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The Wednesday Watch: Liza Donnelly’s Daily Live-Draw; Today’s Daily Cartoonist & Cartoon

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Liza Donnelly Live Draws For You

If you’ve been on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram in recent years you’ve probably run into some of Liza Donnelly‘s live-drawing (either seeing her actually drawing, or stories of where she’s been live-drawing).  A pioneer in the field of visual journalism, she’s gone around the globe drawing people and places. Now at home (like most of us) she’s drawing from her studio for us all. I asked Ms. Donnelly to briefly tell us about what she’s up to:

I’m doing three things:

-Daily live draw for Instagram where I talk and show my hand drawing. It will be in my IGTV as well as live.   @lizadonnelly

-A daily short soundless animation on all social channels. @lizadonnelly

 

-And I’m selling signed prints and t-shirts and mugs etc of my Corona love drawing. To benefit @GlobalGiving to help fight the virus, and help during the Corona Virus Pandemic. Contact me at : lizadonnelly@gmail.com

 

Here’s Ms. Donnelly’s entry on the Spill‘s A-Z:

Liza Donnelly Born, Washington, D.C. New Yorker work: June 21, 1982 – Key book: Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Greatest Women Cartoonists and Their Cartoons (Prometheus, 2005). Edited:  Sex & Sensibility: Ten Women Examine the Lunacy of Modern Love…in 200 Cartoons ( Twelve, 2008). Co-authored with Michael Maslin: Husbands & Wives ( Ballantine 1995), Call Me When You Reach Nirvana ( Andrew & McMeel, 1995), Cartoon Marriage ( with Michael Maslin) (Random House, 2009), When Do They Serve the Wine?( Chronicle, 2010). Women On Men (Narrative Library, 2013). Donnelly also wrote and illustrated a popular series of dinosaur books for children ( Dinosaur Day, Dinosaur Beach, Dinosaur Halloween, etc.) all published by Scholastic.  Website: http://www.lizadonnelly.com

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Today’s Daily Cartoonist & Cartoon

No excuse, by Jon Adams. Mr. Adams began contributing to The New Yorker in October of 2017. Visit his website here.

 

 

The Monday Tilley Watch, The New Yorker Issue Of April 6, 2020; Today’s Daily Cartoonist & Cartoon; Today’s Daily Shouts Cartoonist

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The Cover: A heart-strings reflection of the issue’s Health Issue theme (but it’s tempting to believe we’d see a cover along these lines even if it wasn’t the Health Issue).

The Cartoonists:

The Cartoons:

An umbrella observation from the get-go:  the abundance of color pieces (one by Roz Chast, one by Emily Flake, and one by Liana Finck) in this issue at times kind’ve almost sorta made it feel as if I was paging through a Cartoon Issue. However, unlike the special pieces found in Cartoon Issues of yore, all three of these new pieces are distinctly linked to one subject (can you guess what it might be?).

There are a number of cartoons in this issue that got my attention, beginning with Barbara Smaller’s (p.26) — my favorite Smaller drawing thus far this year. Also eye-catching: Justin Sheen’s castle & moat drawing; Brendan Loper’s getting away from it all cartoon, and Ed Steed’s survivor. All four enjoy a sharply written caption.

A number of drawings (beyond the color pieces mentioned above)  are either directly related to, or can be seen as related to the coronavirus, foremost being Joe Dator’s terrif drawing (p.69), P.C. Vey’s (p.31), and Mr. Loper’s cartoon on page 39. Tom Chitty’s friendly city drawing (p.57), as well as John O’Brien’s drawing (on page 72) could possibly be read as corona-related cartoons. The folks in Mr. O’Brien’s supermarket all seem to be spaced at least six feet apart, but, as with most all of Mr. O’Brien’s drawings, it’s an evergreen.

The remaining four drawings: Sofia Warren’s, Amy Hwang’s, Teresa Burns Parkhurst’s, and an effort from the Bliss/Martin duo, are comic relief unrelated to the health crisis.

Paperwork: the aforementioned Justin Sheen is new to the New Yorker cartoonist fold. He’s the 4th new cartoonist of 2020, and the 57th new cartoonist brought into The New Yorker since Emma Allen was appointed cartoon editor in the Spring of 2017.

The Rea Irvin Talk Masthead Watch:

Read about Rea Irvin’s mothballed iconic Talk masthead (above) here.

And This:

Just noticed that The New Yorker‘s Facebook New Yorker Cartoons page received a make-over. The new look is shown below — new (old) typography, and a (recycled) Rea Irvin inspired banana peel-inspecting Tilley icon replacing Christoph Niemann’s guy at a table icon. Mr. Niemann’s icon showed up in the Spring of 2017, and replaced an existing icon — a drawing by Jack Ziegler.  It puzzled me at the time (and thereafter) that work by a non-New Yorker cartoonist (Mr. Niemann) was chosen to replace an icon drawn by an iconic New Yorker cartoonist.

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Today’s Daily Cartoonist & Cartoon

Kendra Allenby on the newest normal.

Ms. Allenby began contributing to The New Yorker in 2016. Visit her website here.

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Today’s Daily Shouts Cartoonist

Avi Steinberg gives us “Things That Used To Be Annoying But Are Now A Comfort” — Mr. Steinberg began contributing to The New Yorker in 2012.

 

 

 

About Jack (Ziegler); An Evergreen Cartoon From Dana Fradon

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Ordinarily I’d rather not think too much about the end days of good friends.  But today I can’t quite shake thinking about my New Yorker cartoonist colleague and friend, Jack Ziegler, who passed away on this day three years ago. His unexpected finale was a shock; the aftershocks continue.

 

Photo:  Jack Ziegler with New Yorker cartoonist Dick Cline draped around his shoulders.

Beginning in 1974, when his first drawing was published in the magazine, Jack ‘s work was a ground-breaking force. Looks alone set it apart, never mind his cartoon concerns, his hamburger madness. The work disrupted the long held notion of what a New Yorker cartoon should be, and helped usher in the era of what it could be. Other cartoonists followed Jack into the art department (Roz Chast, Mick Stevens, Leo Cullum, to name but a few), but Jack was the point man for the magazine’s art editor, Lee Lorenz, when Lee decided to shake things up.

As March 2017 ended, in the days when it was time to speak to reporters about what Jack’s work meant to the magazine, I dubbed him the Godfather of Contemporary New Yorker Cartoonists. 2017 already seems like a long time ago, but the accolade stands. Without Jack, who knows if the magazine’s next generations of cartoonists would’ve taken the road less traveled. We’ll never know, and it doesn’t matter. We are where we are, in great part because of Jack.

 

Jack Ziegler’s entry on the Spill‘s A-Z:

Jack Ziegler (photo by Michael Maslin, taken at The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, NYC, 2008) Born, Brooklyn, NY July 13, 1942. Died, March  29, 2017.  New Yorker work: 1974 – 2017. Key collections: all of Ziegler’s collections are must-haves. Here’re some favorites: Hamburger Madness (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978), Filthy Little Things ( Doubleday/Dolphin, 1981) and The Essential Jack Ziegler, Complied and Edited by Lee Lorenz ( Workman, 2000). Link here for Ink Spill’s Jack Ziegler interview from late 2016.

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An Evergreen Cartoon From Dana Fradon Cartoon

Daniel Borinsky, a good friend of the Spill, recently unearthed this Dana Fradon New Yorker drawing. It appeared in the issue of April 27, 1957. My thanks to Mr. Borinsky for passing it along.

Dan Fradon’s entry on the Spill‘s A-Z:

Dana Fradon (photo taken in 1978). Born, Chicago, Illinois, 1922. Died, October 3, 2019, Woodstock, NY.  Studied at the Art Institute of Chicago prior to service in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. Following his service, he attended the Art Students League of New York, New Yorker work: May 1, 1948 – April 21, 2003. Collection: Insincerely Yours (Scribners, 1978) To read Ink Spill’s 2013 interview with Mr. Fradon, “Harold Ross’s Last Cartoonist” link here.

 

 

The Weekend Spill; The Tilley Watch Online, The Week Of March 23-27, 2020; GOAT Back!

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An end of week list of New Yorker artists who contributed to newyorker.com features, March 23-27, 2020

The Daily Cartoons: Bob Eckstein, Avi Steinberg, Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell, Zoe Si, Maddie Dai.

 

Daily Shouts: Paul Karasik, Olivia de Recat, Emily Flake.

…and Barry Blitt’s Kvetchbook.

See all of the above and more here.

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GOAT Back!

Should’ve mentioned the return in this week’s issue (March 30, 2020) of Goings On About Town. You may remember that it did not appear in last week’s issue (March 23, 2020) for the very first time in the magazines history.  The goings on are now online (music to listen to online, art online, streamed films) — an excellent and welcome adjustment to this extraordinary time.