In 1974, illustrator and cartoonist Stan Mack found himself asking the graphic arts virtuoso Milton Glaser, who had just taken over as design director of the Village Voice, if he could do a piece in which he would essentially “wander the city, listening to people and sketching them.”
Glaser upped the ante, telling Mack to “do it as a weekly comic strip. They’re circulation builders: people turn to them first before going on to the serious stuff.”
Mack rose to the challenge, and for more than 30 years he took pencils, pens, and sketchbooks to bars, restaurants, art galleries, movie queues, sex clubs, parks, and anywhere else New York’s denizens gathered. Now, 50 years later, hundreds of Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies have been transmuted from yellowed newsprint into big glossy pages between hardcovers.
Initially, Voice editors were dubious about Mack’s fact-checking: How could they be sure the dialogue of his cast of characters — which changed every week — was accurate? But after he showed them his notepads full of transcribed overheard quotes, they added a tagline to the strip: “All dialogue guaranteed verbatim.” That guarantee varied over the decades — “All dialogue is recorded verbatim,” “All dialogue guaranteed overheard,” “All dialogue in people’s own words” — but anyone who lived in this hurly-burly of a town knew in their bones that Mack was keeping it real. In January 1977 the correspondent spent New Year’s Eve at the city’s Pacifica station for a strip entitled, “Ringing Out the Old at WBAI,” in which he documented a kaleidoscope of calls to host Jan Albert: “Hi Jan … I’m a romantic, but I’ve managed to harness my romanticism … I put it into a central bag of imagery. I’ve untangled all the shrouds on my ship.” “I was in a mental hospital recently … my attitude is pretty low down depression … because I didn’t vote for the communists…” “Jan! I HAVE to know what you look like * KISS * I’m in love with your voice!” “This is Reggie from New Jersey. I didn’t think ’76 was so hot … I couldn’t get into the Bicentennial…” “CARTER REALLY SCREWED ME WITH HIS CABINET!!” “Hello, Jan. This is the manic depressive, again. I’m feeling better.”
Mack was adept at distilling the city’s swirling hubbub into urban poetry, documenting words and phrases that dropped the reader right into whatever happening he was reporting on. In “Hardy Blooming Annuals,” from 1982, Mack kept his ears open around some Central Park sunbathers, and found phrases worthy of being immortalized on coffee cups and beyond: “It’s kinda stupid to be a health nut in a sick society.” “My shrink’s substitute this month is called Dr. Strange! I’m not going to him.” “Y’know what really fucks up society today? Two things! Television and air conditioning!” “And I say, bullshit, people go into art because it’s an accepted way to fail.”
Depending on the subject, Mack would retool his weekly half-page layout. In 1984, for two weeks running, he turned the whole thing sideways to showcase full-length portraits, first of “The Standard Yuppie Female,” noting “Topics of Conversation — Acceptable: Travel, Sports, IBM takeover, Dow Jones Average. Unacceptable: Politics, Morality, Religion,” followed by “Know Your Male Yuppie” the next week, in which he featured numerous essentials, including “Eyes: on $$$$. Ears: listens only to other Yuppies. Nose: Understated. Skin: All-year Tan.” By zeroing in on details of bodies, faces, hairstyles, clothing, props, and backgrounds, Mack plopped us into the panoply of microdramas that make up any New Yorker’s day.
Real Life Funnies ran from 1974 until 1995, missing the turbulent, swinging, expansive 1960s and ceasing just at the cusp of our now-getting-long-in-the-tooth Internet Age. Instead, Mack got to cover the trifecta of those sometimes maligned decades in between, commenting trenchantly on the mores and madnesses of the Carter, Reagan, and Clinton years.
The crosshatched world Mack brought to life each week is still with us. While cartoons have in many cases changed from pen and ink to pixels and phones, the humor, pathos, frustrations, passions, regrets, and subway trips that make us all New Yorkers remain the same in any medium. ❖
Stan Mack will be taking part in some local readings, discussions, and panels, so prepare to hear plenty of verbatim anecdotes.
June 10: Mack in conversation with host and journalist Tom Robbins on DEADLINE NYC, WBAI; 5:00 p.m.
June 11: P&T Knitwear, with New Yorker cartoonist Joe Dator; 7:00 p.m.
June 13: Society of Illustrators, with artist/cartoonist Rick Meyerowitz, illustrator Victor Juhasz, and political cartoonist Steve Brodner; 6:30 p.m.
June 17: Garvey’s Irish Pub, book signing; 6:00 p.m.
June 18: Taylor & Co Books, Brooklyn, book signing; 4:00 p.m.
June 24: Village Preservation, free Zoom webinar; 6:00 p.m.
