Tom Toro’s insightful and hilarious cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker over 200 times in the last decade, many of them considered contemporary classics. His cartoons and illustrations also appear in the Paris Review, the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, American Bystander and elsewhere.  Acclaim for his work has come from such legendary humorists as Garry Trudeau, Roz Chast, Barry Blitt and Andy Borowitz.

Toro’s popular speaking appearances include Columbia University, Kansas City Art Institute, Twitter headquarters and San Francisco LitQuake. The Huffington Post and the Atlantic have given his unique, witty work glowing reviews—the Atlantic journalist James Fallows even joking that he’d change employers in honor of a Toro cartoon.  Toro has been interviewed by NPR, Sirius XM Radio’s Jill Kargman Show, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Kansas City Star.  Viewers of Late Night with Seth Meyers were entertained one evening by a suprise live-action dramatization of a Toro holiday cartoon.

The New Yorker Cartoon Encyclopedia features a dozen essays written by Toro on a variety of comedic themes, and his literary wordplay has also been showcased on the New Yorker cartoon editor’s blog, a published biography of Peter Arno, and Toro’s very own graphic memoir Yes The Planet Got Destroyed (Or: How I Learned to Cartoon Through Catastrophe), about becoming an artist in tumultuous times.

Toro graduated cum laude from Yale, where he received the Betts Prize for his literary work while also serving as captain of the national-champion lightweight rowing team and cartoon editor for the Yale Herald. Toro currently lives in Kansas City, Missouri with his wife, kid and cat.

Selected Presentations 

Toeing the Line: How to Make an Appropriately Inappropriate New Yorker Cartoon 

Funny Ha-Huh: Cartoons That Make Us Laugh and Think 

Timing Is… Everything: 100 Years of Ageless New Yorker Cartoons

Humor is No Laughing Matter:  Cartoons and the First Amendment