"The Rejection Collection" with Matt Diffee, Leo Cullum & Gahan Wilson October 17, 2006

Edited by Matthew Diffee, The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, And Never Will See, In The New Yorker is a compendium of thirty New Yorker cartoonists’ favorite work rejected by the magazine. Including work by Leo Cullum, Gahan Wilson, and Diffee himself, the collection uncovers lost gems of the cartooning world’s elite. As Matthew Diffee explains, “The New Yorker has room for about fifteen or twenty cartoons in each week’s issue, but there are forty regularly contributing cartoonists who each submit about ten cartoons a week . . . If we’re lucky, we’ll sell one . . . The other nine roughs we take back to our studio and place on what we call the ‘pile.’ Then we have what we call a ‘drink,’ get what we call ‘depressed,’ and ‘briefly reconsider dental school,’ before beginning work on next week’s batch.” This event will include projections and audience participation.

Texas native Matthew Diffee studied to be a missionary before becoming a cartoonist. His cartoons, which often draw on religious symbolism and popular culture, have appeared in The New Yorker since 1999. He co-founded “The Rejection Show,” a monthly Off-Broadway event at New York’s PS 122. He recently competed in the World Championship of Joggling, a combination of juggling and running.

Leo Cullum’s Scotch & Toilet Water?, Cockatiels for Two, and Tequila Mockingbird, are collections of his beloved New Yorker cartoons with animal themes. Cullum, who is a retired commercial airline pilot, has published hundred of cartoons in The New Yorker since 1977. His work appears regularly in Barron’s and Harvard Business Review and his pen and ink drawings have been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Gahan Wilson’s recognizable macabre drawings first appeared in Amazing Stories in 1954. As a daring and original cartoonist, he is internationally known through his work for Colliers, Playboy, Esquire, National Lampoon, and The New Yorker. An accomplished illustrator, science-fiction writer, and editor, Gahan Wilson chronicles his multi-faceted and unique work, including short stories and illustrated essays, in The Best of Gahan Wilson, published in 2004.

Tickets: $19, www.cityboxoffice.com

Official Website: http://www.cityarts.net