The Monday Tilley Watch Takes A Glancing Look At The Art & Artists Of The Latest Issue Of The New Yorker
The Cover: Barry Blitt, with a comment on the exiting of a President. I couldn’t help but think of this classic Charles Addams drawing from the issue of August 28, 1948.
Here’s a short Q&A with Mr. Blitt about his cover.
The Cartoonists:
Eleven cartoonists, eleven cartoons. This week’s newbie is Meredith Southard whose dinosaur in therapy can be found on page 51. Ms. Southard is the 3rd newbie of this brand new year and the 81st cartoonist added to the magazine’s stable since Emma Allen became cartoon editor in May of 2017.
The Cartoons:
Of note in this issue is Robert Leighton’s marshmallow-toasting God drawing (it’s on page 31)…and Bruce Eric Kaplan’s Mary and her little wine-stained lamb drawing (page 46).
As we might expect, there are a few cartoons (seemingly) reflecting on current events: one by David Sipress (it’s the lead-off cartoon, on page 15), another by Victoria Roberts (on page 42), and possibly/probably(?) Roz Chast’s The First Party (p.58)…there’s a Frank Cotham drawing (on page 24) referencing the current TikTok sea shanties craze...and, lastly, not that I’m counting: “bug” (insect) drawings have appeared two issues in a row: Elisabeth McNair has one in this new issue; Roz Chast had one in the last.
The Rea Irvin Talk Masthead Watch
The above masthead (as well as so many others in the magazine) was designed by Rea Irvin, who “supervised” The New Yorker‘s art from its first issue in 1925 all the way through 1939, when James Geraghty became art editor. The Talk masthead stuck until 2017, when it was replaced by (heavens!) a redrawn version. Here’s hoping the above returns sooner than later. Read about it all here.