Tag: Emma Allen

Two Peacocks Walk Into A Room; Rare Book Of Interest: A John M. Price Cartoon Anthology: Sara Lautman’s Daily Shouts; Today’s Daily Cartoonist: Avi Steinberg

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In one of those million-to-one cartoon moments, both my colleague Harry Bliss (with his collaborator Steve Martin) and I have similar drawings out this week (his in his syndicated daily spot, and mine in The New Yorker). What’s unusual, besides the timing of publication, and the peacock standing in a doorway in both drawings, is the use of the peacock itself. A quick visit to the New Yorker‘s Cartoon Bank site turned up peacock drawings by a dozen artists. I have to think there were a number more in the magazine’s ninety-four years (the Cartoon Bank site does not provide every cartoon in the magazine’s archive). The listed peacock drawings are by: Mick Stevens, Sam Gross, Will McPhail, John O’Brien, George Booth, Bernard Schoenbaum, George Price, Edward Koren, Saul Steinberg (he has three), Robert Day, Mort Gerberg, and Victoria Roberts. There were also three peacock covers shown. The artists:  Joseph Low (the peacock is a minor character in his cover), Steinberg, and the one-and-only Rea Irvin. 

I asked Mr. Bliss if he’d like to comment on our dual peacock drawings, and here’s what he had to say:

That’s crazy! I didn’t get my new issue of The New Yorker yet, so I didn’t even know that was in there.  When I initially did my drawing, from an idea given to me by Steve Martin, I think I mentioned to Emma [Emma Allen, The New Yorker‘s cartoon editor] that I wanted it to be in color. Seeing yours now, makes me wonder if they bought yours before they had seen mine and the reason they didn’t buy mine and Steve’s is because they had already bought yours… Similars? Anyway, I think the reason there aren’t that many peacock cartoons out there is because the damn thing is so hard to draw!

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Rare Book Of Interest: A John M. Price Anthology

Warren Bernard (of SPX fame) has alerted the Spill to another rarity: a cartoon collection of work by John M. Price who contributed four drawings to the magazine (Mr. Bernard tells me that three of Mr. Price’s four New Yorker drawings appear in the collection). Here’s Price’s rather skimpy bio on the A-Z (if anyone out there has more info please send this way):

John M. Price Born  (Pennsylvania?) February 5, 1918, died January 19, 2009, Radnor, Pennsylvania. New Yorker work: February 17, 1940, March 9, 1940, June 8, 1941, and August 30, 1941. His work appeared in many publications, including The Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, The Country Gentleman, and Colliers. Key collection (self published) Don’t Get Polite with Me.

*Chris Wheeler’s fabulous site also has a scan of Price’s book (including the back cover), but I have to admit the cover never registered in my brain’s cartoon catalog. Now, having registered it, the book becomes a must-have for the Spill‘s library.  

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A Daily Shouts By…

Sara Lautman, who began contributing to The New Yorker in 2016, contributed yesterday’s Daily Shouts.

 

 

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Today’s Daily Cartoonist/Cartoon

 

An Avi Steinberg summer vacation/global warming cartoon. Mr. Steinberg began contributing to The New Yorker in 2012.  More about him here on Jane Mattimoe’s Case For Pencils.

 

 

Exhibit Of Interest: William Steig; Profile Of Interest: Frank Cotham; Today’s Daily Cartoonist: Maddie Dai; A Weekend Shouts By Liana Finck; The Tilley Watch For The New Yorker (Combined) Issue Of June 10 & 17, 2019

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Exhibit Of Interest: William Steig

A current exhibit at The Carle Museum focused on William Steig’s classic Sylvester and the Magic Pebble includes “Steig’s preliminary sketches, story boards, and dummy books related to the seminal publication.” Info here.

William Steig’s entry on the A-Z:

Born in Brooklyn, NY, Nov. 14, 1907, died in Boston, Mass., Oct. 3, 2003. In a New Yorker career that lasted well over half a century and a publishing history that contains more than a cart load of books, both children’s and otherwise, it’s impossible to sum up Steig’s influence here on Ink Spill. He was among the giants of the New Yorker cartoon world, along with James Thurber, Saul Steinberg, Charles Addams, Helen Hokinson and Peter Arno. Lee Lorenz’s World of William Steig (Artisan, 1998) is an excellent way to begin exploring Steig’s life and work. New Yorker work: 1930 -2003.

Of Note: From The New Yorker, June 3, 2019, Rumaan Alam’s  “William Steig’s Books Explored The Reality Adults Don’t Want Children To Know About”

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Profile Of Interest: Frank Cotham

From Memphis Magazine, The Well-Drawn World of Frank Cotham— this piece on the long-time contributor to The New Yorker.

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Today’s Daily Cartoonist/Cartoon

A Maddie Dai Kingly drawing. Ms. Dai began contributing to The New Yorker in 2017.

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A Weekend Daily Shouts…

…by Liana Finck. Another installment in Ms. Finck’s “Dear Pepper” series.

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The Tilley Watch For The New Yorker (Combined) Issue Of June 10 & 17, 2019

The Cover: A fitting  Bruce Eric Kaplan cover for the “fiction Issue”  — it’s always a pleasure to see one of the magazine’s cartoonists work appear there.  Read more about Mr. Kaplan’s cover here.

More “Tweaking” Of Note: This is the second issue of the magazine in a row not listing the Cover Artist on The Contributors page (Barry Blitt was not credited there last week). The last issue to credit the cover artist (Malika Favre) was the issue of May 27th.  The cover artists are still credited on the table of contents. Example:

As tweaking continues to occur it’s perhaps a good time to recall what the magazine’s Creative Director, Nicholas Blechman told MAGCulture in June of 2017:

The New Yorker is a magazine shaped by time. Very little has changed since the first issue in 1925, and that respect for legacy is part of our visual identity. Since I arrived in 2015, we’ve been fine tuning an incredibly resilient and elegant design. Our road map for design changes in the print magazine is mostly complete. I think the table of contents could be tweaked, and the design of the Fiction page could also be tinkered with. Most of the big innovations you will be seeing at The New Yorker will be online, as we contemplate a web redesign and introduce improvements to The New Yorker Today app.

While I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Blechman’s first sentence (The New Yorker is a magazine shaped by time) I must disagree with the first half of the sentence that follows:

Very little has changed since the first issue in 1925, and that respect for legacy is part of our visual identity. 

There was in fact an enormous design change (and changes in the magazine’s DNA) beginning with Tina Brown’s first issue, October 5 1992. Here’s a link to Walter Goodman’s September 29, 1992 New York Times piece assessing that issue.

The Cartoonists:

Of Note: The lead cartoon by George Booth, one of the New Yorker‘s all-time great artists, appears on the 50th anniversary of Mr. Booth’s first cartoon in magazine, June 14, 1969 (the Spill will celebrate accordingly on June 14th).

Of the 14 cartoonists in this issue, two are making their New Yorker print debut: Eugenia Viti and Lydia Conklin, making them the 15th and 16th new cartoonists brought into the magazine’s stable in 2019, and the 41st & 42nd to be brought in since Emma Allen became cartoon editor in May of 2017. With 16 new cartoonists, the magazine has now tied the 2016 record for new artists. And, of course, we’re only half-way through the year.

Rea Irvin: Mr. Irvin’s iconic Talk masthead is still a-missin. Read about it here. Here’s the real deal:

 

 

 

 

The Monday Tilley Watch, The New Yorker Issue Of May 27, 2019; Today’s Daily Cartoonist: Farley Katz

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The Cover: A standup paddle boarder in the shadow of The Brooklyn Bridge. Read about Malika Favre’s eighth New Yorker cover here. (if you go online you’ll see that the little paddleboarder’s been animated. What a world!)

The Cartoonists:

You’ll note New Yorker cover artist, John Cuneo’s name in the list, but this is the first time Mr. Cuneo’s name appears among the cartoonists — it’s his New Yorker cartoon debut. Mr. Cuneo is the 13th addition to the magazine’s cartoonist stable this year and the 39th new cartoonist added to the roster since Emma Allen was appointed cartoon editor in May of 2017. 

The Cartoons: Just for fun, as I did here a few weeks ago, I went back a number of years (40 this time) to this date and took a look at the issue’s cartoonists and cartoons. Here’s the line-up from the issue of May 28, 1979:

As with the last time I did this, the number of cartoonists in the back issue is double the number in the present issue (22 in 1979; 11 in 2019). But…as was the case last time, the back issue was far heftier in page count (128) than this latest issue (78), so proportionately, the cartoonists are holding their own, numbers-wise.  The 1979 issue does however feature a wonderful two-and-a- half page Steinberg spread (“Cousins”). 

The Illustrations: The 2019 issue contains 20 color illustrations, including 3 1/2 full page  illustrations. The 1979 issue contains 2 small b&w illustrations.

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A fun thing: The very first cartoon in the 1979 issue is by Jack Ziegler.  Coming across it this morning I remembered that Mr. Ziegler and I briefly discussed the drawing in the Spill‘s two-part 2016 Ziegler interview:

Michael Maslin: Here’s another far eastern themed drawing: Fleetwood Mac. I’ve always loved it because I never understood Fleetwood Mac.

Jack Ziegler: This was a much earlier Fleetwood Mac I was referring to, around the time they got mega platinum. I just needed the name of a band there.

MM: You just imagined this scene?

fleetwood-mac

JZ: Yeah, right. Almost everything I do is as far as the scene background settings – it’s all made up.

MM: What are those little things off to the left on the bottom.

JZ: Oh those are just little houses down the hill. What did you think they were?

[laughter]

MM: Structures of some kind – I just wanted to be sure.

(you can see all of Pt.1 here, and all of Pt. 2 here. The above is found in Pt. 2)

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Rea Irvin: and of course one major difference between the older issue and this week’s issue is that Rea Irvin’s classic Talk masthead was still in its usual spot in 1979. In 2019, the puzzling redraw of Mr. Irvin’s work continues its run. Read about these two designs here. Below: Irvin’s still a-missin’ and missed masthead.

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Today’s Daily Cartoonist/Cartoon

Farley Katz delivers the post Game of Thrones Daily.  Mr. Katz began contributing to The New Yorker in 2007.

 

 

 

 

The Tilley Watch, The New Yorker Issue Of May 20, 2019; Today’s Daily Cartoonist: Joe Dator

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The Cover: It’s the Innovators Issue, hence the use of some headings floating in yellow-orangey color fields, like so:

 

  Let’s hope these color fields aren’t permanent innovations.

On the cover: robots by Tom Gauld.  Read what he has to say about his work here. The cover reminded me ever-so-slightly of Peter Arno’s meeting-of-the-dogs cover from the ancient times. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cartoonists:

The Cartoons:  Another week with a cartoonist making their print debut (11 out of 19 issues thus far in 2019).  Kasia Babis is the 11th new cartoonist brought into the magazine’s stable this year, and the 37th cartoonist brought in by Emma Allen since she took the cartoon editor reins in May of 2017.

If the Spill handed out blue ribbons like the now dormant Cartoon Companion once did, I’d pin one on Sam Gross’s snail mail cartoon in the issue (p.30).

Rea Irvin:  A fun innovation this issue would’ve been bringing back something in the magazine that never should’ve gone away: Rea Irvin’s classic Talk masthead. But not this week. Anyway, it appears below in its usual Monday Spill spot.  Read about it here.

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Today’s Daily Cartoonist/Cartoon

Joe Dator on  fiction and/or/or not fiction.  Visit his website here.

Mr. Dator began contributing to The New Yorker in 2006. 

Note: Mr. Dator, along with several other New Yorker cartoonists (Lars Kenseth and Mort Gerberg among them) will be appearing at this week’s National Cartoonists Society Fest in California. The Daily Cartoonist has all the info here.

 

 

The Tilley Watch, Monday, April 29, 2019; Today’s Daily Cartoonist: Adam Douglas Thompson

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The Cover: This week’s issue sports a wonderful dog-in-the-park cover by John Cuneo. We’re told in a Q & A that it’s his tenth cover for the magazine.  Very nice to see an early version of the cover in the online “Cover Story.” More of Mr. Cuneo’s work can be found on his website. 

The Cartoonists:

The Illustrations: Four-and-a-third full pages this week among the twenty-two illustrations (including photographs, but not including the Talk drawings).

Cartoons: Twelve cartoonists/twelve cartoons. 

This week’s new cartoonist: Evan Lian.  Mr. Lian has previously had a Daily Cartoon.  He is the tenth new cartoonist of the year and the thirty-sixth new cartoonist brought in under Emma Allen’s editorship.

Duo Effort: A fun cartoon from Pia Guerra and Ian Boothby.

Rea Irvin’s Talk Masthead:  It’s still a-missin’...read about it here.

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Today’s Daily Cartoonist/Cartoon

Spring selfie flowers by Adam Douglas Thompson (whose first print cartoon was in the issue of April 8, 2019).