unloaded one of his two boxes from the luggage carousel. It may take a moment to put the elements of this wordless cartoon together, but the result is surprising, gruesome, and of course funny. The scene resembles something closer to a dungeon than an airport luggage claim area, adding to the sense of discomfort.

Given the chance of calamities large and small that may await the traveler, perhaps it’s best to enjoy a vacation from the comfort of one’s own living room. Warren Miller has the right idea: stay home and stay safe.

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