Tag: Frank Cotham

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 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.