Robert Crumb's Rejected New Yorker Cover

This illustration is extremely offensive to transgender people, I'm not surprised at all that it was rejected. Aside from common sense that this image is extremely insulting, the New Yorker would have had a huge negative backlash if they chose to run it.

The New Yorker and it's subscribers are certainly NOT conservative. And hey, Rebecca! Maybe transgender people wouldn't be so offended all the time if they would just shut up and stop trying to force everyone else to accept and approve of them, eh?

@Artie: Here here !!!

"Gender Inspection" is a violation of basic human rights, but I'm sure you think trans people differ from cis people, eh? Seems to me like you're the one most offended, which is just silly!

I see that the gender-dysphoria constituency is present on this website...

Thank god for the internet so we don't have to depend on some stuffy old magazine or some stuffy old editor to tell us what to think.

Maybe they'll "shut up" when they no longer have to worry about open discrimination and physical assault.

On a less serious note, I take umbrage with the "boring and conservative" label. Gahan Wilson and Charles Addams, to name two, are among my all-time favorites.
Of course "cartoonist" is not the same thing as "person who does the front cover".

Ugly cover. Really ugly. Not the subject the execution. Crumb's got an ugly soul and that's the fact jack.

So this is a "great cover," eh? Would you think it was just as great if Crumb had submitted a cover featuring one of his stereotypical shuffle-shufflin', watermelon-eatin', yes-massa-ing, thick-lipped, bug-eyed black men? This cartoon is just as hilarious and accurate a portrait of gay men as that would have been of black men. (For the particularly clueless readers, let me explain: in other words, not.)

Maybe they rejected it because unlike most of Crumb's work, it's just kinda dumb.

As a white person, I'm offended! How come BOTH of the couple have to be white people?
Always making us look bad.

Wow, the hate on this site.
Okay, it was probably rejected because the people at the New Yorker know they have a hug audience of gay people who owuld be downright offended plus a huge audience of people like Artie who would be offended because gay people exist.

25 years ago, gay marriage wasn't a big issue, but then gay people found they wanted to have legal protection for themselves, not only when relationships were formed, but also when they were ending. 25 years ago, there was no status under the law for a gay couple in situations where a common-law heterosexual partner had rights. You couldn't be placed on your partner's insurance or benefit plan at work. If your partner were dying, you had no right to be at his/her side. You had no right of inheritance. You could be kicked out of your partner's house with no legal recourse.

When they asked for more rights, they were turned down and sneered at. So they challenged the law. In Canada, it's in the constitution that you cannot discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation, just like you can't discriminate against someone based on race or religion.

Society denied gay people in long-term relationships basic rights that a man and women could obtain after only a few months to a year of living together.

Artie may not like hearing about it, but when so many states in the Land of Opportunity and Freedom deny a group basic rights and freedoms, you will be hearing about it for a long time. You may want to put your hands over your ears and shout "I can't hear you!" repeatedly, Artie.

My previous comment hasn't passed moderation yet, but I juast wanted to add that a lot of gay people are more open-minded, and probably wouldn't be horrifically offended by this stereotypical, juvenile comic, even though it's in incredibly poor taste. Marriage licence clerks might have more of a problem with the image of an old, bug-eyed, white man being their stereotype.

so maybe it's all in my head but maybe this is a drawing of a man in drag marrying a woman in drag. The groom has delicate features, hints of make up, pierced ears and is doing the stereotypical "one foot up" associated normally with women in a moment of romance.

The above comment is the first time I have encountered the term "cisgendered" and I think it is hilarious.

Great Mad Magazine cover. This guys just going to take his crayons and walk away? Me thinks he's a spoiled brat.

Riboflavintx, that's one of the offensive points of the cartoon. The idea that people have to be separated into a gender role - one's the man, and one's the woman, who's on top, etc...

The overt discrimination on the right is a caricature, of course, but the less overt discrimination on the left is just as appalling. Even though he is playing the "man", he obviously shows typical effeminate traits. Thaxted's right. This would be a good Mad Magazine cover from the 1970's. Just like pictures of people in blackface or Arabs strapped to suicide bombs were appropriate for their era.

Where to start? The illustrator apparently buys into the myth that transgender equals gay (it doesn't - gender identity is separate from sexual orientation), and that being gay equals being a pedophile (the man on the left looks a LOT like a child). Yup, it's offensive.

@ Robin: Maybe illustrating those myths was exactly the point.

I thought it was kind of funny. Obviously Crumb enjoys tweaking people.

Offended people are funny.

The hell? It's a drag queen and a twink. And an awesome painting. New Yorker lamed out big time on this one.

Same old same old from Crumb.

Wow, has he, like, not evolved at all in all the years he has been drawing! So boring and always ugly to behold. Who would buy a magazine with THAT on the cover? Really, why is anyone shocked that the NYorker didn't want it? LOL After all, it is their right to decide what to publish. Crumb has certainly had drawings refused before. No big deal.

I think part of the problem is that the image doesn't fit The New Yorker's sense of elegance. Crumb's work, although refined, has a visceral ugliness to it. I don't know, maybe if the inspector wore a monocle...?

Crumb got tired of listening to nonsense associated with his art, world view, etc., and after netting a tidy sum from the sale of some of his notebooks, moved to France.

He's hands-down one of the most iconic artists of the seventies. His latest work, "Book of Genesis" offers a wonderful look into the mind of an incredibly talented and intelligent OCD penman.

Anyone who knows Crumb recognizes his penchant for the caricaturist representation of life, love, and goofy-ass looking freaks, may they (goofy-ass freaks, Crumb being one of them) live forever!

". . .so he subsequently declined to do any more work for the magazine." He's done something else that actually made publication or this is just an empty threat? Sorry Mr. Crumb, but this one just isn't right. Perhaps you could do something on Mr. Madoff for us? I don't think so.

R. Crumb and the New Yorker in the same sentence is an oxymoron if there ever was one. This would be a riot on The Onion though. . .

So when he didn't get his way, he huffed and puffed and threw a snit-fit? Most people grow out of that phase by their late teens; I guess Mr Crumb did not.

I just thought it was a straight couple in drag, which would be a heterosexual marriage, hence the joke. Anyway, they should have known when they hired him to do the cover that R. Crumb likes to poke fun at things in sometimes uncomfortable ways.

As a [insert hyphenated, politically correct classification here] I do not find the cartoon the least bit offensive, ugly, or unfunny. It's just some guy's joke-drawing. And really, why not?...