“Diversion” , a Hearst publication for physicians at leisure, bought this cartoon and, according to them, printed it in the July 1991 issue. At least that’s what was noted on my original drawing when it was returned to me. I never saw a copy of that issue. Also, I don’t know if “Diversion” is currently being published. I Googled it, but got ambiguous answers, which to me means it’s probably defunct.
A few days ago I posted another National Review cartoon and made some remarks about the untimely death of its founder, William Buckley, Jr. I also mentioned his sister Priscilla, who was an editor at NR and for many years had the responsibility of selecting the cartoons to be published there.
Ms Buckley would often comment on my submissions, and today I'd like to recall one particular comment of hers, from about twenty years ago.
In my batch of cartoons at that time was a kind of silly one in which I had an 18th century King of France watching television. The caption, coming from the TV set, was "It's ten P.M. — do you know where your Dauphins are?". This, of course, was a take-off on the familiar and oft-repeated TV phrase "It's ten P.M. — do you know where your children are?".
When I received the batch back, there was a note from Ms Buckley. She said, "I liked the 'Dauphins' but by definition there can be only one Dauphin at a time, like the Prince of Wales."
I scratched my head for a while, then looked it up and realized that she was perfectly right. The Dauphin was the heir apparent to the throne of France, and there couldn't possibly be more than one at a time.
I tried re-writing my caption, but somehow " . . . do you know where your Dauphin is?" didn't work at all. I finally gave up and relegated the cartoon to my vast "Unsold" folders.
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