Monday Tilley Watch, The New Yorker Issue Of January 13, 2025

Before we dip a toe into the latest issue, here’s a reminder that there are now just three issues to go before The New Yorker celebrates the 100th anniversary of its first issue (shown here). Will we see that cover — Rea Irvin’s masterpiece — brought back? Wouldn’t that be something!

The Monday Tilley Watch takes a glancing look at the art and artists of the latest issue of The New Yorker

The Cartoonists and Cartoons:

Seventeen cartoons, seventeen cartoonists (with two of the seventeen doing double duty: Roz Chast has a cover, and Roland High has Spots). No newbies, one duo, that we know of. The longest active contributing cartoonist in the issue is this cartoonist.

This week’s cartoons.

The Cartoon Caption Contest Cartoonist: Mick Stevens. This week’s contest.

The Rea Irvin Talk Watch:

Rea Irvin’s perfect Talk design, shown here, was left alone for 92 years before being booted in the Spring of 2017 for — if you can believe it — a redrawn version by a contemporary illustrator. The Spill continues to hope that Mr. Irvin’s work will return. Read more here.

Rea Irvin’s A-Z Entry:

Rea Irvin (pictured above. Self portrait above from Meet the Artist) Born, San Francisco, 1881; died in the Virgin Islands,1972. Irvin was the cover artist for the New Yorker’s first issue, February 21, 1925. He was the magazine’s first art and only art supervisor (some refer to him as its first art editor) holding the position from 1925 until 1939 when James Geraghty assumed the title of art editor. Irvin then became art director and remained in that position until William Shawn officially succeeded Harold Ross in early 1952. Irvin’s last original work for the magazine was the magazine’s cover of July 12, 1958. The February 21, 1925 Eustace Tilley cover had been reproduced every year on the magazine’s anniversary until 1994, when R. Crumb’s Tilley-inspired cover appeared. Tilley has since reappeared, with other artists substituting from time-to-time. Number of New Yorker covers (not including the repeat appearances of the first cover every anniversary up to 1991): 163. Number of cartoons contributed: 261.