The Monday Tilley Watch Takes A Glancing Look At Some Of The Art & Artists Of The Latest Issue Of The New Yorker
The Cover: a static digital Fall.
The Cartoonists:
Sixteen cartoons, sixteen cartoonists. Two duos that we know of: Pia Guerra & Ian Boothby, and Liza Donnelly & Carl Kissin (the Spill counts duos as one cartoonist). No newbies this week.
The Cartoons: Let’s talk size and space. Of the sixteen drawings/cartoons in the issue, two of them are afforded generous space (Liana Finck’s and E.S. Glenn’s). To my eye at least two others could’ve used equivalent space on the page, if not more: Victoria Roberts drawing and Frank Cotham’s. Ms. Roberts’ drawing in particular almost demands more space. Seeing the drawing on my laptop, I had to enlarge the image to understand who was speaking in the cartoon. New Yorker cartoon history buffs will recall that the magazine’s founder and first editor was known for “sharpshooting,” asking for instance, variations of “Who’s speaking?” when looking at art at the Tuesday afternoon meetings. “Who’s speaking?” is an important foundational element in “getting” a cartoon. I’m going to assume Ross knew that having to puzzle over who was speaking in a drawing hurt the drawing’s impact. And he was right. If Ms. Roberts drawing had been run twice the size as it now appears, no digging (via enlarging the cartoon) would’ve been necessary. It’s a great drawing by the way. Tee-shirts emblazoned with this drawing will certainly be available soon in the Met’s gift shop.
The Rea Irvin Talk Watch (formerly The Rea Irvin Talk Masthead Watch)
It has recently come to my attention that I’ve been using the word “Masthead” incorrectly. Here’s the simplest definition you’ll find when Googling the word:
the title of a newspaper or magazine at the head of the front or editorial page.
Wikipedia offers this definition:
In American usage, a publication’s masthead is a printed list, published in a fixed position in each edition, of its owners, departments, officers, contributors and address details…
So clearly I’ve been incorrect in my usage. The correct usage, I believe — and please someone out there correct me on this — is “heading” …so this unfortunate Monday Spill tradition should be called, if “heading” is correct usage: The Rea Irvin Talk Heading Watch. This sounds awful to my ears, so I’ll not use it. For now I’ll call it The Rea Irvin Talk Watch. I could (and would!) abandon this section of the Monday Spill altogether if only Rea Irvin’s iconic design shown below would be brought back to where it once belonged (Beatle reference in honor of this week’s fab & gear* New Yorker Profile of Paul McCartney by David Remnick).
Read more on the Irving Talk heading here.
*Yet more Beatle-era usage.