Forces of Nature

The New Yorker cartoon is one of those venerable comedy institutions that, like Saturday Night Live, is at this point often more "funny" than funny. But, as also happens on Saturday Night Live, once in a while a genius still emerges, and it's become clear that this generation's New Yorker cartoon genius is a young British transplant named Edward Steed. It was the bitter brilliance of "You call that a banana-mobile?" that first made me notice his name, but with dashes of Booth and Addams, and of Steadman and Stamaty, he has maintained that level of hilariously angry impotence and sadly misplaced hopefulness ever since, whether in the "World's Tallest Potato Contest," "Staff Picks" (oh that hits home for us booksellers), "You're not going to find anything in your price range that isn't full of bees," or this wordless gem. I weep with joy.