Goines On: Smudging the ink

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Goines rarely read the printed The New Yorker magazine, and even more rarely on the same day as the date on its cover. But today was different, and in the “Cartoon Takeover” issue he recognized himself in John Updike’s personal history, “Lost Art: What the author wanted to do before he decided to become a writer,” reprinted from December 15, 1997:

My nose inches from the garishly illumined bristol board, my lower lip sagging in the intensity of my concentration, ..., I am “inking in”—tracing the lightly pencilled lines, trying to imbue them with a graceful freedom while searching out, in this final limning, the contour being described. The nervous glee of drawing [this is what caught Goines] is such that I sometimes laugh aloud [Goines too, though more often sub voce], alone. I would get so excited by the process, so eager to admire the result, that I frequently smeared the still wet lines with my hand. This would put me in mind of a tip I had read of in my high-school days: a successful cartoonist advised aspirants to the art, “If you’re not sure the ink is dry, rub your sleeve over it.” It had taken some days before I realized that this was a joke, meant ironically.

    Goines was grateful for the find, because his own thinking had, for several days, been neither gleeful nor laughing, as though all jokes were on him and he might better refrain from limning his thoughts for a while.

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