Cartoons That Predicted the Future
I’m thinking about the first line of the FRIENDS theme song, “So no one told you life was gonna be this way.” A far scarier possibility, I submit, is that if somebody did tell you exactly the way your life would be; this tends to be an oracle in a Greek tragedy and it works out badly for the hero and the hero’s dad.
I’m getting ahead of myself. The name’s Jason Adam Katzenstein, and I’m usually incapable of predicting the future on purpose. I’m not too worried about this, because people who know their fate tend to try to do everything they can to avoid that fate, but in a cruel ironic twist it’s usually exactly the things they do to try to avoid that fate that lead to the inevitable outcome they were running from. And that seems like a whole thing.
Nevertheless, the cartoonist often accidentally predicts the future. She sits in her room, the whiff of pillsbury cookies with the seasonally thematic pictures fills the air, contorted into a posture that would make a chiropractor weep, listening to her lo fi beats to draw to, and thinks, “What would be ridiculous?” The astute Toonstack reader will note that ridiculous is not the same as impossible.
This week, we are THAT’S SO TOONSTACK, and we bring you toons at their most prophetic. Here are CARTOONS THAT PREDICTED THE FUTURE.
Ellis Rosen
This cartoon was published on WIRED’s website in 2019. Since March 2020 it has become a top seller on CartoonStock due to everyone adjusting to online meetings. Did I go into the future, learn about the pandemic and draw this cartoon in anticipation? Of course not. I don’t own a time machine. Anyway, If I did own a time machine I would just do what everyone else does and go back to 1955 to make sure my parents fall in love. Also, something about disappearing photograph? I don’t know, it’s been awhile since I've seen that movie. Anyway, I don't own a Delorean so the whole thing is moot.
Navied Mahdavian
I drew this cartoon in 2018, before we had to ask questions about dining “inside-inside,” “outside-inside,” and “outside-outside.” Great meals aren’t actually something I think about often. Despite being a grown man (although according to my mum, there’s still a chance I’ll grow some more), I eat too much cereal. I recently mixed packaged miso with dried ramen and thought I was so clever until I realized I had reinvented Cup O’ Noodles.
I do make a mean loaf of bread, though.
Amy Kurzweil
This rejected cartoon is a favorite of mine and it’s had a lot of different captions. It started with “So … how long have you come here often for work do you know weather isn’t?” and I just riffed until I liked the way the above sounded best. I often and always have spent hours at my desk away from other people, so I didn’t exactly predict that the pandemic would trap me at home away from other people such that I forgot how to talk small, but whom a mouth should flap like did you know the always hi I’ll be right back, you know?
Ali Solomon
I watched a LOT of rom-coms in my day, especially the ones from the 1990s where a girl with glasses and a ponytail (my signature look!) is transformed into a Prom Queen simply by removing those offensive items. Leaning into that trope, I drew a cartoon of that pre-makeover girl buying glasses for reasons both nerdy and entrepreneurial.
Fast-forward a few months to March 2019, when the college-admissions scandal broke, and suddenly the idea of paying someone to take your tests wasn’t so far-fetched after all (where was this lucrative job opportunity back in high school when I was working the night shift at Duane Reade?).
Jason Adam Katzenstein
One way that cartoonists are ahead of our time is that we spend our days shut inside, toiling from home. When I made this cartoon it was a self-portrait. Little did I know that we’d soon all be living the glamorous cartoonist life.
Victor Varnado
I made this rough as a joke toward the beginning of the 2020 presidential election. I’m sorry.
Shelby Lorman
For Your Pleasure: Cartoon Extras
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