Latest Addition To The Spill Library…A 1976 William Hamilton Collection
A regular stop when I visit Northampton, Massachusetts is The Raven, a terrif used bookstore located just off of Main Street. Although the comic/comix/cartoon section is small, I ran across a number of interesting New Yorker-centric titles while there yesterday, including Steinberg At The New Yorker, Roz Chast’s Can We Talk About something More Pleasant, The New Yorker Cartoon Book Of Money, and late William Hamilton‘s Husbands, Wives and Live-Togethers. All of these titles, except the last, are in the Spill‘s library, and so they remained at the Raven. The Hamilton collection, priced at $2.95 (a steal), came home with me. Hamilton was on a roll in the 1970s (books-wise) publishing this book as well as two collections within three years (the other two: Anti-Social Register & Terribly Nice People). By that time he was quite not halfway through his forty year New Yorker run (with approximately 950 published cartoons, from 1965 through 2005).
When my work began appearing in The New Yorker, Hamilton was one of the regulars — and by that I mean his work was in the majority of issues published within a year. For instance: in 1977 his drawings appeared in 31 out of 52 issues. He was also one of the magazine’s cartoonist stars — his style instantly recognizable.
Looking through Husbands, Wives and Live-Togethers, there are no graphic surprises — his style is immediately identifiable: a field of black ink somewhere in nearly every drawing, usually an inked-in suit jacket. Sometimes the field of black ink was used in the background to tie in, or obscure background elements. I always felt that the male character we saw in so many drawings looked like Eli Wallach. Was Hamilton thinking of Wallach when he drew the guy? We’ll never know (he died in a car accident in 2016). One thing we do know is that Hamilton intently covered a certain social strata. References to wealth and/or the wealthy abound (only 37 of the drawings in the book were published in The New Yorker — 142 appeared in a syndicated feature, “The New Society”). One curiosity in the collection: not a single drawing (unless I missed it) appears with Hamilton’s elaborate Jeffersonian-ish signature.
Hamilton himself somewhat seemed to have stepped out of one of his drawings. The first time I met him he looked the part of the circa 1970s doin’ pretty well New Yorker artist — not so much how he was dressed, but how he looked: a strong jawline, and casually tousled head of hair, as if he’d just left a party on someone’s sailboat. His jacket, however fit in with all the other “guys” in the office (the cartoonists were 99% male in 1977). It was a cartoonist’s jacket — comfortably well-worn. 
When I look at his work, or the work of any New Yorker artist who became closely identified with a particular period (think Peter Arno), I see it as an invaluable examination of its time.
Here’s just one of the drawings in the book. An evergreen:
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Speaking of Books…
A recent post on a Spill fave site, Attempted Bloggery tells the tale of a gamble that paid off. An original Steinberg drawing — a real beaut — in a copy of Steinberg’s All In Line. Read it here!
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A Limited Edition Print From Drew Dernavich And Nesja Press
Here’s a fun collaborative effort from New Yorker cartoonist Drew Dernavich and Nesja Press. The name “Nesja” may be familiar to those of you who follow “The New Yorker Caption Contest Podcast.” He’s one of the hosts, along with Beth Lawler, and Vin Coca.
Link here to read all about the Dernavich limited edition print!
and listen to the latest Caption Contest Podcast to hear the collaboration discussed.