Celebrating The New Yorker’s 100th Anniversary; The Monday Tilley Watch…The Issue Of February 10, 2025
Celebrating The New Yorker’s 100th Anniversary
We would have to assume that one hundred years ago this week, Harold Ross was sitting with, at the least, a fairly complete “dummy” of, or perhaps an early run copy of the very first issue of his new magazine, The New Yorker — maybe (likely!) putting some final touches on it. In little more than two weeks (on February 19, 1925) it would hit the newsstands. From everything I’ve read, its arrival didn’t set off fireworks. The cover was likely confusing to those who eyeballed it as they walked by newsstands. Other than the drawing of a top-hatted guy peering through his monocle at a butterfly, the date on the upper left (February 21, 1925) and “Price 15 Cents” on the upper right, the letters “R.” & “I.” (for Rea Irvin, the cover artist) there was absolutely nothing screaming out for attention, nothing informing possible customers what was inside the magazine. How puzzling, how wonderful.
From various New Yorker centric biographies and histories, we know that some soon-to-be New Yorker notables either looked forward to that first issue, or had no idea it was about to appear. In the former category was E.B. White. Here’s a truncated passage from Scott Elledge’s E.B. White: A Biography...
“Andy [E.B. White’s nickname] had been on the lookout for the first issue ever since a friend had suggested that the new magazine might be interested in contributions from a writer with Andy’s sense of humor…Andy remembered vividly the momentous afternoon when he ‘swung into Grand Central Terminal’…and ‘laid fifteen cents on the line’ to buy his copy of The New Yorker, vol. no.1″
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The Monday Tilley Watch takes a glancing look at the art and artists of the latest issue of The New Yorker
This week’s cover:
The Cartoonists and Cartoons:
Fourteen cartoons, fifteen cartoonists (Liana Finck has a Sketchpad). No newbies. One duo, that we know of. The longest active cartoonist contributor is Roz Chast, whose first New Yorker drawing appeared in July of 1978.
This week’s contest cartoonist: Lonnie Millsap.
The Rea Irvin Talk Watch:
Normally, in this spot I show Rea Irvin’s design that sat atop The Talk Of The Town for 92 years (and was axed in May of 2017). This week, we see the initial Rea Irvin design that appeared atop The Talk Of The Town in the magazine’s first issue. Below it, Irvin’s design for Of All Things, which eventually became the prototype for the 92 year Talk design.
