Roz Chast: Overprivileged Checking

Remember privileged checking? The term may have gone out of fashion as the word privileged has taken on socially undesirable connotations. Nevertheless, back in 1988, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast took the idea of privileged checking and ran with it. The highly-patched original art that was published in the magazine is currently available on Etsy.

Overprivileged Checking
Roz Chast
Original art
The New Yorker, December 19, 1988, p. 41

Roz Chast's signature

Roz Chast
Etsy listing accessed April 1, 2023

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1404621401/roz-chast-original-art-for-new-yorker?click_key=ed8d7061bd5aa301dffc20300f805c7fa0086211%3A1404621401&click_sum=fe9848ef&ref=search_recently_viewed-1&sts=1

Overprivileged Checking
Roz Chast
Original art
The New Yorker, December 19, 1988, p. 41

A spot drawing by Kenneth Mahood and a cartoon by Roz Chast

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1988-12-19/flipbook/CV1/

Spot drawing with Christmas toys
Kenneth Mahood

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Kenneth Mahood and Ronald Searle: Letter Drop

Kenneth Mahood, who passed away on December 30 at the age of 90, published a great many cartoons in his lifetime and I've been looking at a small number of them in remembrance. His cover for the Punch issue of October 28, 1964 struck me as a somewhat familiar gag set in a library. Specifically, it reminded me of a cartoon by Ronald Searle, who himself passed away on December 30, 2011 at the age of 91. Searle's gag appeared in 1968 in the collection The Square Egg. But where was Searle's drawing first published? The Square Egg collects work from 1961 to 1968, so it's by no means ironclad whose gag made it into print first. Not that it really matters. One cartoonist may or may not have seen the other's work, if he had he may or may not have remembered seeing it, and the two may or may not have come up with these gags independently. Anything's possible . . . 

Kenneth Mahood
Punch, October 28, 1964

https://twitter.com/PunchBooks/status/1313415595648585730

Ronald Searle
from The Square Egg (1968)

 

Note:  Nevertheless, if you do know where and when the Searle drawing was first published, it would be useful thing to convey such information to the devotees of this blog.

The Searle dropped letter gag has previously appeared on this blog here.

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Whitney Darrow, Jr.: Creative Block

Original art from the New Yorker by Whitney Darrow, Jr., was offered by Taraba Illustration Art in 2016. The listing read "Overindulged child bored on a rainy day. This is 13 x 11.25” and appeared in The New Yorker on August 26th, 1974... Darrow was so good at finding humor in the human condition. This one’s priced at only $1000 + $50 as share of domestic shipping… " Me, I love the way the mother offers her daughter so many creative options while the child just wants to go out and run around.

"Why don't you sing, weave, paint, sculpt, compose[,] or something?"
Whitney Darrow, Jr.
Original art
The New Yorker, August 26, 1974, page 23

Spot drawing by Kenneth Mahood and cartoon by Whitney Darrow, Jr.

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1974-08-26/flipbook/022/

Note:  Attempted Bloggery seeks other examples of original art by Whitney Darrow, Jr.

Spot Drawing
Kenneth Mahood

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Whitney Darrow, Jr.

Original New Yorker Cartoon Art

Kenneth Mahood

Attempted Bloggery's Homebound Index

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The New Yorker Album of Drawings 1925-1975 Signed by Four New Yorker Artists

In previous posts I have identified eleven New Yorker artists who group-signed The New Yorker Album of Drawings 1925-1975. I have grouped these eleven cartoonists into three distinct quintets based on the three signed copies of this book I have previously posted on the blog. The first two groupings differ by only one cartoonist. The third grouping has five different cartoonists.

Alphabetical autograph groupings:

1.  Edward Frascino, Herbert Goldberg, William Hamilton, Warren Miller, Everett Opie

2.  Edward Frascino, Herbert Goldberg, Warren Miller, Everett Opie, Al Ross

3.  Charles Addams, Charles E. Martin, Frank Modell, James Stevenson, Barney Tobey

A new copy of the book, and by new I mean sold on eBay in 2013, is signed by only four cartoonists, but they are clearly a subset of the third group, missing James Stevenson. Perhaps he had to leave the signing early. As I've noted, this latter grouping is probably the most desirable signature set for most book collectors, as it includes the signature of Charles Addams. Once again, as in previous copies of the book, there are no little sketches or inscriptions, only unadorned signatures.

I have suggested in my previous posts on this book that eBay sellers might want to show photographs from this collection which include cartoons by the book's individual signers. For what it's worth, I'll suggest it again.

The New Yorker Album of Drawings 1925-1975
New York:  Viking, 1975

Signatures of Frank Modell, Charles E. Martin, Barney Tobey, and Charles Addams

Cartoons by Gilbert Bundy, Whitney Darrow, Jr., and Syd Hoff

Perry Barlow, George Price, and Peter Arno

William Steig

Kenneth Mahood, William O'Brian, Donald Reilly, and Mort Gerberg

The New Yorker Album of Drawings 1925-1975
eBay Listing Ended November 14, 2013

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-1975-CHAS-ADDAMS-SIGNED-Copy-THE-NEW-YORKER-ALBUM-OF-DRAWINGS-/360786188898?pt=Antiquarian_Collectible&hash=item5400885a62&nma=true&si=UB68sj2DvLx%252F9kdb54zXrlCgzYs%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

The New Yorker Album of Drawings 1925-1975
eBay Item Description

The New Yorker Album of Drawings 1925-1975
eBay Bid History
Five bidders duke it out over seven days, yet the price doubles in the last seven seconds.

Note:  I am curious about any New Yorker collections that may have been group-signed prior to 1975. Surely there must have been something in the magazine's first fifty years signed by more than one cartoonist. Let me know what you know.

As always, I'm also looking for images of signed New Yorker collections which contain original drawings by New Yorker artists.

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Charles Addams

Peter Arno

Gilbert Bundy

Whitney Darrow, Jr.

Syd Hoff

Kenneth Mahood

Charles E. Martin

Frank Modell

William Steig

James Stevenson

Barney Tobey

Signed Books

The New Yorker Album of Drawings 1925-1975

The New Yorker

Attempted Bloggery's Anonymous Index

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Kenneth Mahood: Playing Both Sides of the Pond

Cartoonist Kenneth Mahood produced magazine covers inspired by Vincent Van Gogh for Punch in England and for The New Yorker in the U.S. They were separated by thirteen years and a large ocean. Both are informed by Van Gogh's vibrant artistic style, yet each also reflects the distinct sensibilities of the magazine it was designed for. Mr. Mahood knows a good idea when he has one.

Kenneth Mahood, Danger:  You are Now Entering Van Gogh Country

Punch Summer Number 1976

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PUNCH-Summer-Number-1976-Barry-Took-Joan-Bakewell-etc-/160666015522?pt=UK_Magazines&hash=item256870d722

Kenneth Mahood, The New Yorker, July 31, 1989

Note:  Kenneth Mahood didn't know it, but he taught me a real life cartooning lesson back in 1990. See how thoroughly I was out-drawn by him here.

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Out-Drawn by Kenneth Mahood

Back in 1990, I submitted a half-batch of original cartoons to the New Yorker. They were, I freely admit, not very good, and they were returned to me quite speedily and efficiently and without undo ceremony. I don't believe I kept my rejection letter, but who knows? I have not felt tempted, over the past 23 years, to try again, but the experience nevertheless gave me, some months later, the tantalizing sense that I may not have been all that far off in one of my efforts.

During the 1980's the stock market had shot up dramatically, and people were beginning to get the unrealistic sense that prosperity was going to continue unabated forever. My idea was to liken this attitude to that of the dinosaurs shortly before they became extinct. Totally original and hilarious, right? Maybe not. Well, anyway, this is what I came up with:

"To the glorious Jurassic period!  May it last forever!"
September 11, 1990

Notice that nothing in my caption or my drawing indicates that the subject matter is the economy. I was apparently counting on the viewer to be able to read my mind in order to get the joke. I had the self-assurance of youth that others' brain waves would be totally in synch with my own and that it wasn't necessary for me to clarify my brilliant social commentary in the slightest.

Of course, even if I had refined the caption to make it clear that I was referring to the soaring market, there was no guarantee that anything drawn this crudely could ever be published in The New Yorker. The anachronistic lifeboat (get it?) and champagne aren't necessarily the sort of things the magazine's editors find endearing. As with any of my dinosaur drawings, identifying the precise species they belong to is challenging, to say the least. This cartoon was a long way off the mark, and it's fruitless to speculate now whether fixing any or all of its flaws could have altered its fate.

The thing that tantalizes me to this day, though, is that Canadian cartoonist Kenneth Mahood had a similar idea, and a few months later he had it published in the magazine. Unlike me, he seems to have gotten everything right in his cartoon The Age of Innocence! Mahood's word balloon discusses the ecology before going on to the food supply and only then the economy:"...we've got inflation licked"--no ambiguity there, and finally "...we can go on like this forever!" which drives home the point of their shortsightedness. In my caption, I seem only to have gotten the word forever correct.

Kenneth Mahood, The Age of Innocence
The New Yorker, December 24, 1990, page 44

Kenneth Mahood, The Age of Innocence
The New Yorker, December 24, 1990, page 44

Note:  So while I've been leaving the cartooning to the cartoonists, from time to time I have used this blog to publish examples of how the great illustrators run rings around me. It doesn't really bother me because I know I have only limited talent in this area and my amateur status seems to suit me quite well. You can see examples of how I have been stunningly out-drawn by James Gurney here and by Dr. Seuss here.

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