The Monday Tilley Watch Takes A Glancing Look At The Art & Artists Of The Latest Issue Of The New Yorker
This Week: The New Yorker‘s 96th Anniversary Issue
The Cover: Rea Irvin’s classic cover, once traditionally appearing on every anniversary issue of The New Yorker (until the string was broken by Robert Crumb’s “Elvis Tilley” in 1994) has inspired many an off-shoot. This week’s cover is another.
I wonder how many contributors sent in a masked Tilley for cover consideration. Here’s mine, sent in for consideration mid-January. I simply added a hand-drawn, pencil-colored mask over Rea Irvin’s original drawing (Tilley was left colorless for this rough submission).
The Cartoonists:
Thirteen cartoons, fourteen cartoonists (Emily Flake has a Sketchpad on page 23). No newbies this week; one duo (Hafeez & Batt. The Spill counts duos as one cartoonist).
The Cartoons:
Two cartoons caught my eye this week: the first is David Sipress’s* walkin’ the gangplank drawing (it’s on page 41). It is perhaps my fave Sipress drawing of all time. Looking at it, you notice that the fellow walking the plank and the fellow to the far right both have their mouths open. In cartoon world, or at least in The New Yorker cartoon world, the open mouth indicates who is speaking. I’ve thought about this for a few minutes: in this case it doesn’t matter which person is speaking — it works either way. If I had to choose though, I think I prefer the guy on the plank as speaker.
The other eye-catcher is Lars Kenseth’s* (possible nod to Valentine’s Day) gift-giving whale drawing (it’s on page 68). I like to think about where the gift-giving whale managed to find ribbon, and how the krill ribboning was managed. However it was accomplished, a fun and funny drawing.
The Rea Irvin Masthead Watch:
It’s the fourth anniversary issue with the redrawn Talk masthead sitting in for the real deal (shown above). Go here for more on Rea Irvin’s classic (and shelved design).
*Paperwork:
The Spill’s entries for Mr. Sipress and Mr. Kenseth
David Sipress New Yorker work: July 1998 –.
Lars Kenseth (photo and bio courtesy of Mr. Kenseth): Lars is a cartoonist whose lumpy people have appeared in The New Yorker, Barron’s and Food And Wine’s FWx. With a heavy background in animation, Lars has spent the last decade drawing and writing for Fox, Disney, Mondo, Maker, MTV and, most recently, Adult Swim. He’s a 2016 Sundance Institute Fellow, a Dartmouth graduate and a long suffering acolyte of the New York Jets. A New England native, Lars wisely lives in Los Angeles with his wife Liz and their two feline dependents, Omelet and Honeybear. New Yorker work: November 14, 2016 –. Website: larskenseth.com/