Since It’s Super Bowl Sunday…
I’ve had but two football drawings in The New Yorker; I post one of them every Thanksgiving Day. Here’s the other one, published October 23, 2017…
A New Yorker Cartoon Education Via The Classics
Although I went to college, and majored in art, there were no classes covering cartoons, New Yorker or otherwise. My education in the classics, in the New Yorker classics, came from two sources: studying bound volumes of The New Yorker in my college library, and studying the volumes you see above of The New Yorker Albums of drawings from the very first through the volume published celebrating the magazine’s 50th anniversary in 1975. I was over the moon thrilled for my work to be included the next volume that was published, 1975-1985 (and in the later Albums), but for this post, I’m keeping the educational materials confined to the books I poured over before getting into the magazine.
It was also essential, in those “student” years to look through every new issue of The New Yorker. All of these variations of study remain in place here at the Spill today. The current issue is studied when its posted online on Monday mornings at 6:00am, and then looked at again when the print magazine arrives in the mail a few days later. A bound volume or two are gone through, not in any organized fashion, every few days. With eyes partially closed, I grab one off the shelf (this was inspired by what I read by E.B. White in the Preface to his (and Katharine White’s) Subtreasury of American Humor:
“My wife and I happen to own a complete file of the bound volumes of The New Yorker…after a long evening…it would often be our stealthy custom to pull a volume at random and dip up a nice funny piece before going to bed.”
It is the magazine’s “Albums” of drawings that I go back to the most; always enjoying and learning from the parade of art, culture, history, and superb inspired graphic design. I know for certain that with each visit I subconsciously or quite consciously pick up elements I admire and store in my cartoon vocabulary. The classics also present a challenge. They have always challenged me. I came into this New Yorker orbit hoping and trying to do good work, work that just might measure up to the masters. In 2023, I’m still hoping, still trying.
Many of these Albums fall into what was called “The Golden Age”; what falls on either side of the Golden Age is right up there too and worth investigating. Whether you are a student who desires to get your work into The New Yorker, or you are a published New Yorker cartoonist, I believe that studying this high bar work — even just glancing through one volume, will do you and your work no harm.
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The Tilley Watch Online, February 6-10, 2023
The Tilley Watch Online is an end of the week listing of New Yorker artists whose work has appeared on newyorker.com features
The Daily Cartoon: Brendan Loper (bonus Daily), Sarah Kempa, David Ostow, Tommy Siegel, Will Santino, Paul Noth, John McNamee.
Daily Shouts: Jake Goldwasser, Sofia Warren, J.A.K..
Barry Blitt’s Kvetchbook: “Making The Country Safe From Balloons.”