There’s Gold In These Volumes
I’ve written in the past about the joys of looking through bound volumes of The New Yorker, and why seeing an original issue right before your eyes is preferable to seeing the magazine on a screen. The feel of the pages, the smell (yes, the smell!) of a seventy or eighty year old magazine — these things cannot be experienced from a digital issue. These bound issues have lived a life, usually on a library shelf (a few bound volumes in the Spill library were privately bound). Whenever I’m lucky enough to acquire a new old volume I immediately check its origin. One of the last acquired came from a Tulsa, Oklahoma library. Truthfully, I feel a bit sad when I discover that a library has decided to give up its bound volumes.
When my wife and I moved to upstate New York we just happened to settle into an area that offers at least three libraries still holding bound New Yorkers: Bard College, Vassar, and The Hotchkiss School. Only Hotchkiss has the set from the beginning (it was donated by a Hotchkiss alum who once worked at The New Yorker). I’ve used all three libraries quite a lot over the years, most especially during the time I was working on my biography of Peter Arno (Arno was a Hotchkiss graduate; my being on the campus was as much about field work, and looking through their archives, as it was looking through their bound New Yorkers).
When I say there’s “gold” in these volumes, I am referring to the magazines as a whole — not just the writing and art you’ll find. Each issue contains the fascinating mix that has made The New Yorker the magazine it continues to be. I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that my eyes go first and foremost to the highly inspirational art in these volumes. Revisiting the drawings and covers is a reminder of the high bar — that challenging thing that’s much like a dare.
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… From The San Diego News, September 17, 2023, “Gallery-By-The-Sea Presents Pet Project” — this piece about an exhibit of Lisa Rothstein’s work. Ms. Rothstein began contributing to The New Yorker in August of 2019.
…From Comics Beat, September 18, 2023, “Interview: Jamie Lee Curtis, Russell Goldman, Karl Stevens On ‘Bloody, Gross, Beautiful’ Mother Nature“ — The interview includes New Yorker cartoonist, Karl Stevens, who began contributing to The New Yorker in January 2019.
…From ArtDaily.com, September 2023, “The Most Reprinted Cartoon In New Yorker History Barks Up Heritage’s Illustration Art Event In October” — Peter Steiner, who began contributing to The New Yorker in 1979, talks about his iconic cartoon.
From The Cartoon Art Museum, “Emerging Artist Showcase: Zareen Choudhury”
— an exhibit of Ms. Choudhury‘s work is currently up and running until December 10th of this year. She began contributing to The New Yorker in January of 2022.
I’m jealous of your time wallowing in old New Yorkers at Hotchkiss, etc. I own one issue from 1958 procured online. It smells a little musty, but that doesn’t diminish the terrible nostalgia it provokes, and delight in its almost familial physicality: that paper, those margins and, of course, the remarkable artwork.