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A recent issue of the New Yorker drew controversy for its uniquely terrifying cartoon depicting a horrifying dystopia in which a bear goes to a psychiatrist’s office and says “Doc, I think I might be a bi-polar bear.”
“In the dark corners of my imagination, anything can happen,” cartoonist Carl Ghoulsby said of his sick, demented illustration which sent a wave of terror through the homes of the New Yorker’s readership. “For example, a cartoon bear can walk straight into a clinical psychiatry office and say that he thinks he might be a bi-polar bear. You see, cartoons aren’t always for kids. I aim for deep, visceral terror in my work, and yes, sometimes this means a large, carnivorous animal, hungry for human flesh, can air his grievances to a human psychiatrist.”
The cartoon was promptly removed from the New Yorker website after it was condemned by religious leaders, public intellectuals, and casual fans alike, shaking the nation to its core not only through its harrowing illustration, but with its foreboding caption: “Doc, I think I might be a bi-polar bear.”
“I aim to shock. With my cartoon, I wanted to create a Lovecraftian nightmare on the glossy pages of the New Yorker wherein a bear tells a psychiatrist he thinks he might be a bi-polar bear. What’s scary about my horrifying work is that it makes us question our very reality. For example, what if a big scary bear, usually found in the dark and dangerous woods, went to a Manhattan psychiatrist’s office and said ‘Doc, I think I might be a bi-polar bear’? All I ask is that you consider the possibility that things are not as they seem.”
At press time, The New Yorker published a scarier, more Kafkaesque cartoon where a fly orders soup at a restaurant.
