Heritage Auction has sold cartoonist Peter Steiner’s creation, The New Yorker cartoon from 1993 “On The Internet, Nobody Knows You’re A Dog.”
American cartoonist Peter Steiner created a comic which made it to the New Yorker in 1993. The New Yorker cartoon bore the title “On The Internet, Nobody Knows You’re A Dog.” Heritage Auction posted the comic for auction on its website and made a whopping $175,000.
The comic featured two dogs sitting at a computer where a dog says to the other, “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”
The image holds the record as the “most reprinted New Yorker cartoon” in its history as per the Smithsonian Magazine’s website.
Earning $175,000 for the comic is the highest amount ever paid for a single-panel cartoon.
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Anonymous bidder buys the comic for $175,000
An anonymous bidder grabbed the original drawing of the famous cartoon on Heritage Auctions’ website. The website said that the anonymous buyer tried to purchase it from the magazine and from Steiner since its publishing.
The New Yorker cartoon led the website’s Illustration Art Signature Auction held on October 6.
The website added that Steiner said he wasn’t entirely sure what impulse drove its creation at the time. He said that it was not about the internet but about the sense that he’s “getting away with something.”
Steiner’s creation is the ‘most reproduced cartoon’ from The New Yorker
Former New Yorker cartoon editor Robert Mankoff confirmed that the comic panel is the magazine’s “most reproduced cartoon” of all time. The image became identified more than any other as per Heritage Auctions.
Microsoft’s former chief executive officer Bill Gates licensed the cartoon as well in 1995 for his book The Road Ahead. The cartoon is reproduced on the book’s page 93. Gates paid $200 to have the comic panel printed on his book as per Smithsonian Magazine.
The cartoon maintains its reputation as people continue to use and share it online from its 1993 publication up to now. The comic’s caption became a well-known meme but it captured the spirit of the internet as well.
“This is truly a cultural touchstone unlike any cartoon or comic art to ever appear on the market,” Heritage Auctions said.
The cartoon is about ‘being’ or ‘feeling like an imposter’
Artnet reported that Steiner said the New Yorker comic is autobiographical. He expressed that it is about being or feeling like an imposter. He had several checkered careers and in every one of them he said he felt like a fraud.
Steiner contributed more than 400 cartoons for The New Yorker in addition to other publications like Saturday Review and National Lampoon.
The celebrated cartoonist had a successful career as a painter and author of novels like The Resistance and The Capitalist.
Banner photo via Peter Steiner’s official website.
