Tuesday Spill: George Price’s Floating Man Series

The bound volume of 1934 New Yorkers mentioned here on the last Thurber Thursday continues to yield interesting material. Going through the issues (June through October) I couldn’t help but notice, beginning with the issue of September 22, 1934, a string of eight floating man drawings by the late very great George Price. All are different: different drawings, different captions, but the floating man idea remains the same. The series (never identified as such, but certainly a series) ended with the eighth floating man in the November 10, ’34 issue. I’m not sure if other floating man drawings appeared at other times in other issues, but it’s certain that this particular string began and ended with these issues. 

Here they are, in order:

#1, September 22, 1934:

#2, September 29, 1934:

#3, October 6, 1934:

#4, October 13, 1934:

#5, October 20, 1934: 

#6, October 27, 1934: 

#7, November 3, 1934: 

#8 — the last in the string — November 10, 1934: 

The Spill‘s George Price A-Z entry: 

George Price (above) Born in Coytesville, New Jersey, June 9, 1901. Died January 12, 1995, Engelwood, New Jersey. New Yorker work: 1929 – 1991. Lee Lorenz, the New Yorker’s former Art/Cartoon editor, called Price one of the magazine’s great stylists (along with Peter Arno, Helen Hokinson, James Thurber, and William Steig. Of the many Price collections, here are two favorites: Browse At Your Own Risk (1977), and The World of George Price: A 55-Year Retrospective (1988)