Category: News

The Monday Tilley Watch: the New Yorker Issue of July 23, 2018

News

Back to a single issue, but not for long. Just one more single week issue before we have another double: dated August 6 & 13. Ah summertime.

This is the first issue of The New Yorker in 23 years without Tom Bachtell’s Talk of The Town illustrations. The illustrations are handled this week by Joao Fazenda. His work, at least going by the illustrations in this issue, seem in the vicinity of the school of Bachtell.  Otto Soglow’s terrific drawings remain, as they have for quite some time, sort of alternating between the modern contributor’s work.

From the Dept. of Just Sayin’ :

18  illustrations this week. Three of those full page, and an additional illustration that is a page-and-a-half.

14 cartoons, none full page.

The Cartoons:

Good sizing/placement of the cartoons this week, with just one drawing that, to my eyes, could’ve used a bit more breathing room (i.e., run larger): Ed Steed’s very nice bees in cars cartoon. Perhaps it reads better in the print version (I’m seeing the digital issue, both on a laptop and a tablet).

Of note in the issue: a Glen Baxter drawing! Even better: it’s a Glen Baxter cowboy drawing! If the Spill gave out best of the issue awards like the fellas do over on Cartoon Companion, Mr. Baxter’s would be pinned with a ribbon.

Irvin Talk Update: 

Rea Irvin’s iconic masthead for The Talk of The Town is still missing (a re-drawn version replaced it. Yes, a re-drawn version.  Read about that here). This is what the original looks like:

And that’s that, til next week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Tilley Watch Online: July 9-13, 2018; Wouldn’t It Be Nice?

News

This week’s Daily Cartoon: Trump 3, World Cup 1.  The contributing New Yorker cartoonists were Jon Adams, David Sipress, Brendan Loper, and Darrin Bell

And over on Daily Shouts, the contributing New Yorker cartoonists were : Liana Finck, Jeremy Nguyen (with Annelise Capossela), Farley Katz (with Kathryn Doyle), Olivia de Recat, and Mick Stevens

You can see all of the above, and more here.

_____________________________________

Wouldn’t It Be Nice?

Here’s an interesting title I happened across this morning while searching online (it’s available from a bookseller in Toronto). 

Here’s the listing:

Green printed wrappers (16 cm.) with name of Jaffray B. Smith embossed in gilt to lower corner of front panel; staple-bound. Contents: [2], 17, [1] pages. Well-illustrated, with 6 full-page illustrations by Irvin, one of those being a double-paged workflow diagram, and a small photograph of Dictograph intra-office telephone equipment. An incredible advertisement for the Dictograph Interior Telephone System, centred upon a narrative of miscommunication by humorist Benchley and illustrated by the New Yorker’s Rea Irvin

Wouldn’t it be nice to see Rea Irvin’s “6 full-page illustrations”?  

Here’s Irvin’s entry on the Spill‘s A-Z:

Rea Irvin (pictured above. Self portrait above from Meet the Artist) *Born, San Francisco, 1881; died in the Virgin Islands,1972. Irvin was the cover artist for the New Yorker’s first issue, February 21, 1925. He was the magazine’s first art editor, holding the position from 1925 until 1939 when James Geraghty assumed the title. Irvin became art director and remained in that position until William Shawn succeeded Harold Ross. Irvin’s last original work for the magazine was the magazine’s cover of July 12, 1958. The February 21, 1925 Eustace Tilley cover had been reproduced every year on the magazine’s anniversary until 1994, when R. Crumb’s Tilley-inspired cover appeared. Tilley has since reappeared, with other artists substituting from time-to-time.

 

 

A Price Playbill; Ziegler’s Letterman Appearance; A Couple of Hokinson Dachshunds

News

A Price Playbill

Without generous donors, the Spill‘s archives would be so much poorer.  Here’s the latest addition: a Playbill with cover art by the great George Price. Stalag 17 premiered at the 48th St. Theatre in May of 1951.  Mr. Price’s work, as a spot artist, premiered in The New Yorker in 1929. In his book, The Art of The New Yorker: 1925-1995, Lee Lorenz, the magazine’s former Art/Cartoon editor (who called Price one of the magazine’s great stylists, along with Helen Hokinson, Peter Arno, William Steig, and James Thurber) described Price’s transition from spot artist to cartoonist:

 After purchasing a few spot drawings from Price, Katharine White invited him in for an interview. She encouraged him to try his hand at cartooning. George was reluctant at first.  He was not an idea person. Mrs. White promised to supply him with gag writers, and on this condition George was persuaded  to begin submitting to the magazine.

____________________________________________________

Ziegler’s Letterman Appearance

I’ve linked to this video before, but just happened to see it again last night.  Broadcast June 20, 1983, here’s the late very great Jack Ziegler’s Late Night with David Letterman appearance.  See it here.

___________________________________________________

A Couple of Hokinson Dachshunds

I didn’t know that dachshunds were at one time called “liberty hounds” — did you?  Read more  here on Attempted Bloggery about a 1947 Helen Hokinson drawing featuring two of them.

 

 

 

New Yorker’s Tom Bachtell Talk of The Town Illustrations End After 23 Years; Article of Interest: Maggie Larson; Personal History: “How many do you send in?”

News

New Yorker’s Tom Bachtell Talk of The Town Illustrations End After 23 Years

Mr. Bachtell, whose first Talk of The Town illustrations appeared in the New Yorker‘s issue of March 20, 1995, posted the following on Facebook this afternoon:

Tom Bachtell’s website

Mr. Bachtell on A Case For Pencils

_________________________________________________

Article of Interest: Maggie Larson

From the Philadelphia Inquirer, July 11, 2018, “This Bryn Mawr grad is part of an exclusive — but growing — group: women cartoonists of the New Yorker”

— this piece on Ms. Larson, who first began contributing to The New Yorker in July of 2017.

Above: Ms. Larson and one of her New Yorker cartoons (from the issue of December 4 2017). 

Link here to Ms. Larson’s website

___________________________________________________

Personal History:

“How many do you send in?”

I’ve found that this question is eventually asked in any cartoon-centered conversation with someone curious as to how it works, working for The New Yorker. It’s a question with as many different answers as there are cartoonists.  A rumor was spread some years ago that the magic number was 10: you had to submit 10 a week. No such rule exists, or ever existed. I believe that that number still haunts the cartoon community — why, I don’t know.

This afternoon, while going through cartoon stuff, I ran across a box of index cards from my earliest years as a cartoonist for the magazine. To illustrate my point about sending in 10 cartoons a week, I noticed I had a run of sending in 20+, but there were also weeks of 30+, and then I found a few much higher.  Here’s a cropped photo of the last page of one week’s submissions — the week of March 8, 1978:

 57 submitted. Not one sold to The New Yorker or to any other publications that saw the work after the New Yorker (I think those red dots indicate drawings I felt might work for some other magazines). I don’t remember any of these cartoons, but judging by the captions, I’m not surprised they failed to be placed. For me, rejected work is best quickly forgotten; by the time drawings are rejected (or bought, if I’m lucky enough) I’ve already moved on to the next week’s batch, however many drawings that turns out to be. 

   

 

Spinach, Part 2 with Shanahan, Steiner, and Weber

News

As anyone who follows cartoon art knows, nearly everything and anything is fair game, including other cartoons. The famous Carl Rose “spinach” cartoon from the December 8, 1928 New Yorker  (shown above) that was yesterday’s subject here (well, more precisely, its caption origin was the subject) spawned a number of later cartoons.  Danny Shanahan gets the credit for causing me to think about casting around the Cartoon Bank site, using search words/terms like “spinach”  “broccoli” and “the hell with it”  — here are three takes by three masters of the art of cartooning:

Danny Shanahan’s from the February 28, 2005 New Yorker:

Peter Steiner’s from the July 24, 2000 New Yorker:

 

Robert Weber’s take, the February 21, 1994 New Yorker: