New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff steps down after 20 years

Cartoon editor for The New Yorker Bob Mankoff is stepping down after 20 years in the role. He will be replaced by Emma Allen, another editor at the magazine. Bob has drawn more than 800 cartoons for The New Yorker and will continue to contribute artworks, as well as editing a new anthology, The New Yorker Encyclopaedia of Cartoons. He will also carry on his work with the Cartoon Bank, an online database he founded, together with Condé Nast.

Bob has achieved renown for his cartoons, and published a half illustrative, half autobiographical book How About Never – Is Never Good for You? in 2014, inspired by his most famous cartoon. He also starred in the documentary Very Semi-Serious: A Partially Thorough Portrait of New Yorker Cartoonists in 2015.

The New Yorker editor David Remnick says: “[Bob] brought a real sense of originality to this work, but, even more important, a sense of the artists and their interests. He has brought everyone’s best work to the table and managed a complicated balancing act with grace, sustaining the work of people who have been publishing in The New Yorker for many years while bringing new artists into the mix, including more diverse voices and views of the world. In addition, Bob was an early and constant digital enthusiast, and has found myriad new ways to publish cartoons and promote the form. I want to thank Bob for his extraordinary vision and leadership on these fronts.”