Critiquing the New Yorker Figure Skating Cartoons #1 & #2

You perhaps know that the New Yorker magazine has almost a hundred years of cartoons and beautifully illustrated covers. Some of these are about figure skating. I am now going to critique the skating in some of these cartoons.

Garth, 1944

 

The background skaters are nicely drawn, and you can instantly see what the skater is doing, and their skating level. This is obviously a public skate session.

The problem is with the 'humorous character'  in the front.  He's not funny at all--except his entry to the figure 8 is completely wrong.  Falling is so common in figure skating that it's not fodder for humor. I think this must have been an illustration for a short story or a drawing to fill a blank space.

I do want to mention that every cartoonist in the New Yorker collection draws the figure 8 entry from the end--as if it was being drawn with a pen. What's with that?

Chon Day, 1944

 Here's another example of an 'end on figure 8 entry'

And shouldn't his free leg be tucked in?

  Here's my caption:

To pass Gold moves, USFSA requires you to to skate 

how much you paid in lessons

rounded up to the nearest 8

NOW THAT'S HUMOR!