The Disappearing Irvin Clouds
If you overlap the covers of the 1980, 1981, and 1982 New Yorker anniversary issues (such as I’ve done for you above) you’ll notice Rea Irvin’s clouds disappear as those years go by. When the magazine shrunk by a half inch in 1981, it lost half its clouds along the top, and by the next year the sky was completely cloudless (the cloud midway on the right side hung around through 1981, and drifted away by 1982). Oddly, the black strip along the bottom seems to go away and return willy-nilly, no matter the year or size of the issue. As you see below, it’s missing from 1980, and 1981, but returned in 1982. 
The clouds and black horizontal returned in 2001; by the last time we saw (an unadulterated) Tilley on the cover of an anniversary issue (2011, shown below) the magazine had shrunk a quarter inch more, the clouds were back, and the black horizontal was still in place.
For more on Tilley’s cover story, here’s a piece I wrote a dozen years ago for newyorker.com — it includes just a wee bit more on clouds.
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Today’s Daily Cartoonist & Cartoon
John Klossner on a what-if Trump day. Mr. Klossner began contributing to The New Yorker in 2008. Visit his website here.