Today we revisit cartoons published in August of 1998, 25 years ago. It’s always fascinating to see how much (or how little) has changed over a quarter of a century. Some cartoons simply no longer make sense, but others really demonstrate just how slow progress can be. As always, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the growing number of cartoonists no longer with us: J.B. Handelsman, Charles Barsotti, Leo Cullum, Danny Shanahan, Gahan Wilson, Jack Ziegler, William Hamilton, Ed Koren, Michael Crawford, Robert Weber and Sam Gross.
1998 was a simpler time when Russia was near collapse and American presidents were embroiled in sex scandals. The Dow Jones passed 9,000, Viagra was introduced, Michael Jordan could still dunk and Google was founded. Also, Bob Mankoff was cartoon editor and selected this Leo Cullum cartoon to poke some fun at a terrible fashion trend, cargo pants.
Speaking of Bob Mankoff, here is one of his cartoons that make absolutely no sense unless you were watching cable news in 1998. I’m fairly surprised The New Yorker ran it.
Here is another cartoon a young person would have to Google.
Here is a Bruce Eric Kaplan cartoon that caught me off guard. It seemed just this summer that the ultra rich dying in a submersible was novel but apparently not.
Sam Gross seems prescient with what could be a take on the current Writers Strike with the below cartoon.
The progressive future and the stalled efforts at reaching it are present in this batch. This Ed Koren cartoon could have been published last week or appeared in the Barbie movie.
One evergreen theme, just how cute and wonderfully exasperating children can be, is well covered here-
And here…
And here… (I could go on)
Two things I will never tire of reading, Roz Chast’s Theories and Dog Cartoons (even if the cell phone is unrecognizable).
As always, this trip down memory lane brought up a few memories. Like they say, the more things change the more they stay the same.
VIEW MORE CARTOONS FROM AUGUST 1998