Video Chat Of Interest: Tom Toro & Christopher Weyant
A short but fun conversation between these two cartoonists — some of the discussion centers about their recent childrens books. Watch it here.
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From the Dept. of Shameless Plugs:
Both Mr. Toro and Mr. Weyant are profiled in At Wit’s End: Cartoonists of The New Yorker
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84 Year Old Roberta MacDonald Photo and Article Surface
Spill reader, Paul Cheney, sent along a January 4, 1941 news clipping from the Stockton [California] Evening and Sunday Record featuring The New Yorker cartoonist, Roberta MacDonald (my thanks to Mr. Cheney!). Ms. MacDonald contributed 103 cartoons to the magazine from 1940 through 1952.
In her Very Funny Ladies history of The New Yorker‘s women cartoonists, Liza Donnelly noted “…MacDonald’s sensitivity to politics and then mood of the country, a talent she demonstrated throughout her early work for The New Yorker.”
Donnelly also wrote that not much is known about Ms. MacDonald. This Stockton article is a welcome addition. We learn, for instance, that Ms. MacDonald was the second woman editor ever of the University of California humor magazine, the Pelican. And then there’s this:
“The New Yorker editor, so he told her, considers the Pelican one of the best college humor publications in the country and she added with a smile he said that next to The New Yorker, he believes it the best humor magazine.”
–left: the February 1941 Pelican, edited by MacDonald
And more from the article about her work:
“Miss MacDonald’s sketches tell the story by action mostly. In many the figures are small, but in the simple outlines there character and attitude that are very telling. Every line counts.”
Here’s Ms. MacDonald’s second New Yorker drawing, published July 20, 1940:
And one from the issue of April 8, 1950:
