The Monday Tilley Watch takes a glancing look at the art and artists of the latest issue of The New Yorker
The Cover: a George Booth Santa Claus. Read Sarah Booth’s reflections on her father.
The Cartoonists & Cartoons:
A dozen cartoons, a dozen cartoonists. The lead drawing is by Lee Lorenz whose passing last Thursday is noted on the Contributors page:
No newbies this week, no duos (that we know of). The longest active contributor in this issue is this cartoonist, whose drawing appears in the Caption Contest.
The Caption Contest Cartoonists: Michael Maslin, Felipe Galindo (feggo), Harry Bliss
The Rea Irvin Talk Watch:
Rea Irvin, the fellow you see directly above, was responsible not just for the Talk Of The Town design you see here, but for successfully adapting the typeface that is universally identified with The New Yorker (it’s called the “Irvin typeface,” but let’s not forget that Allen Lewis created it. Irvin expanded on it, with Lewis’s permission).
Irvin also, of course, created The New Yorker‘s first cover featuring the butterfly-observing top-hatted Eustace Tilley. In addition, Irvin was the magazine’s first (and only) art supervisor (art editor became the accepted job description with the arrival of James Geraghty in 1939). Irvin, partnered with Harold Ross, brought The New Yorker into the brave new world of the single caption cartoon — the kind of cartoon we’ve come to label a “New Yorker cartoon.”
Lastly (and not leastly) Irvin was a prolific New Yorker cover artist (163 covers!) and cartoonist (241!). With all of that, how could it be that Irvin’s Talk design shown at the top of this Talk Watch could be ejected (back in May of 2017) and replaced by a version drawn by another artist? It’s never too late to make this right.