Daily Shouts
Today’s Daily Shouts: from the magazine’s cartoon editor, Emma Allen, “So You Want To Be A New Yorker Cartoonist”*
it features drawings by Evan Lian (who did the caricature of Ms. Allen you see here), Hilary Campbell, J.A.K., Victor Varnado, Amy Kurzweil, Jason Chatfield, Kendra Allenby, Ellis Rosen, and Navied Mahdavian.
*the ‘So’ part of the piece’s title has deep roots in New Yorker cartoon history. The late great Helen Hokinson did a long-running series of spreads beginning with “So, You…” or “So, You’re’…
Her first collection of cartoons, published in 1931, was titled, So, You’re Going To Buy A Book!
More: You’ll note a glossary of terms in Ms. Allen’s piece. A New Yorker cartoonist glossary that originally appeared on newyorker.com has been archived (and updated) in the Spill‘s Posted Notes section…scroll down to “Glossary” here.
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Latest ToonStack
ToonStack is a weekly gathering of themed work by New Yorker cartoonists. This week it’s “Summer Lovin'” with work by Navied Mahdavian, Johnny DiNapoli, Sofia Warren, Ellis Rosen, Natalie Dupille, Yasin Osman, and Kendra Allenby
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A Mary Petty Catalog
In early May, when several boxes of gifted New Yorker materials arrived at Spill headquarters, one of the many items that got my attention was a 1983 catalog from Syracuse University, The Life And Art Of Mary Petty, Cartoonist And Illustrator.
I’d seen this catalog mentioned here and there while moseying around the internet, but until last month had never seen the real deal. You might ask why a 38 year old catalog would stand out in a freshly arrived collection of far older materials. The answer’s simple: other than Liza Donnelly’s Mary Petty section in her must-have book, Funny Ladies,* there just isn’t that much out there about Ms. Petty, who passed away in 1976.
According to the information provided in this wonderful catalog, Petty illustrated five books (the first in 1933, the last in 1954). There has been just one book of her work published: This Petty Pace, published in 1945 by Knopf (Preface by James Thurber). For someone whose work stood out at the magazine (in a field of stand out work) it’s remarkable that, following the 1945 collection, her New Yorker career escaped the attention of publishers. She continued publishing cartoons in The New Yorker for another decade (her last appeared in January of 1955); her New Yorker covers for two decades after the collection (her last cover appeared on the issue of March 19, 1966).
So a 40 page booklet devoted to her and her work was a most welcome addition to the Spill library. The 6 page Introduction by Cheryl A. Saunders, then a graduate research assistant at Syracuse, provides a snap-shot biography. I was particularly interested to learn that Ms. Petty voluntarily retired from the magazine after one of her covers was rejected. Her husband (The New Yorker cartoonist, Alan Dunn) wrote about this moment:
“Mary…ignored all comment, fought off all publicity and went her own headstrong way, drawing never to please critics or get ahead, but solely from love of her subject matter. Her greatest mistake was to abandon her career after a tiff with The New Yorker…”
The catalog shows 15 of Ms. Petty’s pieces in the Syracuse collection, and lists all 239 (!). The end of book material is priceless: a list of where her work is collected, a list of exhibitions, a list of her books (including New Yorker cartoon “Albums”). Two small regrets: I wish they had used more of the catalog space to show more work, and wish they had reprinted her work in b&w instead of the earthy red color you see below.
*Liza Donnelly, Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Greatest Women Cartoonists And Their Cartoons (Prometheus, 2005). A new expanded edition coming Fall of 2021.
Mary Petty’s entry on the Spill‘s A-Z:
Mary Petty Born, Hampton, New Jersey, April 29, 1899. Died, Paramus, New Jersey, March, 1976. NYer work: October 22,1927 – March 19,1966. Collection: This Petty Place ( Knopf, 1945) with a Preface by James Thurber.