Every summer I go to a place up near the Canadian border for a few days. While there (as I was this past week), I draw daily, just as I do at home. But instead of sitting with paper on an old wooden board resting on my lap, I sit with The New Yorker Album Of Drawings: 1925-1975 on my lap.
It’s a recharging experience, seeing those names and looking at their work. This Album was the very first one I owned — it was gifted to me while I was in college and sending batches into the magazine (with no luck). It was one of my first cartoon “textbooks.” Now, nearly half a century later, it continues to teach; great drawings never stop gifting.
[I noticed, looking at this photo just now, that I long ago placed dots next to some of the names, and a few dashes as well. The dotted names are the cartoonists I met somewhere along the way; the dashes are the cartoonists I saw at The New Yorker (likely in the art department), but never met]