The Monday Tilley Watch takes a glancing look at the art and artists of the latest issue of The New Yorker
The Cover: Baseball
The Cartoonists and Cartoons:
Fourteen cartoons, seventeen cartoonists (including the Cartoon Caption Contest Cartoonists: Robert Leighton, P.C. Vey, and Ed Himelblau, and Zoe Si, who has a “Sketchbook”). Two duos, that we know of, with one a duo newbie (the Spill counts duos as one cartoonist): Brian Frazer and Sam Frazer. The Frazers are the fifth addition to the cartoon stadium this year, and the one hundred and thirty-second addition since Emma Allen took the reins as cartoon editor in May of 2017. The longest active contributor in this issue is P.C. Vey, who began contributing in 1993.
See all the single panel cartoons here.
The Rea Irvin Talk Watch:
In May of 2017, Rea Irvin’s Talk design, show directly above, was escorted outta the building and replaced by a redrawn version. Heavens! Read more.
The Spill continues to hope Mr. Irvin’s design will be returned.
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 and only art supervisor (some refer to him as its first art editor) holding the position from 1925 until 1939 when James Geraghty assumed the title of art editor. Irvin then became art director and remained in that position until William Shawn officially succeeded Harold Ross in early 1952. 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. Number of New Yorker covers (not including the repeat appearances of the first cover every anniversary up to 1991): 163. Number of cartoons contributed: 261.