Tag: Frank Cotham

The Monday Tilley Watch, The New Yorker Issue Of March 25, 2019; Even More George Price; Today’s Daily Cartoonist: Lila Ash

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The Cover:

As mentioned here last week, the Brexit-inspired cover, by Mark Ulriksen, was early-released.  Read about it here.

The Cartoonists:

Suerynn Lee‘s work has appeared on newyorker.com;  this is her print debut in the magazine. Ms. Lee is the fifth cartoonist to debut this year, and the twenty-ninth cartoonist brought aboard since Emma Allen took the reins of the cartoon department in May of 2017.

The Cartoons:

A quick tour through the issue and we find Roz Chast’s take on the tale of the Little Red Hen, Lars Kenseth’s commemorative pizza plate, Sophia Warren’s office politics mouse maze, Tom Chitty’s genie who specializes in just one thing, P.C. Vey’s couple’s abrupt waking in the night,  a Will McPhail long-lasting roller coaster, Karen Sneider’s desert island delirium, Frank Cotham’s concerned waiter, BEK’s second-guessing God, Victoria Robert’s juggling husband, Harley Lin’s lawyer, client and rubber band ball… and the aforementioned Ms. Lee, with a drawing of Death and the five second rule. Ms. Robert’s and Mr. Chitty’s drawings are given the most breathing room.

Twelve cartoons; Twenty-one illustrations — approximately five-and-a-half of them are full page. 

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Rea Irvin’s Talk masthead masterpiece is still in mothballs. Here’s some reading material about it, and below is what it looks like.

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Even More George Price

Attempted Bloggery continues its Price Fest, with close-up looks at the artist’s originals. See it here!

I’ve always found Price’s split lines intriguing. Sorry I never had the opportunity to ask him about his style.  I only was in the same room (an office) with him once, ages ago — unfortunately it wasn’t the time or place to start asking questions.

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Today’s Daily Cartoon/Cartoonist

Today’s Daily cartoon, regarding twenty somethings, is by Lila Ash.  Ms. Ash began contributing  to The New Yorker in December of 2018. Link here to her website.

 

 

 

 

The Tilley Watch, The New Yorker Issue of February 11, 2019; Today’s Daily Cartoon

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The Cover: This week’s New Yorker cover is by Pascal Campion, his second cover for the magazine — his second moody metropolis scene. Read about it here. I wonder if we’ll see a moody mid-western, western, northeastern or southern scenario anytime soon.

The Cartoonists:

The Cartoons: Several nice surprises this week. The first was running into Sam Gross’s lead-in cartoon (his work has been appearing in the magazine for forty-nine years). There are certain cartoonists whose style alone gets the laugh meter buzzing. Mr. Gross is one of those cartoonists. The other surprise: R.O. Blechman’s “spot” drawings. Mr. Blechman’s wonderful drawings and covers have appeared in the magazine for forty-five years.

A third nice thing to see in this issue: the number of cartoons. Bumped up from the usual dozen or so to a healthy eighteen. They just keep on a-comin as you flip through the magazine (as do the illustrations).

If I have one little dark cloud to drag over this sunny moment it’s another plea for some of the work to be run larger (true, some cartoons run large, should be smaller). A number in this issue are, to my eyes, sized just right (a few for instances: Tom Cheney’s on page 54, and Jon Adams on page 52). Perfectly sized is Seth Fleishman’s terrific drawing on page 39. But others seem wedged into their corners; Roz Chast’s intricate Candy Land For Adults (page 32) and David Sipress’s off the beaten track restaurant (page 25) would benefit from more space. Really all I’m campaigning for is a graphic invitation for readers to fully appreciate the work. The work of the late George Price is a good example of how a cartoonist’s world can take us in for some detached momentary fun-time. Mr. Price’s drawings were usually allowed a lot of breathing room on the page. One paused to inspect the work, to enjoy all the “stuff” Price gave us. Imagine one of his drawings run in a little box on the corner of a page.

A few favorite drawings, or elements of drawings in this issue: Joe Dator’s monkey (page 40); Paul Noth’s drawing (page 60) — a great addition to the New Yorker‘s doctor canon; P.C. Vey’s theater drawing; Maddie Dai’s drawing of a sculptor and friend, as well as the caption; Frank Cotham’s perfect caption for his drawing (page 36). All fine, inspiring moments.

Next-to-Lastly, a mention of the newest cartoonist on the block: Ellie Black, the third newbie this year and the twenty-seventh new cartoonist brought in since Emma Allen became the magazine’s cartoon editor in May of 2017. A good debut, with a welcome unexpected play on the well-worn hands touching moment we’ve seen in movies and books.

And lastly, let us not forget the great work of Rea Irvin, especially his mothballed masthead design. Here it is:

Speaking of Mr. Irvin, I spoke too soon last week about the New Yorker‘s anniversary issue appearing this week. Had I bothered to consult the fine print publishing info found near the end of each issue I would’ve seen that next week’s magazine (a double issue: February 18 & 25) is the 94th anniversary issue.

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Today’s Daily Cartoon

Today’s Daily cartoon, a post-Super Bowl tie-in, is by Farley Katz, who began contributing to The New Yorker in 2007. Link to his website here.

The Tilley Watch, The New Yorker Issue Of February 4, 2019

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The Cover: Vegetation abounds. Here’s what the artist,Tom Gauld had to say about it.

The Cartoonists in the new issue:


The Magazine: Whenever February comes around, I begin thinking about the upcoming anniversary issue of The New Yorker, a favorite child here on this site (Spill visitors might remember this Tilley-centric piece I wrote for newyorker.com a few years back). Seeing Rea Irvin’s classic dandy this year would be such a welcome surprise. Even more of a surprise than, say, coming upon the now-famous Mandy the Mandarin duck in Central Park. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen Irvin’s iconic cover. In fact, the last time was in 2011. So what will next week’s cover be: the dandy or a duck?



The Wednesday Tilley Watch: Parker, Gerberg, Chast, Donnelly & More…

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Items of interest this mid-week:

Two reminders of upcoming events.

On January 29, the great illustrator Robert Andrew Parker (shown below), whose work has appeared numerous times in The New Yorker, will be featured at The New York Comics & Picture-story Symposium. Details here.

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On January 30th, Long-time cartoonist Mort Gerberg will be in conversation with The New Yorker‘s cartoon editor, Emma Allen. The event is a celebration of Mr. Gerberg’s new book, On The Scene. Details here.





…From the west coast, news that a television series in in the works based on Roz Chast‘s highly acclaimed book, Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?

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…and from the east coast here’s a CNN piece by Liza Donnelly on her recent live-drawing assignment at the Women’s March in Washington, D.C.

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…there’s a new installment in the New Yorker‘s celebrity cartoon caption video series, Caption That Cartoon. This time it’s Adam Conover putting the caption marker to paper (I urge the magazine to ID the cartoonists whose work appears on these videos. Until they do I’ll provide IDs). In this episode the cartoonists are (in order of appearance):

Mick Stevens, Victoria Roberts, Jack Ziegler, Michael Crawford, Drew Dernavich, yours truly, Will McPhail, Frank Cotham, and Tom Cheney.

Above: Adam Conover looks over a Mick Stevens drawing in this screen grab from the video

The Tilley Watch, The New Yorker Issue Of January 28, 2019

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The Cover this week — rushed released days earlier — is from the masterful pen of John Cuneo. Below is an early version of the published cover, provided courtesy of Mr. Cuneo.

The Cartoonists (note the Spots contribution from Ed Steed) :

The Cartoons:

A little bit of something for everyone in this issue: an ice fisherman, a whale, a cat person in a dog park, a windy city street, imbibing cave people, a library, clowns, the subway, domestic situations, the mob, a police lineup, a restaurant scenario, Snow White.

Cartoon placement-wise, it was good to see some stretching out from the usual rectangular box seated in a corner of a page. Frank Cotham’s basement drawing run three columns wide (on page 30) is a good example, as is Zach Kanin’s ice fisherman on page 63 and Liana Finck’s drawing on page 72. Brendan Loper’s party-folk drawing on page 44, and Kim Warp’s police lineup drawing on page 48 were also given more breathing room. Then there’s Will McPhail’s full page (with the “Sketchbook” heading of “L’) on page 43. I’ve given this drawing some extra thought this morning, wondering if it needed the “Sketchbook” heading. What exactly does the “Sketchbook” designation bring to the page. I also wonder if those outside the New York/ Metropolitan area understand that the “L” refers to the “L” line of the New York City subway system (and local stories concerning the line). And then there’s the question of whether the “L” train reference actually means something here that’s essential to understanding the little story played out in sequence. Perhaps, perhaps. Perhaps not. So many questions! Anyway, it’s a fun drawing that works well no matter the subway line. As noted with a hint of impatience on Cartoon Companion, New Yorker subway cartoons have become nearly a standard scenario in recent months. I continue to believe that no scenario is played-out if the idea works well.

A subway sidenote: when I think of previous multi-panel subway cartoons my first thought is of this one by Liza Donnelly from the New Yorker issue of April 14, 1986. And speaking of Ms. Donnelly, in her cave man drawing on page 21 of this latest issue of the magazine there’s not a cave man in sight.

I’ve been re-watching the entire run of “The Sopranos” lately, so Joe Dator’s cement shoe drawing on page 52 grabbed my attention. I especially enjoyed seeing the George Boothian bare light bulb hanging down from the ceiling.

This issue marks the New Yorker print debut for Emily Bernstein. Ms. Bernstein is the third new New Yorker cartoonist of the year and the 28th since Emma Allen became the magazine’s cartoon editor in the Spring of 2017.

The Tilley Watch again signs-off with a nod to the missing Rea Irvin masthead (seen below). Read about it here.