Monday Tilley Watch: The New Yorker Issue Of March 4, 2024
The Monday Tilley Watch takes a glancing look at the art and artists of the latest issue of The New Yorker
The Cover: Children crossing the street.
The Cartoonists And Cartoons:
The Cartoon Caption Contest Cartoonists: Avi Steinberg, Ian Boothby and Pia Guerra, Dahlia Gallin Ramirez.
Sixteen cartoons, sixteen cartoonists (not including the caption contest cartoons). One duo, that we know of. One newbie: John Kerschbaum, who is the fifth addition to the magazine’s stadium of cartoonists this year, and the one hundred and fiftieth addition since Emma Allen took the cartoon editorship reins in the Spring of 2017. The longest active cartoonist in the issue is Roz Chast, who began contributing her work in the summer of 1978. Always good to see a Sam Gross drawing (Mr. Gross passed away in May of last year).
This week’s Cartoon Caption Contest
Rea Irvin Talk Watch
Why “The Rea Irvin Talk Watch” you might ask. Because…back in the Spring of 2017, the above perfect design by Rea Irvin (see his A-Z entry below) was yanked off its 92 year old perch and replaced — if you can believe it — by a redraw. The Spill continues to hope that this error will be rectified, and that Mr. Irvin’s work returns. Read more here.
Rea Irvin’s A-Z Entry:
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.