Note: The usual Monday Tilley Watch, the weekly post that takes a look at the art and artists of the latest issue of The New Yorker, has temporarily moved to Tuesday’s Spill due to the passing of Sam Gross.
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The New Yorker’s Cartoon Editor, Emma Allen, On Sam Gross: “Funny To The End”
From The New Yorker‘s Emma Allen: “Sam Gross Was Funny To The End”
The magazine’s cartoon editor talks about Sam Gross, “the granddaddy of the sick cartoon,” who died last Saturday at the age of 89, after a career spanning 54 years at The New Yorker.
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The New Yorker Issue Of May 15, 2023
Cover: By Bruce McCall, as discussed over the weekend (Mr. McCall passed away last Friday).
Cartoonists and Cartoons:
Eleven cartoons, eleven cartoonists (not including the trio of contest cartoonists listed below). No newbies, no duos, that we know of. The longest active contributing cartoonist in this issue is Liza Donnelly.
Ms. Donnelly’s (lightly edited) A-Z entry:
Liza Donnelly Born, Washington, D.C. New Yorker work: June 21, 1982 –. Key book: Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Greatest Women Cartoonists and Their Cartoons (Prometheus, 2005). A new edition, Very Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Women Cartoonists, was published in 2022 by Prometheus. Edited: Sex & Sensibility: Ten Women Examine the Lunacy of Modern Love…in 200 Cartoons (Twelve, 2008). Authored: When Do They Serve the Wine? (Chronicle, 2010); Women On Men (Narrative Library, 2013).
Of Note: this issue contains Adam Gopnik’s appreciation of The New Yorker cover artist and writer, Bruce McCall.
Caption Contest Cartoonists: Maggie Larson, Felipe Galindo (aka feggo), Robert Leighton.
Rea Irvin Talk Watch:
Regular Spill readers know that this space is devoted to showing Rea Irvin’s iconic Talk design. Why is it here? Because you haven’t been able to find it in The New Yorker since May of 2017, when it was shooed off the big stage and replaced by — gasp! — a redraw. The Spill continues to hope it one day returns to the spot it occupied so gracefully and perfectly for 92 years. Read more here.
Rea Irvin Born, San Francisco, 1881; died in the Virgin Islands,1972. Irvin was the cover artist for the New Yorker’s first issue, February 21, 1925. He was the magazine’s first art and only art supervisor (some refer to him as its first art editor) holding the position from 1925 until 1939 when James Geraghty assumed the title of art editor. Irvin then became art director and remained in that position until William Shawn officially succeeded Harold Ross in early 1952. Irvin’s last original work for the magazine was the magazine’s cover of July 12, 1958. The February 21, 1925 Eustace Tilley cover had been reproduced every year on the magazine’s anniversary until 1994, when R. Crumb’s Tilley-inspired cover appeared. Tilley has since reappeared, with other artists substituting from time-to-time. Number of New Yorker covers (not including the repeat appearances of the first cover every anniversary up to 1991): 163. Number of cartoons contributed: 261.