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Fred Marcellino's Book Cover for Thomas Pynchon's Slow Learner
Slow Learner is the self-deprecatory title of Thomas Pynchon's 1984 collection of his early short fiction. Fred Marcellino's cover illustration depicts a fountain pen seated on a bicycle. The...
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Matías Santoyo's Return
What's old is new again. This week the new New Yorker cover is an old one, reprinted from 1927. The artist is Matías Santoyo and this was his only New Yorker cover. It's a wonderful cover, of course. I...
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My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #641
Gather round for my entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #641 for November 26, 2018. The drawing is by Mark Thompson."For heaven's sake, not a word of this to Bo-Peep."Note: Last week...
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Barney Tobey: The Cynical Voter
The 1948 Presidential campaign saw incumbent Democrat Harry S. Truman take on Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey. Barney Tobey's 1948 campaign cartoon from Collier's depicts a more local city...
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Ronald Searle: Cats Under the Rainbow
An Unusual Day is an unusual watercolor by Ronald Searle dating from 1971. The inverted rainbow seems to counter the earthbound bleakness of the landscape, but only partially; it is a restrained, muted...
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Ross, The New Yorker and Me Signed by Jane Grant
Journalist Jane Grant was married to Harold Ross, the founding editor of the New Yorker, from 1922 to 1928. This put her at the center of activity at the time of the magazine's first publication in...
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James Thurber: Dear Harold
It seems an unforgivable lapse, but History for Sale somehow has just sold on eBay a two-page typed letter, signed, from literary and cartooning giant James Thurber without realizing the recipient is...
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The Cartoons Collections Caption Contest #2
The new Cartoon Collections Caption Contest is currently not organized by either number or date. Whether this is deliberate I don't know, but now that the number of contests is greater than one I see...
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My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #641
Gather round for my entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #641 for November 26, 2018. The drawing is by Mark Thompson."For heaven's sake, not a word of this to Bo-Peep."Note: Last time...
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Barbara Shermund: Beach Talk
A few years back Carlson & Stevenson Antiques of Manchester, Vermont acquired a series of original drawings by cartoonist Barbara Shermund. These drawings were promoted at art and antiques shows in...
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Barbara Shermund: Hooked!
Carlson & Stevenson Antiques has been promoting original pieces by cartoonist Barbara Shermund for the past four years or so. An original watercolor of hers shows the apparent downside to...
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Barbara Shermund: Art Appreciation
Cartoonist Barbara Shermund's fashionable young ladies demonstrate a keen appreciation of—let's call it art—in a 1927 New Yorker cartoon. The original drawing, from Vermont dealers Carlson &...
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Barbara Shermund: Just Talking....
An example of original cartoon art created by Barbara Shermund for the New Yorker in 1930 is presented in an ad by art dealers Carlson and Stevenson. The stock market crash happened a year earlier, but...
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Barbara Shermund: Level-Headed
When single-speaker captions came into their own—as opposed to the older convention of having two speakers exchanging lines of dialogue—it became practical to populate a cartoon with even larger...
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Barbara Shermund: Not Abnormal
Three years into the New Yorker's run, the single-panel gag cartoon had been completely reimagined. Barbara Shermund's sumptuous original art from 1928, offered for sale in 2014 by Carlson &...
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My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #642
Grab a fork and check out my entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #642 for December 10, 2018. The drawing is by Mick Stevens."It's so good you'll think it's illegal—except in New...
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Barbara Shermund: Costume Consternation
Barbara Shermund's cartoons for Esquire often display a different sensibility than her New Yorker work. On a 1941 full-color page that functions as much as a pin-up as a gag cartoon, we are asked to...
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Barbara Shermund: Asking Santa
Are you hoping to get something special this Christmas? In the January 1941 issue of Esquire, cartoonist Barbara Shermund demonstrates how the modern woman gets it done."Don't bother with anything but...
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Barbara Shermund: Plan B
In Barbara Shermund'sblack-and-white cartoon from the January 1941 issue of Esquire, the lanky and feckless young man is proving to be something of a disappointment. His frustrated date knows when it's...
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Barbara Shermund: Santa Pampered
In the January 1941 issue of Esquire, cartoonist Barbara Shermund reminds us that it's that time of year when everyone is eager to get on Santa Claus's good side.Barbara ShermundEsquire, January 1939,...
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