The Cover:
It’s the Style Issue this week….thus the bountiful polka dots on Malika Favre’s eighth cover for the magazine. A Q&A with the artist here. If you link to the Q&A you’ll see the polka dot dress swirl.
I can’t see that many polka dots (and red) on the cover without thinking of Peter Arno’s March 23, 1935 New Yorker cover. It was also used as the cover for The Seventh New Yorker Album.
The dalmatians cover is perhaps overly familiar to me because it’s the front endpaper of my biography of Arno. Hey, what can I say? I like dogs…and Arno.
The Cartoonists and Cartoons
With the appearance of another team effort (third? fourth?) by Pia Guerra and Ian Boothby I think we’re in new territory as far as crediting a writing team goes for single panel cartoons in the magazine. Someone please correct me if there has been another duo credited beyond one or two appearances (Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb come to mind, but their work is in a different realm, i.e., their “thing” is not single panel cartoons). The duo of Guerra & Boothby have given us a slightly different take on the usual cartoonist’s representation of Noah’s Ark (the drawing appears on page 78). Instead of the long ramp leading up to the ark, it’s more of a tailgate. It works well here.
Of note: Elisabeth McNair’s drawing of the tortoise and the hare (p. 72). If you remove the art hanging on the wall, and the door frame, the cartoon could easily be seen as descended from the school of (Charles) Barsotti minimalism. Love the turtle’s expression.
Also of note: Hilary Fitzgerald Cambell’s spooky “campfire” story-time drawing (p.49). At first glance I thought the scene was outdoors, but then saw the light sockets in the background with a charging electronic device (a phone?) connected to one of them. That it plays a trick on the eyes — intended or not — is pleasing, as is the drawing itself.
Further of note: Ed Steed adds another drawing to the cartoon canon of mounted something (in this case, someone) or others on the wall (p. 25).
Being the great grandson of bakers, and a fan of baked goods in general, it was a nice surprise seeing pastries as a focus in Amy Hwang’s drawing (p. 43). Also a nice surprise: seeing Glen Baxter’s drawing (p.68). While a number of cartoonists box in their drawings, Baxter’s boxes somehow seem part of the drawing within, if that makes any sense (is the word “integral” — maybe, maybe not).
Rea Irvin’s Talk Masthead: Still not home. Read about it here.
