I Heart Rejects

A Valentine’s Day Massacre

That’s my most popular Valentine’s Day cartoon. It’s based on an earlier idea that was rejected more times than I care to remember. See if you can spot the difference.

I recall looking at this one in a pile of other rejects when the revision popped into my mind. I knew instantly it would be more salable and popular—but also that something would be lost. It wouldn’t quite have the same punch. In retrospect, I’m glad I made the change. Removing the social satire about masculinity makes it, at least to me, somehow more of a Valentine’s Day cartoon.

I often find myself chipping away at ideas that don’t seem to work at all, with a vague sense that there’s something there I just haven’t found yet. Sometimes they have to get rejected first, like this one.

It took only a few days for me to realize the idea I had been trying to do all along.

One of the most addictive parts of cartooning is the moment I finally see the joke I’ve been blindly stumbling toward. One of the most frustrating parts is that these breakthrough jokes often aren’t as funny to others as they are to me.

I remember getting very excited about this idea. I thought it was an out-of-the-park home run.

Unfortunately, nobody else found it particularly great. But I couldn’t shake the certainty that they were wrong and I was right. A few weeks later, I came up with this revision, which sold to The New Yorker.

That might strike you as a completely different cartoon, but to me it’s the same idea made more palatable. And in this rare case, I have to insist that everyone in the world is wrong and I alone am right. That first version—with the politician wearing a pin of himself wearing the flag pin—is a lot funnier. I’m afraid I have to be very stubborn about this.

It’s important to hang onto the things only you like. Those weird rejected outliers are what define your voice and make it unique.

This week, against my better judgment, I’ll be sharing more of these cartoons that I love and others are, well, polite about.

Our first contender—if you can call these unloved rejects contenders—is Keytarist on the Roof.

And here comes the challenger, which we’ll call Fitting Room.

And finally, Noth Things is pleased to present our first Tournament of Champions of 2026! First up, lingering like a bad cough from my illness in early January, it’s Portrait of the Artist 2.

And the challenger, after two successful bouts in a row: Inmates.

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