Robert "Bob" Mankoff is an Americancartoonist, editor, and author. He was the cartoon editor for The New Yorker for nearly twenty years. Before he succeeded Lee Lorenz as cartoon editor at The New Yorker, Mankoff was a New Yorker cartoonist for twenty years.
Mankoff is the founder and President of Cartoon Collections, a cartoon licensing database, which also owns CartoonStock.com based in the UK. Mankoff submitted more than 500 cartoons to The New Yorker for over two years before he had his first one published in 1977. One of his cartoons is one of The New Yorkers most widely reprinted cartoons. In 1992, Mankoff founded the online Cartoon Bank, a licensing platform for New Yorker cartoons and art, with more than 85,000 cartoons available for sale. Mankoff was hired as New Yorker cartoon editor in 1997; he credits his administration of the Cartoon Bank as being an important reason for why he was chosen to replace Lee Lorenz,. Tina Brown, The New Yorkers editor at the time, said of Mankoff, "Bob is not only a brilliant cartoonist himself, he's also an impassioned promoter, defender and curator of the art of cartooning.... He's put himself out to nurture cartoonists." Mankoff once stated that his all-time favorite New Yorker cartoonist was Jack Ziegler. He has also cited Shel Silverstein as an artist he would have liked as a contributing cartoonist. Under Mankoff, the magazine brought in a new generation of cartoonists ; notable names include Pat Byrnes, J. C. Duffy, P. C. Vey, Farley Katz, Emily Flake, and Julia Suits. Mankoff usually contributed a short article to each issue of The New Yorker, describing some aspect of the cartooning process or the methods used to select cartoons for the magazine. Under Mankoff's stewardship, in April 2005 the magazine began using the last page of each issue for the subsequently very popular "The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest". Mankoff himself contributes cartoons to Moment magazine's own monthly cartoon caption contest. As a lecturer on the appreciation of humor, Mankoff is represented by the Leigh Bureau. Mankoff is mentioned in MC Paul Barman's song "Cock Mobster" on the 2002 album Paullelujah! In 2016, Mankoff co-founded Botnik Studios with Jamie Brew, a former Clickhole and The Onion writer. On April 29, 2017, he left The New Yorker, and was named Humor and Cartoon Editor at Esquire magazine on May 1, 2017. Mankoff resigned from his position at Esquire in June 2019. Mankoff was named cartoon editor of Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley's digital newsletter, Air Mail, in July 2019.
Personal life
Mankoff and his wife Cory live in Briarcliff Manor, New York; they have one daughter together, Sarah. Cory also had a son who died in 2012.
Film
The 2015 documentary, Very Semi-Serious, presents a behind-the-scenes look at the cartoons of The New Yorker, and features glimpses into Mankoff's career, his role at The New Yorker, and his personal life. The film was produced by Redora Films.
