TOW #8 – Visual: "Let me call you back-- I'm bored."

The New Yorker

By Harry Bliss

December 10, 2010

Cartoonist Harry Bliss is a cover artist for The New Yorker and submits cartoons for the magazine’s back cover.  He has also illustrated for numerous children’s books; his first, A Fine, Fine School, was a New York Times Bestseller.  Bliss’s cartoon captioned with: “Honey, let me call you back—I’m bored,” appeared in The New Yorker’s December 2010 issue.  Using a monochromatic palette, depressing setting, and irony to effectively criticize how nothing adequately holds the attention of 21^st century society.   

Bliss colors the entire cartoon with a palette of gray, but he barely reaches five different shades, which helps contribute to the mood of the cartoon.  The man’s jacket and city buildings are almost entirely the same shade of dark gray; his hair, sunglasses and tree branches are all the same almost-black gray; and the man’s face, sky, snow, and path is the light-almost-white gray.  These simplistic grays and solid coloring pattern creates a dull atmosphere, showing his audience how such an average man finds the situation he is in of speaking over the phone so incredibly boring. 

The man’s body language in comparison with the background also emphasizes the extent to which individuals today isolate themselves from other people.  In the center of the cartoon, the man is wearing sunglasses in the middle of winter while his hand is stuffed in his pockets with almost hunched shoulders, which could be from the cold of winter, but overall, the man’s body language is not receptive to human interaction.  His eyebrows are completely expressionless and his mouth is curved down as if he does not care for speaking to his “honey.” In the far distance, a couple conversing with each other is walking away, symbolizing how far technological communications have pushed normal, everyday social interactions further away from our lives.  

If the symbolic artwork behind his purpose does not reach the readership of The New Yorker, Bliss employs irony in his caption to clarify the widespread disinterest in speaking on the telephone nowadays.  From the word “Honey,” the audience can assume that the man is speaking to somebody of importance in his life, so there is an expectation of excitement or interest from the man for what Honey has to say; however, he reacts with the opposite and follows up with a curt, “I’m bored.” The complete lack of concern for Honey hits home the fact that we need to improve our interpersonal listening and speaking skills because written emails, texts, and snapchats cannot adequately replace the phone calls that allow for true conversation.