The Monday Tilley Watch Takes A Glancing Look At The Art & Artists Of The Latest Issue Of The New Yorker
The Issue: A First
Last week in this space I wrote:
Next week will be a double issue — the last issue of 2021, and the first of 2022. I believe — although I’m not 100% sure — it will be the Cartoon Issue. That’ll be interesting.
Well most of that is true. This week’s issue is a double, taking us into 2022. The next part — the Cartoon Issue part — is partially true. Tempting to say the issue Tis a Puzzlement!, but I won’t.
The Cartoon Issue, a relatively new addition to the magazine, first appeared in 1997, showed up in the Fall or early Winter for a number of years, then fizzled out, only to return in recent times, is — a first for special New Yorker Issues — sharing the big stage with puzzles. It’s the biggest stage yet for puzzles in The New Yorker (some readers might remember The New Yorker Book Of Cartoon Puzzles And Games published in 2006. But that was a stand alone book).
The Spill’s focus will remain, as usual, on New Yorker cartoons and cartoonists.
So let’s break down this hybrid special issue.
The Cover:
By a non-cartoonist, it features a crossword puzzle going into a bar. According to Wikipedia, the first published “guy goes into a bar” joke was published by The New York Times in 1952.
The Cartoonists & Cartoons:
Sixteen cartoons, twenty cartoonists. There are two duos that we know of (the Spill counts duos as one cartoonist): Harry Bliss and Steve Martin; Kaamran Hafeez and Al Batt.
Four cartoonists not included in the list of “Drawings” above are represented solely by non-single panel cartoon appearances: Roz Chast, Ed Steed, Emily Flake, and George Booth.
Of special note: Liana Finck, who has a single panel drawing, also has a twelve page “comic strip.”
There are no newbies in the issue.
One cartoon that will make for some lively chit-chat on the Cartoon Caption Contest Podcast is J.A.K.’s cartoon (page 81). It is a cartoon wanting a caption, but it is not presented in the usual format of The Caption Contest — it appears as a single panel cartoon in the body of the magazine. In other words, it’s not really a cartoon in the long running contest. I expect it will turn up on social media where captioners will do what captioners do with uncaptioned New Yorker drawings. In related news: there is no “official” Caption Contest drawing in this issue.
The Rea Irvin Talk Watch:
This Cartoons & Puzzles issue features a one-off replacement for the now 4 1/2 year old replacement for Rea Irvin’s classic Talk design shown above. Mr. Irvin’s original was replaced in the Spring of 2017 after 92 years of service, by a — gasp! — redraw. Read more about it here)
If I had to guess, I would say that the “meta” puzzle that is hidden throughout the issue will lead to discovering the caption to JAK’s cartoon. I haven’t started solving that yet, but its odd appearance and its placement at the magazine’s end lead me to think it’s connected to the puzzle part of the issue.