Attempted Bloggery: Barry Blitt

Showing posts with label Barry Blitt. Show all posts

Friday, September 26, 2025

Six Cartoon Publications, Mostly Signed

An ebay listing offered six publications, four of them cartoon-rich editions from The New Yorker, one New Yorker magazine, and one New York University Bulletin. The bulletin, magazine, and bookazines date from 2010 to 2015. In five of them, either Roz Chast, Matthew Diffee, or Jules Feiffer signed next to or on their own artwork in print. It's the kind of collection that would be nearly impossible to assemble today if it weren't already there for the taking. Yet it proved difficult to sell.

Of the six publications, the NYU Bulletin is probably the hardest to find, but there can't be much demand:

Jules Feiffer (1929-2025) signed his Bulletin cover.

Roz Chast signed her cartoon in the October 3, 2011, issue of The New Yorker—not a cartoon-themed issue—and a page from, probably, the magazine's 2011 cartoon calendar.

A Sam Gross rabbit cartoon was on the cover of the New Yorker Cartoons of the Year for 2011.

And Matthew Diffee signed his cartoon on page 4.

The New Yorker Cartoons of the Year 2014 has a dog cartoon by J. C. Duffy on the cover.

Matt Diffee signs on page 11.

The New Yorker 90th Anniversary Book of Cartoons surely deserved to be hardbound, but it was published as a bookazine. The bookazine cover art was adapted from Barry Blitt's 2015 anniversary magazine cover which had nine, not eight, modern-day Eustace Tilleys.

Again, Matthew Diffee was good enough to sign his Che Guevara cartoon on page 118.

The back covers:

Six assorted signed cartoon volumes
eBay listing accessed September 21, 2025

https://www.ebay.com/itm/285601622932?_skw=signed+Yorker&itmmeta=01K5QNXCMX5R18PN804RFGDKB3&hash=item427f2eeb94:g:~wkAAOSwDDNlbUaB&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA0FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1cLVMMmPv3vOqghoI2UNwugDuGjgYuvD%2BnnE7qdCF3P058g6jJO0MOotbFnHn8o7D1uUwlYsfySyCzhf5XI1%2BD52

hFlcoHSCDnbVMpGm7MRfuLpXOTXoQz4QWm20%2BrS%2BKJzAV5Hq7Y32FFZazFrV9EPd%2BSlYToPBNDeY%2BTX4Z1rZfaSGYRsguH1vR0KcA%2BCpdAbEXaGVHgjmTgo1fsS5YStRqUEXTZY%2BWgDwX1QmJ1tbMz2m7%2FldXfAZ1govD2vL88%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR9DK9fWtZg&autorefresh=true

Six assorted signed cartoon volumes
eBay item description

The set had been languishing on eBay since December 2023. Decisive action clearly was needed.

Sold for a best offer of $35.00.

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Friday, February 14, 2025

How Do You Like Your Portraits, Ernest?

Contributor David from Manhattan writes:

The recent essay by Adam Gopnik, "Subject and Object," is a careful dissection of the famous and controversial 1950 New Yorker profile by Lillian Ross, "How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen?" illustrated, one forgets, with a tiny pen & ink drawing of [Ernest] Hemingway by Reginald Marsh.

Ernest Hemingway
Reginald Marsh
The New Yorker, May 13, 1950, p. 36

The long Ross Profile described her encounter with the famous author as he roamed Manhattan with Miss Ross in tow. Merely by quoting him at length (accurately as it turns out), and reporting how he moved through the day, the Hemingway in this profile comes across as a clown and a sad parody of himself. It hasn't been forgotten, as Gopnik makes clear. Published in time for the 100th anniversary issue of The New Yorker, the essay features a full-page color drawing by Barry Blitt, based, we are told in tiny print, on a photograph "courtesy Lillian Ross Estate."

Ernest Hemingway and Lillian Ross
Barry Blitt
The New Yorker, February 17 & 24, 2025, p. 151

Perhaps for that reason Blitt didn't sign his drawing, though a proper credit line appears beneath it. The drawing is not especially funny, something rarely said about a Blitt drawing. And to make things more interesting, in-between the Gopnik piece and Ross's original profile, she published "Hemingway Told Me Things" in the May 24, 1999 issue, about his letters and warm advice to her. This piece is illustrated with a caricature by Edward Sorel.

Lillian Ross and Ernest Hemingway
Edward Sorel
The New Yorker, May 24, 1999, p. 71

In 1999 Miss Ross wished to present Hemingway in a far more generous light than the 1950 piece, but forty-nine years is a long time to wait before applying damage control. Fortunately, Sorel, quietly ignoring Ross's good cheer, royally allowed himself an artist's fun with a famous author full of himself, and a still rising journalist not quite sure of what she was in for. The small background image of a photographer in the oval mirror with his flash, even reduced on the magazine page, is a masterful touch in a drawing far more elegant, accurate and funny than the Ernest in the Gopnik piece, though in fairness to Blitt, his Hemingway is clearly intended to be more illustration than target. It's unlikely that Sorel's drawing wasn't lodged in Blitt's memory; there was no reason to compete. But both artists are certainly on firmer ground than Reginald Marsh. His portrait of Ernest was left out, unfairly I think, when Simon & Schuster in 1961 reprinted the Ross profile in a very attractive clothbound 65-page book and retitled Portrait of Hemingway, the year of the author's death.

Portrait of Hemingway by Lillian Ross

* * *

With an illustration by Reginald Marsh and a cartoon by Barney Tobey

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1950-05-13/flipbook/036/

With an illustration by Edward Sorel

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1999-05-24/flipbook/070/

With a header by Timo Kuilder and an illustration by Barry Blitt

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/2025-02-17/flipbook/150/

Note: My thanks to David from Manhattan for surprising me with today's piece. This is his sixty-sixth contribution to Attempted Bloggery.

* * *

"Notice the little ruffle, which gives it that feminine touch."
Barney Tobey
The New Yorker, May 13, 1950, p. 37

* * *

The Critics
Timo Kuilder
The New Yorker, February 17 & 24, 2025, p. 150

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Friday, January 24, 2025

This Week's New Yorker Cover, Rejected

A display of rejected New Yorker cover concept art is currently on view at L'Alliance New York, a part of the exhibition "Covering The New Yorker."

The assemblage of prints of rejected sketches is pinned to a bulletin board, like the card describing them:

Oddly, one of the rejected sketches shown there is this very week's cover by Till Lauer. It depicts the glow of wildfires in California. A notation is dated 1/15/25 and bears an okay as well as the name of the magazine's editor David [Remnick], likely in the hand of the art editor Françoise Mouly:

It was not published on the cover of the January 20 issue, hence its status in this show as a rejected cover. It does appear on the January 27 issue, a one week layover—surely not the worst rejection ever:

Flames and Shadows
Till Lauer
The New Yorker, January 27, 2025

The Lauer cover initially was rejected in favor of Barry Blitt's inauguration cover Two's a Crowd. Both were timely enough to have appeared that same week. Although January 20 is the date of the presidential swearing in, the issue is released one full week ahead of the publication date and The New Yorker's editors wanted the Blitt cover out a full week ahead of the event—the cover itself was even released a few days early. There are, of course, some risks inherent in anticipating real-world events. The illustration quite naturally foresaw an outdoor ceremony, which turned out not to be the case because of extreme cold. It also shows Donald Trump's hand resting on the bible. Who knew?

Two's a Crowd
Barry Blitt
The New Yorker, January 20, 2025

Curiously, Blitt's cover recalls his own twin-scenarios cover of eight years earlier. Both images show Trump at his swearing in accompanied—or superseded—by extremely powerful and wealthy men with their own agendas.

Significant Others
Barry Blitt
The New Yorker, October 31, 2016

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Friday, July 14, 2023

Playing Ball with Barry Blitt's New Yorker Cover of May 22, 2017

Perhaps there are those of a particular political bent who, for whatever reason, wish to celebrate President Donald Trump's dismissal of FBI director James Comey on May 9, 2017. Others conceivably might admire Barry Blitt's New Yorker cover of May 22, 2017, "Ejected," which soon followed and offered a liberal take on the event. At the time, Trump, in a letter to Comey that was released publicly, cited the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as reasons for the director's firing. Blitt's magazine cover illustration also references a viral video of an incident from April of that year when a passenger was forcibly removed from a United Airlines plane. He restages the episode, interpolating the figures of Trump, Sessions, and Comey into the airline cabin.

Whoever came up with the idea of mounting this New Yorker cover in a shadow box with three baseballs signed by these three principles—the Comey and Sessions balls even have COA's—assembled a scarce set of collectibles unlikely to have significant appeal anywhere on the political spectrum. It's also hard to imagine fans of either Major League Baseball or of The New Yorker's political covers finding much to admire here. The box, very likely unique, was given an anemic presale estimate of $150 to $300, and it sold for $70.

There were no bids 13 hours before auction time.

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/156104320_the-new-yorker-publication-and-autograph-baseballs

Sold!

"Ejected"
Barry Blitt
The New Yorker, May 22, 2017

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/2017-05-22/flipbook/CV1/

04380

Saturday, March 25, 2023

The New Yorker's "Fist Bump" Issue Signed by Barack Obama

For anyone who has ever wondered whether 2008 Presidential candidate Barack Obama would personally sign a copy of The New Yorker of July 21, 2008, the issue featuring Barry Blitt's notorious "Fist Bump" cover, the answer is yes. The cover depicts Obama wearing Muslim attire while his wife Michelle appears as a radical extremist. The American flag burns in the fireplace. Probably you already know the whole story. If you're coming upon this image with fresh eyes, see if you can divine the liberal magazine's political intentions. I'd happily explain it, but who really needs to have a magazine cover illustration explained?

The signed cover, presumably quite a rarity, was sold on eBay in 2017.

The New Yorker's "Fist Bump" Issue Signed by Barack Obama
eBay listing ended April 21, 2017

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Barack-Obama-Signed-with-PSA-match-PROOF-The-New-Yorker-Magazine-Autographed-/332187503645?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&nma=true&si=YQGb25QThn5Fxe78BW8tTy6VzZY%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

The New Yorker's "Fist Bump" Issue Signed by Barack Obama
eBay Bid History
Just one bid

Note: Again, I don't feel any personal obligation to defend or explain this cover art. That's New Yorker editor David Remnick's job and before the issue hit the newsstands he offered some preemptive damage control in an interview with the Washington Post. His words were subsequently quoted in the Guardian here. Suffice it to say both the Obama and the McCain campaigns condemned this cover, a rare point of bipartisan agreement.

Here's the cover as most of us have seen it, without Obama's signature:

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/2008-07-21/flipbook/C1/

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Wednesday, December 14, 2016

The Original Art 2016 Exhibit at the Society of Illustrators

I don't even pretend to keep up with children's book illustration, but if The Original Art 2016 Exhibit at the Society of Illustrators is any indication, an uncanny amount of amazing art is currently being produced for our youngest readers. I couldn't help snapping a few pictures. Unfortunately, the combination of fluorescent light and reflective glass utterly defeats my crude photography skills. The good news though is you can see all the art for yourself at the Society through December 23.