Above: a glimpse of the first New Yorker cover.
Ever since Tina Brown broke the sixty-nine year string of unbroken appearances by Rea Irvin’s Eustace Tilley on the anniversary issue in 1994 by running R. Crumb’s Eustace Elvis, there’s always been, for me, some nail biting in early February about whether the real Eustace will show up on the cover (one year it was a Wegman dog in Tilley clothing, another year it was Tilley ala Dick Tracy, etc.; there were also a couple of years when Eustace made no appearance at all, 1998 and 1999 to be exact) It was a thrill to see his familiar profile, although still loading, on the cover this year.