Condé Nast’s ‘Slow Dismantling’ Of The New Yorker’s Cartoon Bank

Bob Mankoff, until recently the magazine’s cartoon editor, had the idea in 1992 to make a business of collecting and licensing all the submitted cartoons that weren’t accepted for publication. Under his stewardship, the Cartoon Bank’s business thrived (especially once the Web came along), with revenues at one point reaching $7 million annually. Half of those revenues went to the cartoonists, giving their often-meager incomes a badly-needed boost. Then, in 2008, Mankoff handed off the running of the Bank to Condé Nast. Reporter Seth Simon tells the sad story of what’s happened since.