In Praise Of Robert Weber’s Art
I began my usual daily online search this rainy chilly morning to see what New Yorker cartoonist news had come in during the past 24 hours. What showed up — what always shows up — was a mixed bag: old news that’s somehow considered new, new posts that are new, fringy stuff, and occasionally a welcome blast from the past. This morning’s blast appeared first with just the caption — I had to click on the search result to see the drawing (shown below), by the late very great Robert Weber, published in The New Yorker, September 28, 1987. 
When it popped up on the screen I believe I actually said, “Wow.” A great New Yorker cartoon, beautifully drawn, with a caption that says so much using so few words. In the great captions over the magazine’s 97 years, less has always been more (with the exception of a George Booth caption, or two).
The “…near and yet so far” drawing features a couple — if you look through Weber’s New Yorker work (1,453 drawings and 11 covers between July 14, 1962 and February 14, 2005) you’ll run into them a lot (they’re not running characters though). Weber’s people were not mean-spirited — his drawings came out of a place meant to amuse, not provoke. His art was superior, in a field of artists also contributing superior art. His colleagues felt he was one of the best of them, if not the best. Like all the masters of the art of cartooning, he took on the small picture and the big picture with what looked like a natural ease. There are, within this “field” of cartoonists, schools of good bad drawing, bad good drawing, and good good drawing — Weber’s was the latter. Not that we need examples, but here’s a Weber drawing that, for me, is the definition of a great New Yorker cartoon.
It’s a pity that Weber never wanted a collection of his work published. But any one of us can see his drawings if you have access to a computer, and/or a nearby used bookstore — his work appears in The New Yorker anthologies, from The New Yorker 1955-1965 Album and beyond.
Further reading: Ink Spill‘s 2016 Robert Weber Appreciation
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Hilary Campbell’s New Book & Gallery Show; Pat Achilles’s New Book
Two new books. One out in a month, one just out.
Hilary Campbell’s What Did I Do Today?:A Record OF Stuff You’ve Already Accomplished (Andrews McMeel) will be out January 10th, 2023.
From the publisher:
“In this illustrated guided journal, New Yorker cartoonist and author of Murder Book, Hilary F. Campbell invites you to find joy, curiosity, and your (maybe screaming?) inner voice.”
Ms. Campbell, who began contributing to The New Yorker in 2017, will celebrate the book’s release with a gallery show at ArtsClub in lower Manhattan (details to come).
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And just out from Pat Achilles and her son, Tom Achilles,
Zeitgeist Meetup (Independently published).
Ms. Achilles began contributing to The New Yorker in 2018.
From the publisher:
“Zeitgeist Meetup is a book of new cartoons from the brain of Brooklyn comedian Tom Achilles and the hand of New Yorker cartoonist Pat Achilles, riffing on everything from food trucks to Bigfoot to crickets to Elvis, and it’s all just for laughs.”
Book signing announcement:
