Help me find this cartoon about Renaissance architecture!
December 3, 2009 12:56 PM   Subscribe

Help me find this cartoon: Disappointed medieval guys standing in front of a half-built gothic building, reading a scroll that says: "Beginning tomorrow, the Renaissance will be mandatory." Ring any bells?

My sister-in-law has been trying for months to find this cartoon, which she saw while taking an art history class at the Cleveland Museum of Art in about 1993-94. She's googled, checked the most likely sources (New Yorker, etc.), and even written to the directors of the course, but to no avail. Although she IS creative, this cartoon seems too clever to have been imagined--has anyone seen this before? Any sources--online or print--would be greatly appreciated!
posted by Ms. Informed to Grab Bag (9 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
I not only have seen it, but I have a clipped copy of it somewhere. It was definitely not the New Yorker -- I clipped it in high school, and hadn't started reading the New Yorker yet. (So this puts it between 1987-1991 for a publication date.)

I'll root around tonight to see if I can find it.
posted by desuetude at 3:48 PM on December 3, 2009


Response by poster: Oh wow, thanks, desuetude! Please let me know if you can find it--you'll make my sister-in-law's YEAR.
posted by Ms. Informed at 6:54 PM on December 3, 2009


Sorry, not related: Indifferent medieval guys ride past castle with heads on spikes: "I see the talks with the Barons have broken down"... (Punch Magazine).
posted by ovvl at 7:25 PM on December 3, 2009


Okay, no luck on the initial hunt. It's probably acting as a bookmark in some reference book.

I recall it as a not-well-known single-panel comic. It must've been either in wide syndication or perhaps in rotation with other lesser-knowns, space permitting? As a teenager, I read the Washington Post and The Capital (weaksauce Annapolis paper.) It would've been in one of those. And it must've been a Sunday paper, because it was in color.

Meanwhile, I'll keep looking.
posted by desuetude at 9:14 PM on December 3, 2009


Vague remembrance: wasn't there a sort of not-incredibly-funny Sunday or weekday cartoon about a King and his court in the papers around that time? I can't remember the name of it...but I do remember a lot of jokes about royalty and castles.
posted by sully75 at 4:32 AM on December 4, 2009


I'm pretty sure that this wasn't really a serial. These weren't characters, it was more like the New Yorker style of one-off cartoon.

Anyway, Ms. Informed, I kept a copy of it on my desk for years; I laminated it in the school library, along with a few beloved Calvin and Hobbes's and such. I KNOW it is somewhere in my house. When I do find it, I'll scan a copy of it for your sister-in-law.
posted by desuetude at 6:15 AM on December 4, 2009


Response by poster: sully75, are you thinking of the Wizard of ID? I remember that as a multi-panel serial, and from my sister-in-law's descrption, this one sounds like a single-panel. Like the New Yorker, only apparently not.

desuetude, thanks so much! If you can find it, that would be--incredible. And thanks for the tips on possible newspapers that might have carried it; I'll keep searching and see if I can find it in the meantime.
posted by Ms. Informed at 6:57 AM on December 4, 2009


Not necessarily?
posted by sully75 at 12:55 PM on December 4, 2009


Response by poster: Ah, sully75, I stand corrected. I'm definitely with you on the "not-incredibly-funny," though.
posted by Ms. Informed at 2:42 PM on December 4, 2009


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