Word has reached the Spill from “Stevenson: Lost and Found” Producer, Sally Williams that the film will begin streaming on Amazon this week. This is great news for those who missed it as well as for those who wish to see it again. Mr. Stevenson is in all likelihood the magazine’s most prolific New Yorker cartoonist contributor, with nearly two thousand cartoons, seventy-nine covers, untold ideas supplied to other cartoonists, and numerous written pieces to his credit.
Here’s his entry on the A-Z:
James Stevenson Born, NYC, 1929. Died, February 17, 2017, Cos Cob, Connecticut. New Yorker work: March 10, 1956 -. Stevenson interned as an office boy at The New Yorker in the mid 1940s when he began supplying ideas for other New Yorker artists. Nine years later he was hired a full-time ideaman, given an office at the magazine and instructed not to tell anyone what he did. He eventually began publishing his own cartoons and covers as well as a ground-breaking Talk of the Town pieces (ground breaking in that the pieces were illustrated). His contributions to the magazine number over 2000.
Key collections: Sorry Lady — This Beach is Private! (MacMillan, 1963), Let’s Boogie ((Dodd, Mead, 1978). Stevenson was a children’s book author, with roughly one hundred titles to his credit. He was a frequent contributor to the Op-Ed page of The New York Times, under the heading Lost and Found New York. Stevenson’s The Life, Loves and Laughs of Frank Modell, published in 2013, is essential reading. Sally Williams’ 2019 documentary film, Stevenson Lost & Found is essential viewing.
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The Monday Tilley Watch Takes A Glancing Look At Some Of The Art & Artists Of The Latest Issue Of The New Yorker
The Cover: The on-a-roll Ed Steed’s fifth cover (if my counting is correct) in two years. Read a short Q&A with him here.
The Cartoonists:
Thirteen cartoonists, thirteen cartoons. One newbie this week: Leise Hook, who is the 25th new cartoonist added to The New Yorker‘s stable of artists this year, and the 78th added since Emma Allen’s appointment as the magazine’s cartoon editor in the Spring of 2017.
The Cartoons:
The lead-off drawing in the issue is by Mort Gerberg, who is #2 on the Spill‘s list (shown here last Monday) of the magazine’s top five longest active contributing artists (I’m defining “active” as meaning that at least one drawing by the artist was published in the magazine within the past year). Mr. Gerberg’s first New Yorker drawing appeared in the issue of April 10, 1965. Also in this new issue is Roz Chast, who is #7 on the list. Her first drawing appeared in the magazine in the July 3, ’78 issue.
Relative newcomer (he started contributing to The New Yorker in 2012) Avi Steinberg’s money bag cartoon (it’s on page 41) caught my eye. I wonder: is there a cartoonist out there who hasn’t taken a stab at a money bag drawing. Don’t know why a bag with a $ on it is irresistibly amusing…perhaps it has to do with the bag itself being a cartoonish image. A shorthand, shortcut graphic that seems to have been around long before anyone around was around.
At least 4 of the issue’s cartoons reference (or appear to reference) the times we’re in: Becky Barnicoat’s (p.32), William Haefeli’s (p.34), Arantza Pena Popo’s (p.65), and Akeem Robert’s (p.66). I suppose Tom Toro’s tense rabbit (p. 42) might be considered as well, although I’m not sure how closely rabbits follow the news.
We began with mention of Avi Steinberg but there’s another Steinberg in the issue: Saul Steinberg, one of The New Yorker‘s cartoonist giants (if he was a cartoonist. Opinions vary). His 1976 piece “Paradise Cabins” accompanies Ian Frazier’s “Rereading Lolita” beginning on page 30.
Mr. Frazier has ventured into The New Yorker cartoonist stable as well. Janet Utts, in her Index To The Cartoons Of The New Yorker Magazine (Burke, 1986) says Mr. Frazier sold five cartoons as of that pub date. “To Feed My Brother: Four Navajo Corn Origin Myths” appears in the issue of October 30, 1978 (it also appears in The New Yorker Cartoon Album 1975- 1985). Curiously, The New Yorker database does not list any of Mr. Frazier’s cartoons, so I’ve relied on the Utts book for the dates of the other Frazier cartoons published up to 1985. You’ll notice all of his drawings are title drawings (i.e., not captioned, or captionless):
August 12, 1985 (The Most Important Purchase You Will ever Make)
July 16, 1984 (Bank Lines Of The Old West)
June 13, 1983 (Some Common Types)
May 16, 1983 (Celebrity Stress: The Latest Victims).
Curiouser still(?), Mr. Frazier told Janet Utts, “I’m not really a cartoonist.”
Here’s Steinberg’s entry on the Spill‘s A-Z:
Saul Steinberg Born, June 15, 1914, Ramnic-Sarat, Rumania. Died in 1999. New Yorker work: 1941 – (The New Yorker publishes his work posthumously). Steinberg is one of the giants of The New Yorker. Go here to visit the saulsteinbergfoundation where you’ll find much essential information and examples of his work.
The Rea Irvin Talk Masthead Watch:
The redraw (!) of Mr. Irvin’s classic design remains for now. Read about it all here. Below is what’s been mothballed:
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Today’s Daily Cartoonist & Cartoon
Fortune Telling, by Amy Hwang, who began contributing to The New Yorker in 2010.