The Washington Post ran this story by Peter Carlson about the process of selecting New Yorker cartoons. It’s not especially revealing from the point of view of the editorial decisions — a New Yorker cartoon has to be witty more than funny and any evidence of cojones is a serious drawback, as if anyone who knows the New Yorker wasn’t already aware of it. What makes the story is the way that the New Yorker’s stable of cartoonists deals with constant, constant, constant heart-churning rejection.

Diffee started drawing cartoons in the late ’90s, when he was living in Boston and failing to make it as an artist or a stand-up comic. His first cartoon won a contest sponsored by the New Yorker, and Mankoff encouraged him to submit more. For a year, Diffee submitted 15 cartoons a week, every week.

“I sold four,” he says.

That’s four out of about 700.

The next year he did a little better. He sold eight.

Read it, Ye Writers, and weep.