Monday Tilley Watch, The New Yorker Issue Of April 11, 2022

The Monday Tilley Watch Takes A Glancing Look At The Art & Artists Of The Latest Issue Of The New Yorker

The Cover: Steinberg returns! Read about it here. 

Apropos Of Nothing, Really: when I saw this week’s cover it reminded me of my senior year portfolio at The University of Connecticut, submitted in the Spring of 1976. The work inside (not shown below) was a selection of lithographs of people playing instruments. Just for fun, I decorated the inner covers of the black portfolio that held the lithographs. I took blank sheet music, pasted the pages onto the cardboard portfolio’s interior covers, then added musical notes (based on actual songs), and finally added a bunch of musicians and instruments.  Here’s what the inside looks like sans lithos:

And here’s the part (enlarged from the left scan above) I remembered after seeing the Steinberg cover:

 

Had I seen Steinberg’s woman playing violin somewhere back then? I don’t know, but I don’t think so. My go-to inspirational New Yorker artist at the time (and forever more!) was Thurber, not Steinberg (my Steinberg period would come along a little later). Judging by all the other musicians on the portfolio, it made sense to add a violin player (one of the lithos not shown is, I believe, a violin player).

I think if you draw enough, over a long period of time, you’re going to draw something (or a number of somethings) that vaguely — or not so vaguely– looks like something someone else did years before you.  

Cartoonists & Cartoons:

Twelve cartoons, twelve cartoonists, no duos (that we know of), and no newbies. The longest active contributor in the issue is Roz Chast, whose first drawing appeared in the Summer of 1978. The most recent addition to the magazine’s stable is Yinfan Huang, whose first drawing appeared in March of 2021. 

Two drawings that caught my eye this issue:

I really enjoyed Roz Chast’s pre-art school through post-art school triple panel (maybe the Steinberg business above had a lot to do with that). And Joe Dator’s indecisive centaur drawing (page 32) is sooooo good. A quick check of the Conde Nast Store (CNS) tells me there have been at least 16 centaur drawings in the magazine. I would’ve guessed more (I bet there were more — the site is not the final word on all the cartoons that have appeared in the magazine).

When I think about New Yorker centaur drawings, I immediately think of this August 31st 1963 New Yorker drawing by the late very great Frank Modell.

 According to the CNS,Warren Miller had two centaur drawings, as did Liana Finck. Others who did them: Zach Kanin, Kaamran Hafeez, Ariel Molvig, Shannon Wheeler, Paul Noth, William O’Brian, Donald Reilly, Charles Barsotti, and Jason Patterson.* (I contributed to the centaur club back in 2006).

*Oddly, the Jason Patterson drawing, again, according to the CNS, appeared twice: once without a caption in the issue of Sept. 27, 2010, and once with, in the issue of October 25, 2010. This immediately caused me to put on my cartoon detective hat. Mystery solved within a minute: the earlier date, for the uncaptioned drawing, refers to its appearance in the Cartoon Caption Contest. The later date is when the drawing showed up with the winning caption. Strangely, the drawing is not listed on the date when it appeared showing the three finalist captions. That was in the issue of October 11, 2010.  

The Rea Irvin Talk Watch: 

If you’re a frequent visitor to The Monday Tilley Watch, you may be familiar with the below Rea Irvin Talk heading — and that’s a good thing.  The whole point of showing it weekly is to keep it in the sunlight. Read more here.