This Sunday would be Nostradamus’s 522nd birthday, so…

Fittingly, it lands in the season when psychics start announcing what the new year has in store for humanity.

I have zero psychic ability—but my cartoons have an odd habit of predicting future events.

We first noticed this in 2007, a few months after I turned in the finish for this cartoon.

Before the New Yorker had a chance to run it, news broke that Keith Richards had snorted his father’s ashes. The magazine immediately ran it as a topical cartoon.

Two weeks later, I was doubled over with abdominal pain in an emergency room. While his team prepped me for an emergency appendectomy, the surgeon tried to make small talk. When he heard I was a New Yorker cartoonist, he asked if I had anything in the current issue. I realized I did—and it was this one.

Since then, there have been many examples. This…

…was drawn years before we started seeing news stories about jails and prisons being repurposed as Airbnbs.

But I don’t think I started hearing the “Nothstradamus” nickname until our current political era. I’ll only post a few, starting with this cartoon, submitted in the fall of 2015:

And this one from the summer of 2016:

So what’s going on? Do my cartoons actually have predictive power?

What seems far more likely—and more disturbing—is that our shared reality has become so absurd that we cartoonists can barely stay a few months ahead of it. In other words, I’m not predicting anything, the future is stealing my material.

This week we have a triple bill of prophecy cartoons, because I want to give the Nostradamus cartoon at the top of this post a chance to advance. It is his birthday, after all.

For our second contender, we have Prophecy as Blessing, with this seasonally appropriate cartoon about the Annunciation.

And finally, Prophecy as Curse, with this look at the terrifying tale of the Monkey’s Paw.

And now, the Main Event: The November Tournament of Champions!

First up, we have Pilgrim’s Process.

Taking on the winner of last week’s semi finale, Grand Dame Finale.

Finally, I’d like to give you, my loyal readers—and only the most loyal are still here at the end of the post—a chance to make a prediction of your own.

In the comments, tell me which of my cartoons will end up predicting an actual event in 2026.

Whoever guesses correctly—or comes closest—will receive a free print of that cartoon.

The comments are open—cast your prophecy!