From The Chicago Tribune, May 16, 2012, “Unlikely gathering of Comix legends comes together at U. of C.”

(among those gathering: R. Crumb, Lynda Barry, Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, Ivan Brunetti, Ben Katchor, Daniel Clowes)

I love watching Mad Men, and revisiting the visual style of that era (even though I was just a wee kid back then). Contrasting the Don Draper look with cave people seemed like the perfect set-up for a cartoon.  Because, of course, humor is all about the unexpected, the incongruous, the ridiculous.  I was surprised that not more captions submitted made reference to Mad Men.

Almost as if returning fire, this past episode of Mad Men (“Dark Shadows”)  included a scene with Peggy mentioning New Yorker cartoons as an influence for her Sno Ball pitch.

From The Los Angeles Times, May 10, 2012, “John Updike’s house to become a museum”

Above: Updike’s childhood home in Shillington, Pennsylvania

Ink Spill’s Chicago correspondent, Ken Krimstein reports that Gahan Wilson received an honorary doctorate this past weekend from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. That’s Gahan to the right in the above photo, with co-honoree, Eric Fischl.  Ken filed this report  :

Interestingly, not only did Gahan graduate from there, so did his mother. He was fabulous and very funny, quickly mocking a noose with his doctoral pendant on the stage. As the person who introduced him said, “Doctor Wilson you may now operate!”

Below photos from the program:

– All photos courtesy of Ken Krimstein

Over at The Comics Journal the tributes to Maurice Sendak are pouring in.

Sendak, who passed away this past Tuesday at age 83, contributed one cover to The New Yorker, and in the same issue (September 27, 1993) contributed a two page spread, In The Dumps, co-written/drawn with Art Spiegelman. Mr. Sendak also contributed a Storyboard to the issue of January 18, 1993.

And…check out Liza Donnelly’s Forbes column on Mother’s Day, and while you’re there, scroll down for her take on the Time Magazine cover making news.

The News (news from Poland), May 9, 2012, “Satirical cartoonist Andrzej Czeczot dies” (Czeczot’s “Manhattan” a four page spread of drawings, appeared in The New Yorker, June 9, 1986).

From The Gothamist, May 9, 2012, “More Rejected New Yorker Covers Revealed, Explained”

Note: After my colleague Michael Shaw posted the following piece on Face Book this afternoon, I asked if he’d share it with Ink Spill. Accompanying the piece is Michael’s illustration, an homage to James Thurber’s drawing, “Touche!” originally published in The New Yorker,  December 3, 1932.

Call me Thurberesque. Why? Because it’s a nice way of saying I can’t draw very well. Oh, if it were as simple as failing eyesight or a lack of limbs. I could package myself as a triumph over indefatigable odds— maybe score a papal au- dience like that guy who plays guitar with his feet. Nope, it’s just the way I draw. Or more precisely, it’s the way the things I draw look— desks are made of cheese, wrists are optional, hands are switched, fingers missing, necks incomplete. Float- ing heads! The world I draw is an ill-at-ease chaotic jumble of multiple perspectives and lines meandering in all direc- tions. Just like real life. Or more precisely, life here in the Midwest.
I am a Midwestern by birth, temperament, and cholesterol count. This is no Keilloresque Midwest. That’s Minnesota. Minnesota is not the Midwest. Here are the boundaries— the Midwest may creep as far north as Madison, Wisconsin (but only in deference to Michael Feldman.) The Midwest stops at Kansas City. Ask Calvin Trillin or George Booth. They’ll tell you the Midwest pretty much stops in Missouri. Columbus, Ohio forms the eastern border, (but only as an homage to James the Thurb). Please go no further south than Hannibal, Missouri. (Which may be north of Colum- bus.) And there you’ve got the psychic map from which my work springs. Hope this helps!
One question still stands— why continue to inflict Michael Shaw’s cartoons on a largely innocent readership? First— my occasional appearance is the driving force behind my moth- er-in-law’s subscription. (Though the photograph of Charles Ray’s sculpture “Oh! Charley, Charley, Charley” almost sent her back to The Saturday Evening Post.) Second, and most importantly— one Christmas morning, now largely lost to the murk of memory, I received, along with a strapping G. I. Joe, a copy of “Thurber and Company”. And that was that.
The New Yorker was in no way responsible for this event. But what do I know? There are forces at work here both vast and inscrutable. And in the next installment, we’ll sniff the daisy chain of events that have nurtured the peculiar subspe- cies of outsider art that is a Michael Shaw cartoon. Don’t miss chapter two—Tragedy Plus Time Equals Tragedy, But Who Has Time Anymore?
First in a series of faxed advertorials on behalf of the cartoons of Michael Shaw. By Michael Shaw. (Originally sent Tuesday, August, 17th, 2004, 1:57pm)

From The Washington Post, this review:  “Cartoon Monarch: Otto Soglow & The Little King”

From the Library Journal, their Fall preview lists a third book of observations on art by John Updike, Always Looking: Essays on Art (Knopf). His first two: Just Looking (Knopf, 1989), and Still Looking (Knopf, 2005).

Also from The Library Journal,  a listing for Saul Steinberg: A Biography (Nan A. Talese: Doubleday) by Deirdre Bair. This should be fascinating.  According to the Library Journal’s listing, the author was allowed to “rummage through 177 boxes of never-before-seen materials to write this biography.”

Link here for the Library Journal’s post.

Looking for more Steinberg? Harold Rosenberg’s Saul Steinberg (Knopf, 1978) and Joel Smith’s Steinberg at The New Yorker ( Abrams, 2005) are worth seeking out, as are all of Steinbergs collections.

Link  here for more info on Mr. Mankoff’s appearance.

From The Beat, May 1, 2012, “Working for The Man: MoCCa 2012″ ( with Shannon Wheeler and Liza Donnelly content).

From NPR’s All Things Considered, May 1, 2012, audio: “‘Blown Covers’: Not Ready For the Newstand”