Peter Steiner is an American cartoonist, painter and novelist, best known for a 1993 cartoon published by ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' which prompted the adage "
On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog
"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" is an adage and Internet meme about Internet anonymity which began as a caption to a cartoon drawn by Peter Steiner, published by ''The New Yorker'' on July 5, 1993. dead link The words are those ...
." He is also a novelist who has published four crime novels.
Early life and career
Peter Steiner was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1940 and raised there. His parents had emigrated from Austria in the 1930s.Boughton, Kathryn, "A New Chapter For Peter Steiner" ''CT INSIDER'', February 11, 2022.
He attended the University of Miami and spent his junior year at the Free University of Berlin. He earned his B.A. from the University of Miami. After serving in the United States Army in Germany, he earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in German literature from the University of Pittsburgh in 1967 and 1969 respectively. ''New Austrian'', January/February 2009 issue.
He was a professor of German literature at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania for eight years before turning to being a cartoonist, artist, and a writer of novels."Profile: Peter Steiner" ''Fresh Fiction''. Accessed April 7, 2022."Peter Steiner: the Ink Spill interview" ''michaelmaslin.com'', June 7, 2016.
Cartoons
Steiner has contributed cartoons and other material to ''The New Yorker'' since 1979.
His cartoon captioned ' On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog' is the most reproduced cartoon from ''The New Yorker''. Steiner is also well known for his daily cartoons on contemporary events for the ''
Washington Times
''The Washington Times'' is an American conservative daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., that covers general interest topics with a particular emphasis on national politics. Its broadsheet daily edition is distributed throughout ...
'', which he created for over 20 years, starting in 1983. One selection of these cartoons, titled ''Peter Steiner Cartoons I didn't Bite the Man I Bit the Office'', was published in 1994. For several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s he also made cartoons for ''
The Weekly Standard
''The Weekly Standard'' was an American neoconservative political magazine of news, analysis and commentary, published 48 times per year. Originally edited by founders Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, the ''Standard'' had been described as a "re ...
''.
Novels
Steiner has published four novels, all featuring a former CIA agent named Louis Morgon who has retired to the Loire Valley in France. Of his 2010 novel ''The Terrorist'', ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' reviewer
Marilyn Stasio
Marilyn Stasio is a New York City author, writer and literary critic. She has been the "Crime Columnist" for ''The New York Times Book Review'' since about 1988,he plotis the least bit plausible, Steiner presents us with a reassuring fantasy world in which rash youths bow to the wisdom of their elders, terrorists abort their missions out of compassion for their human targets and the innocent victims of egregious acts of cruelty find it in their hearts to forgive."
Novels published
* "A French Country Murder," retitled ''Le Crime'' when it came out in paperback.
* ''L'Assassin''
* ''The Terrorist'' (2010)
* "The Resistance"
*The Capitalist (2016)
*The Good Cop (2019), a Willi Geismeier thriller, 1
*The Constant Man (6/1/2021), a Willi Geismeier thriller, 2