Weekend Spill: Latest Additions To The Spill Library; The Week Of November 18-22, 2024
Latest Additions To The Spill Library:
Two volumes of bound New Yorkers recently arrived here. I’m slowly filling in the early 1970s bound issues (there are plenty of loose issues in the library). This time period is especially of interest to me because these were the issues I studied, as a high school student, as they arrived in the mail. It’s enjoyable going through them once again, seeing old friends that left an impression, such as George Booth’s September 30th, 1974, “…lone grape…”— a drawing shown to everyone’s delight on the “Dick Cavett Show” New Yorker panel of cartoonists broadcast in March of 1978 (the cartoonists on the panel: Frank Modell, Charles Addams, Lee Lorenz, and Mr. Booth). But there are many many other drawings I didn’t recall while looking through the volumes this week. Back in the early 70s I looked at each drawing as if I was studying for an exam. These early 70s drawings helped me along, educating me weekly.
I have to add that coming upon each issue’s cover in these bound volumes is also a blast. If there was a Golden Age of New Yorker covers (as there was a Golden Age of New Yorker drawings), the 70s were easily within that era. Two that I’ve shown above are among many personal favorites. Some Spill readers may recall that the cover above on the left, by Jean-Paul Suares, dated September 21, 1974, appeared on (and in) Seasons At The New Yorker, a wonderful collection of cover art published in 1984.
The strength of the magazine’s Golden Age art (cover art and art, including cartoons, within the magazine) was due to the magazine’s editorial arrangement in the past 75 years*: there was one editor in charge of all the art (James Geraghty from 1939 through 1974, and Lee Lorenz from 1974 through 1997). That art editor editor, along their respective senior editors who had the final word (Geraghty with Harold Ross, then William Shawn, and Lorenz with Shawn) developed a synchronicity that produced issue after issue that felt, in a way, as a piece, both in text and art.
*From 1925 through 1952, when William Shawn was appointed senior editor upon Harold Ross’s passing, the art was selected by committee, with Ross as the final word. Shawn jettisoned the committee and began just meeting with Geraghty.
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The Tilley Watch Online, November 18-22, 2024
An end of the week listing of New Yorker artists whose work has appeared on newyorker.com features
Daily Cartoon: Marie Pax (as of this time, an online only contributor), Tommy Siegel, Ben Schwartz, Brendan Loper, Tom Toro.
Culture Desk: A Visit To Planet Koren by Paul Karasik
Barry Blitt’s Kvetchbook: “Donald And Elon Pull Strings”
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