Washington Post Article Of Interest…Liza Donnelly’s “How We Draw Ourselves”
From The Washington Post, December 2, 2023, “How We Draw Ourselves: Alison Bechdel, Bishakh Som and others reflect on cartoons, gender and feminism”
Long-time New Yorker cartoonist, Liza Donnelly interviews Alison Bechdel, Bishakh Som, Amy Hwang, Sara Lautman, Roz Chast, Sarah Akinterinwa, and Mads Horwath.
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Latest Addition To The Spill Library: A 1944 Norwegian Cartoon Collection
An interesting addition to the Spill library this week is a 1944 Norwegian cartoon collection, He Who Laughs — Lasts!, produced while that country was occupied during WWII.
Some excerpts of the accompanying text: “Freedom of expression was abolished when the Nazis invaded Norway [April 9, 1940]. The Press was placed under rigid censorship…the stories illustrated in the following pages reveal the qualities of a nation, the fibre of a people who are fundementally alien to the degrading pattern of the the new order…
…One of the Norwegian people’s most dangerous weapons — one of the weapons which the Nazis fear most — is the popular wit…that is that weapon which hits the Nazis daily. Like the stinging lashes of a whip.”
I came across this book while searching for more information about Johan Bull and, hopefully, a collection of his work. Here’s his Spill A-Z entry:
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Johan Bull (photograph dated 1934, courtesy of the Bull family) Born c. 1894, Oslo. Died Stowe, Vermont, Sept. 1945. New Yorker work (cartoons): July 4, 1925 – Oct. 22, 1927 *his NYTs obit says he contributed to The New Yorker until 1930, perhaps the last three years he contributed spot drawings(?).
I did not find a Johan Bull collection, but I did come across the below, which comes awfully close. Of the forty-one cartoons in the book, thirty-seven of them are by Mr. Bull.
Here’s one by Mr. Bull:
Mr. Bull’s New Yorker colleague the great Gluyas Williams* contributed one drawing to the book:
More on Bull:
New Yorker history buffs might recall that Johan Bull was the artist used for Corey Ford‘s twenty part series, “The Making Of A Magazine” (it ran in The New Yorker during its first year of publication, beginning in the issue of August 8, 1925).
It was within this series — in its first installment – that the name “Eustace Tilley” was first used to identify Rea Irvin’s top-hatted gentleman who appeared on the magazine’s very first cover.
Left: a paperback collection of “The Making Of A Magazine” (a hardcover version also exists). You can see Mr. Tilley off to the left on the cover.
Below: Johan Bull’s drawing of Tilley in Corey Ford’s first “Making Of A Magazine” piece.
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*The Gluyas Williams Spill A-Z entry:
Gluyas Williams (above left undated; right:1975) Born, San Francisco, 1888. Died, Boston, Mass., 1982. One of the pillars of Harold Ross’s stable of artists, and one of Ross’s favorite cartoonists. His beautiful full page drawings were a regular feature in the magazine. Mr. Williams illustrated a number of Robert Benchley’s collections, providing the cover art as well as illustrations. NYer work: March 13, 1926 – Aug 25, 1951. Key collections: The Gluyas Williams Book ( Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1929), The Gluyas Williams Gallery (Harper, 1956). Website: http://www.gluyaswilliams.com/