This is a doubled-up Spill due to journeying to Thurber country — the town of Columbus in the state of Ohio — for the first-ever Thurber Prize For American Cartoon Art (presented Friday night along with the Thurber Prize for American Humor in Writing).The awards ceremony will be held at the Columbus Art Museum.
The Spill will report on its very Thurber-centric visit this coming weekend (the visit includes a return to The Thurber House).
And closer to home, some new books…
In the last few years, while completing the Spill‘s collection of US Thurber titles, his UK books became of interest, specifically those published by Hamish Hamilton, and more specifically, those UK titles that feature a cover design unlike their US counterpart. Comics scholar, Mike Rhode found two of those UK books in one shop in Tennessee and was kind enough to pick them up for the Spill. My thanks to him for going above and beyond!
Here are the two Hamish Hamilton UK titles (below them, the US versions):
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James Thurber’s A-Z Entry:
James Thurber Born, Columbus, Ohio, December 8, 1894. Died 1961, New York City. New Yorker work: 1927 -1961, with several pieces run posthumously. According to the New Yorker’s legendary editor, William Shawn, “In the early days, a small company of writers, artists, and editors — E.B. White, James Thurber, Peter Arno, and Katharine White among them — did more to make the magazine what it is than can be measured.”
Key cartoon collection: The Seal in the Bedroom and Other Predicaments (Harper & Bros., 1932). Key anthology (writings & drawings): The Thurber Carnival (Harper & Row, 1945). There have been a number of Thurber biographies. Burton Bernstein’s Thurber (Dodd, Mead, 1975) and Harrison Kinney’s James Thurber: His Life and Times (Henry Holt & Co., 1995) are essential. Website