After weeks trapped indoors we'd definitely consider trading coronavirus isolation for a 10x10 island.
The ongoing quarantine got us thinking about the psychology of being stuck in one place for weeks or months, which made us realize we'd seen numerous cartoons over the years touching upon that very theme. Desert island cartoons were—and still are—a standard gag for cartoonists. Guys on ledges, prisoners hanging in dungeons, and explorers in cannibals' cauldrons are other common motifs, and we may explore those later, but desert island cartoons are the grandaddy of recylable concepts. Their details vary, but usually there's ocean, a sand hump, a palm tree, a prop (like the sales kiosk in the above example), and one to several castaways.
Many cartoonists tried their hand at these, and the challenge was to be fresh and funny. We had a choice when putting this collection together—we could use confirmed funny examples others had posted online, or use cartoons that had been previously unseen. For the most part we chose the latter course. We did borrow a few to round out the collection, but forty-five of the fifty are from our own magazines. Frequently sexist, while infrequently funny, they prove that it's hard to get a laugh out of a cliché. But several managed it, at least for us, and we give all the cartoonists—Erich Sokol, Irv Hagglund, Cliff Roberts, et al—credit for trying.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1953—Hemingway Wins Pulitzer
American author Ernest Hemingway, who had already written such literary classics as The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls, is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novella The Old Man and the Sea, the story of an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. 1970—Mass Shooting at Kent State
In the U.S., Ohio National Guard troops, who had been sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, open fire on a group of unarmed students, killing four and wounding nine. Some of the students had been protesting the United States' invasion of Cambodia, but others had been walking nearby or observing from a distance. The incident triggered a mass protest of four million college students nationwide, and eight of the guardsmen were indicted by a grand jury, but charges against all of them were eventually dismissed. 2003—Suzy Parker Dies
American model and actress Suzy Parker, who appeared the films Funny Face and Kiss Them for Me, was the first model to earn more than $100,000 a year, and who was a favorite target of the mid-century tabloids, dies at home in Montecito, California, surrounded by family friends, after electing to discontinue dialysis treatments. 1920—Negro National Baseball League Debuts
The first game of Negro National League baseball is played in Indianapolis, Indiana. The league, one of several that would be formed, was composed of The Chicago American Giants, The Detroit Stars, The Kansas City Monarchs, The Indianapolis ABCs, The St. Louis Giants, The Cuban Stars, The Dayton Marcos, and The Chicago Giants. 1955—Williams Wins Pulitzer
American playwright Tennessee Williams wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his controversial play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which tells the story of a southern family in crisis, explicitly deals with alcoholism, and contains a veiled subtext concerning homosexuality in southern society. In 1958 the play becomes a motion picture starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman.
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