Upstate Punchlines

October 18, 2012 12:21 PM

I'm looking for a New Yorker cartoon that references Utica, NY.

I've GIS'd, New Yorker store archive'd, etc. I'm hoping someone just remembers the thing.

I believe it was full-page and that it was in color, which makes me think it was a Roz Chast cartoon, but I could be wrong about that.

It was about the terrible fates that may befall you if you try to drive in New York. One of the fates is that you get lost and end up in Utica. I think another fate was getting in some kind of trouble with Russian gangsters in Brighton Beach.

I remember it as having a person in a car in the center panel, with little roads leading to the terrible fates which made up the border of the cartoon.

I saw it in the magazine in the past 3-7 years and I suspect more specifically the last 4-5, but of course I could be wrong about that.

I could be wrong about everything.

posted by Snarl Furillo to media & arts (5 answers total)

It's not this recent cover by Chast, is it?
posted by 1970s Antihero at 12:30 PM on October 18, 2012

Nope- I only sort-of think that there was a Brighton Beach detail, but there was definitely a Utica reference. It was also more than a year ago and probably more than two. Thanks for looking though. :(
posted by Snarl Furillo at 12:33 PM on October 18, 2012

"Car Trip" - by Roz Chast.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 12:42 PM on October 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yessssssss. Thank you. Clearly I did not look hard enough.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 12:47 PM on October 18, 2012

I like the one where a guy is in the automotive shop talking with the mechanic about his car, and he says, "At first I thought it was a gunshot."
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:10 PM on October 18, 2012