In honor of the magazine’s 100th anniversary, here’s how I got in.

My parents sent me a subscription to the New Yorker magazine when I first moved to New York in the 1980s. I didn’t want one. I didn’t want to be influenced by those cartoons. I was going to do my own thing. Yet, just like the old joke about Playboy, I started reading it for the articles. Those cartoons were there, and I couldn’t help myself. I was hooked. When I was younger, I dreamed of getting my cartoons published in the New Yorker. I have the rejection notes from my frequent attempts.

Later I became friendly with Robert Leighton. Robert was creating puzzles and games and started getting his “drawings” (what the New Yorker calls its cartoons) published in the New Yorker. Initially, I was dismissive, then jealous, then I just had to admit it: He was damn good. I texted him recently with the ultimate compliment, “ I laughed at a cartoon — then realized it was yours.”

I was always into the folklore of the New Yorker and the Algonquin Round Table. Dorothy Parker’s quip, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come and sit here by me,” was always a…