Latest Addition To The Spill Library
For decades a small book (5 1/4″ x 7″), published in 1932, Another Ho Hum: More Newsbreaks From “The New Yorker”, has sat on the Spill‘s shelf without its predecessor (published the year before) Ho Hum: Newsbreaks From “The New Yorker”. This week (finally!) the 1931 volume has joined its partner.
New Yorker history buffs will recall that E.B. White handled the magazine’s “newsbreaks” as part of his first official duties when hired by The New Yorker (full time) in 1927. Newsbreaks are what White’s biographer Scott Elledge described as “funny column-fillers.”* White continued to handle them well into his later years. According to Ross biographer Thomas Kunkel: “White would handle Newsbreaks for more than fifty years; it is estimated that he wrote more than thirty thousand of them.” ** These two volumes (the only volumes devoted to the magazine’s newsbreaks), were published early on in the magazine’s history; both included illustrations by the great cartoonist, Otto Soglow (known for his creation, “The Little King”).
The first volume contains a seven page Foreward by Mr. White, the second volume’s Foreward is only two pages. For me, the following sentence from Mr. White’s first Foreward says it all:
“There is a secret joy in discovering a blunder in the public prints.”
Note: both these volumes were issued with dust jackets. Yet something else to look for when haunting used bookstores.
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*E.B. White: A Biography by Scott Elledge. (Norton, 1984) p. 115.
**Genius In Disguise: Harold Ross OF The New Yorker by Thomas Kunkel (Random House, 1995) p. 145
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Here’s Otto Soglow’s A-Z entry:
Otto Soglow Born, Yorkville, NY, December 23, 1900. Died in NYC, April 1975. New Yorker work: 1925 -1974. Key collections: Pretty Pictures (Farrar & Rinehart, 1931) and for fans of Soglow’s Little King; The Little King (Farrar & Rinehart, 1933) and The Little King (John Martin’s House, Inc., 1945). The latter Little King is an illustrated storybook. Cartoon Monarch / Otto Soglow & The Little King (IDW, 2012) is an excellent compendium.
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More Booth, Pt. 2
From The Atchinson County Mail, “The New Yorker Cartoonist And FHS Graduate Passes Away At The Age Of 96” — a good read (with great photos) from the newspaper covering the Missouri town of Fairfax, where George Booth grew up.
D.D. Degg over on The Daily Cartoonist, has gathered a number of George Booth posts under “In Remembrance Of George Booth.” See it here.
New Yorker cartoonist, Paul Karasik has written a piece on Mr. Booth. See it here.
Stephen Nadler’s Attempted Bloggery shows us a close up of a Booth original sold not long ago. See all the Booth cut-and-tapes here.