Before we get into Tom's cartoon, how did you come to be a cartoonist and a cartoon editor? How do you understand cartoons?

I was born a long time ago, in 1944. Growing up, I was funny and I could draw. I either wanted to be a comic—that was before you even had the term standup—or a cartoonist. I had drawn cartoons all along, and I'd seen cartoons in magazines and thought: "Oh, I can do that. I can make jokes." I have done a thousand cartoons for The New Yorker.

I like everything about cartoons. I like a simple joke that doesn't mean anything. I like something silly. I like something whimsical. I like a cartoon in which an anthropomorphized pumpkin is saying to someone who is praising a painting of the anthropomorphized pumpkin: "Do you mean good, or just good for a pumpkin?" That's a silly cartoon.

But there are cartoons in which humor meets the truth of our lives, and that's observational. There are cartoons in which humor meets a bigger truth about our lives, as they relate to society and institutions, and that's satire. Satire is making fun of institutions and organizations and everything that is supposed to be upstanding. Cartoons can never praise anything. They must be critical, either of ourselves or somebody else. In other words, they can't elevate anything.

The rhythm of the cartoon is the contrast between two things, which it assumes as an equivalent, but aren't equivalent. Shareholder value is not equivalent to the destruction of the planet, but it assumes, for the case of the cartoon, that they are.

It's bringing together these incongruous things, but at the same time, it's making sense of them. Making sense of them is the difficulty in doing anything that requires long-term thinking. It’s the same difficulty that confronts an individual human being when they have to do something in their 20s that will benefit them in their 80s. It's very hard for the 20-year-old to imagine themselves as the 80-year-old who, as a 20-year-old, shouldn't have smoked or drank as much as they did. It's a great cartoon just on the face of it, but also in terms of its reach and how many times it's been reprinted.

We've started using it on our march posters, among other poster designs. I've seen people stop and turn around and ask for a photo of this specific poster, because it has this cartoon on it. It's so strong.

That's the wonderful thing about it. If we look at the 2012 issue of The New Yorker that it was published in, I'm sure there were great articles. And I'm sure no one is referring to them now. But people are still referring to that cartoon.

What do you look for in a cartoon or in a caption? What makes a cartoon good?

It all depends on the kind of cartoon. If it's a cartoon that’s a trope, that's been done a million times, like the desert island, you don't want another one unless it's original.

If the cartoon is within observational humor or political humor, you judge each cartoon within its category. If it’s a simple gag cartoon, you just say: "Well, is it funny? Did it make me laugh?" Tom's cartoon is actually not very funny, but it's very meaningful. It uses humor to communicate an idea. The more serious the idea, and the more we're actually worried about it, the bigger the shadow that limits just how funny we're going to find it.

Humor is obviously subjective. It's subjective between you and me. It's subjective between generations. It's not only intersubjectivity, it’s also intrasubjectivity. What you think is funny on a particular day might not be funny on another day.

Do you have any observations or thoughts on what sets this cartoon apart? Why does it have traction for a wider audience outside of the people who read The New Yorker?

I think it hits the zeitgeist. Climate change is very important. I'm sure not everyone likes Tom's cartoon, like the people who think climate change isn't real or important. A cartoon is not an argument. This is a cartoon because it is preaching to the choir, and there's a pretty big choir.

I think the cartoon works as a kind of rhetoric. Rhetoric isn't really an argument. It's a way of promoting your position. Nothing wrong with that. Everything right with it. It's not an argument that seals the case for people who don't agree with you.

Anything you didn't get a chance to say?

I run CartoonStock.com, which has most of Tom's cartoons. People go there to license cartoons for their PowerPoints, textbooks, and social media. If you want to look there for cartoons for climate change, please do so.