A Good Book
I discovered Joe Mitchell‘s delightful My Ears Are Bent when I was researching my biography of Peter Arno. All of the pieces were written when Mitchell was a newspaperman, before he joined The New Yorker in 1938. Of particular interest to Spill readers are Mr. Mitchell’s three pieces on three stellar New Yorker artists: William Steig, Helen Hokinson, and Peter Arno. Rereading these pieces last night I was taken by this passage by Mitchell on Steig:
..he believes that the dependence on gag-lines likely will become as boresome. He believes that a drawing which can take any one of six different gag-lines likely will be a bad humorous drawing…
This idea mirrors what Arno felt was the ideal cartoon: one where the caption and drawing work together, delivering a one-two punch. And it echoes New Yorker founder and first editor, Harold Ross’s belief that cartoons (or drawings, as they are sometimes referred to by the magazine) should be more than a clever caption beneath a stale drawing.
Here’s a page from the Table Of Contents…
btw:
A first edition of My Ears Are Bent, with a dust jacket, will cost you dearly. To the left is what the original edition looks like (published by Sheridan House in 1938). The updated version, published in 2001 by Pantheon works just fine (it’s available for just a few bucks). It should be noted that this modern edition is not identical to the original edition — some pieces in the earlier edition were not included. On the plus side, “stories from the same period that have not been available since he first wrote them” have been included, according to Sheila McGrath and Dan Frank in their foreward.
Some Further Mitchell Reading:
His classic Up In The Old Hotel.
His biography: Man In Profile by Thomas Kunkel (author of the must-read Harold Ross biography, Genius In Disguise)
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Tilley Watch Online, The Week Of March 6-10, 2023
An end of the week listing of New Yorker artists whose work has appeared on newyorker.com features
The Daily Cartoon: Akeem Roberts, J.A.K. (twice, once with Eliza Hittman), Ali Solomon, Avi Steinberg, Tom Chitty and Ellis Rosen (a duo effort).
Daily Shouts: Olivia de Recat (with Ella Quittner).
Barry Blitt’s Kvetchbook: “Life Imitates The Oscars”
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Liza Donnelly On Day Four Of Oscar Week: “Oscar Statue Day”
Ms. Donnelly, who began contributing to The New Yorker in 1979, is on the scene in Hollywood this week, live-drawing behind the scenes at The Academy Awards. Here’s her latest post (with drawings).
Tomorrow night she’ll be live drawing on the champagne (formerly red) carpet.