The question I get asked most often as cartoon editor is: How much money does The New Yorker pay for a cartoon? All I can say about that is: sell us one and you’ll find out.

The second most frequently asked question is: What did you think about that “Seinfeld” episode making fun of New Yorker cartoons? Well, it was written by one of our best cartoonists, Bruce Eric Kaplan, and my initial reaction was “Et tu, Bruce?,” but over time, the episode has grown on me. I’ve used it before to compare fiction to reality when it comes to what my desk looks like and how the cartoon department operates.

And I have decided to do so again, because the episode provides a fun way to comment on issues I’m interested in. For those of you who haven’t seen the episode, I’ve created a stripped-down comic-strip version of it that includes just the pertinent parts.

Let’s start with the scene in the diner where Elaine is perplexed by the cartoon.

But Elaine is determined to crack the code. So under the pretext of hiring some New Yorker cartoonists to illustrate the J. Peterman catalogue, Elaine gets to see the cartoon editor, who has the surname Elinoff. (I wished they had used my name, but I had to settle for the last three letters.) The real purpose of Elaine’s visit is to make Elinoff admit that the cartoon doesn’t make any sense.

O.K. Let’s start with the kitty. Hey, we like the kitty, too. Who doesn’t? But our kitties aren’t just LOLcats, trafficking in their cuteness.

They are thinking cats,

who make us think more about ourselves.

And, like the fake cartoon in the episode, we do have cartoons with cats and dogs in offices.

The transparency of these cartoons may be at odds with the premise of the “Seinfeld” episode, but the premise is not unreasonable. Elaine has company. That’s why we can run this feature in our annual Cartoon issue.

To get some of these jokes, you just have to put together the different frames of reference.

In the above case, the frames of reference are high-school geometry and stereotypical pirate talk. (And, just to be proactive here, I want to apologize for stereotyping pirates in advance, which I know sounds redundant but in these sensitive times it doesn’t hurt to be proactively proactive.)

Anyway, that mashing-frames-together method won’t work for this cartoon, an early flight of fancy by Roz Chast, from 1980.

For this cartoon, Elinoff’s defense:

What he says does have a certain plausibility, and echoes E. B. White’s famous comment: “Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.”

Many years ago, Max Eastman wrote a book called “Enjoyment of Laughter” that completely ignored White’s advice. Eastman’s basic point was that humor is a kind of play, and if you don’t understand that and accept it, you won’t enjoy it.

Play is not the default mode of life, seriousness is. But play is the default mode in cartooning. What cartoonists do is play with incongruities along a continuum that stretches from reality-based humor to nonsense, and invite you to play along with them. The place on the continuum where the invitation is placed often determines the response.

In the diagram, A is realistic humor and B is not, but both are completely gettable, while C isn’t. C doesn’t produce that jolt that you get when you suddenly understand a joke. It’s not totally random, though. There is some method to its madness. C uses the classic triplet structure of a joke.

The triad is “hacksaw,” “green glitter,” and “flounder”—three terms you will find together only in one place when you do a Google search, and that place is in Bliss’s cartoon. So even though the cartoon is far along on the incongruity dimension, its style of Mad-Libs humor is not completely foreign. After all, most people have played Mad-Libs. But Roz’s cartoon offers no such familiarity, and it takes many people out of their comic comfort zone.

Those people include cartoonists. I remember the outrage Roz’s cartoon caused among some cartoonists, who thought its appearance in the magazine signalled the death knell for traditional gag cartooning. Well, gag cartooning is still with us some thirty years later and so, of course, is Roz, who has established her own tradition. Interestingly, the outrage that Elaine expressed at the meeting is directed at classic genre cartoons.

In response to Elaine’s criticism, Elinoff responds by complimenting her on the very premise she is deriding.

The flattery quickly causes Elaine to change her tune and proudly proclaim

Which brings us to the next part of the episode, in which Elaine submits her own cartoon to The New Yorker. To discuss that, more dissection will be required, and I’ve killed enough frogs for one day. The carnage will resume next week, and the exciting dénouement contains a surprise that I guarantee will either delight or appall fans of New Yorker cartoons.