The Cover: This week’s cover, by Christoph Niemann is right on the money. The New Yorker‘s art editor, Francoise Mouly, has a Q&A with the artist here.
Historical Note: this is the first issue of The New Yorker not to include a Goings On About Town section. A notice appears on this week’s Table of Contents.
A potted history of GOAT (as it’s sometimes affectionately called)
The very first issue of The New Yorker included a “conscientious calendar of events worth while” called Goings On. The very first Goings On was just one page, near the back of the book. Below is the heading of that first Goings On.
The Goings On heading survived up through the issue of October 31, 1925. Goings On About Town was used for the very first time in the next issue (November 7, 1925). Goings On About Town was moved to the very front of the magazine in the issue of January 23, 1926.
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And now back to the present…and this week’s issue.
The Cartoonists:
Once again, I’ve posted the entire listing of artists as this week’s Spots are by the fab cover artist, Marcellus Hall.
There is a newbie this week: Matilda Borgstrom, who is the third new cartoonist to enter The New Yorker‘s stable of cartoonists this year, and the fifty-sixth new cartoonist brought in under Emma Allen’s cartoon editorship, begun in the Spring of 2017.
The Cartoons:
There are, as you would expect, a number of cartoons (“Drawings”) this week reflecting directly or indirectly the times we’re in: Roz Chast’s store front sign referencing hand sanitizer and face masks, Frank Cotham’s castle cleaning crew, Liza Donnelly’s kitchen full of fermented food, Emily Flake’s monster coming out of a closet.
The remaining cartoons take us away for awhile– as we’d want them to; the variety includes a mermaid, a couple of cowboys, a typing kitty, stargazers…and more.
The Rea Irvin Talk Masthead Watch: Virus, or no virus, the watch continues. Read about Mr. Irvin’s moth-balled iconic Talk masthead here.
Here’s what we’re no longer seeing:
The Goings On section is endlessly fascinating. It’s one of the few places in the early New Yorker where you see baseball mentioned on a regular basis. Still trying to figure out why the New Yorker shunned baseball in its early years. Probably something to do with the Black Sox scandal. I know the scandal really soured Ring Lardner to the professional game.