Couldn't you let that skirt down a little, Mary Louise? It's only an inch below your garters.
For heaven's sake, mother! Do you want me to look like a monk?
Such captions would look long-winded in today's New Yorker, but they were standard for its first jokes in 1925. Then Editor Harold Ross learned to trim the words and let the picture do its share. His one-line caption cartoons have set the style of U.S. humor in the last two decades. This week, in The New Yorker Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Album, the magazine took a lingering backward glance at the fun it has had...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
