Wednesday Spill: Latest Addition To The Spill Library…”Selected Letters Of John Updike”

Latest addition To The Spill Library: Selected Letters Of John Updike

Just out yesterday: The Selected Letters of John Updike, edited by James Schiff (Knopf). I’ve been eagerly awaiting this book, knowing (or at least hoping) that there’d be a number of references to New Yorker artists and art. I was not disappointed (you can see in the accompanying photo of my copy of the book, I’ve already begun to bookmark passages I want to revisit). I’ve come across numerous references to James Thurber (one of Updike’s most cherished cartoonists and writers), and mentions of such artists as Peter Arno, Steinberg, Addams, Modell, Fradon, Alain, Carl Rose, Hokinson, and others. Updike had focused on the magazine’s cartoon art since his childhood. It’s fun to hear him opine; he really knew his stuff, especially the art published during the days of Harold Ross,* and Ross’s successor William Shawn.** It’s no secret he wasn’t thrilled with changes made to the magazine under Tina Brown (see Adam Begley’s Updike biography). Here we get to read his observations in his own words, such as this, in a 1999 letter to graphic designer, Chip Kidd:

“Tina’s tinkering gave me stomach pains, and the replacement of Rea Irvin’s lovely heads with amateurish 1990s stuff (as in The Critics) is sheer vandalism. The reign of Frau Spiegelman seems mostly misrule.”***

In a letter from his earlier pre-New Yorker contributor days (1950) he wrote to Mr. Random House himself, Bennett Cerf, encouraging Cerf to publish more New Yorker collections of cartoons. It is not unlike (in sentiment) a letter I’d write right this second, in 2025, to someone in such a commanding position in publishing — if I knew who to write — encouraging them to publish more New Yorker collections of cartoons. One line from the letter that I found fascinating:

“It has been some time since the public was treated to a cartoon anthology. I have been told they they were (and possibly still are) considered a drudge on the market. Yet the best of anything will always sell.”

This was written in a decade when the market was flooded with numerous non-New Yorker collections. In modern times we (“we” meaning New Yorker cartoonists) have long been greeted (by agents and editors) with a similar line: “cartoon collections don’t sell.”****

Note to whoever in publishing makes things happen in 2025: A New Yorker 100th Anniversary Cartoon collection would be fabulous.

This Updike letters book is just over 900 pages. I take in new reading material s-l-o-w-l-y, so I’ll be digging through the book for quite awhile (and will report back whenever something Spillable turns up). At this point I’m happily Index surfing more than letter reading.

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*Harold Ross was The New Yorker‘s founder and first editor. He edited the magazine from 1925 – 1951.

**William Shawn edited the magazine from 1952-1987.

***Francoise Mouly was hired by Tina Brown to edit the magazine’s covers. She’s the wife of a cartoonist, Art Spiegelman.

**** There has been a small uptick this year in cartoon collections by New Yorker cartoonists. But with hundreds of cartoonists contributing to the magazine, there is plenty of opportunity for more. and, of course, opportunity for “official” New Yorker cartoon anthologies — what the magazine used to call “Albums.”