Tuesday, March 10, 2026
Patrick Callahan's Copy of Stay Hungry by Charles Gaines
Every now and then I like to indulge my antiquarian side. Last spring, a signed copy of the 1972 novel Stay Hungry was sold on eBay. The author, Charles Gaines, inscribed it to Patrick Callahan of New Orleans. It was sold on eBay by the seller rialtos, who always does such a commendably thorough job of scanning his books and writing his copy.
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Monday, March 9, 2026
My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #981
In The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #981 from the issue of March 9, 2026, two cats observe a third cat stepping out with a flamboyant mustache. The cat on the left speaks. My submission is below. The drawing is by Felipe Galindo, but his hipster name is Feggo.
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| "Well—hellooo, Dali." |
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Sunday, March 8, 2026
Maurice Sendak: Chicken Soup (With Rice?)
In the December 4 Illustration Art sale, Swann Auction Galleries offered a charming drawing by Maurice Sendak that was there called Chicken Soup—for one very obvious reason. It is clearly inspired by his book Chicken Soup With Rice: A Book of Months from 1962, a part of The Nutshell Library. The drawing is inscribed by Sendak to Lynn Caponera, who was Sendak's longtime housekeeper and caretaker, and is now the Executive Director of the Maurice Sendak Foundation. Swann gives its date as circa 1962.
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| Maurice Sendak Swann Auction Galleries listing of December 4, 2026 |
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| Maurice Sendak Swann Auction Galleries listing |
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Saturday, March 7, 2026
George Booth: Laughing Gull Cottage
Welcome to George Booth's Laughing Gull Cottage. His original 1978 art for The New Yorker was sold at Heritage Auctions on November 21. Just try and keep a straight face.
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| Laughing Gull Cottage George Booth Original art The New Yorker, September 18, 1978, p. 46 |
The sale was previewed before bidding opened:
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| George Booth Heritage Auctions preview accessed November 10, 2025 |
It sold for under $1,000 before tax and shipping.
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| Laughing Gull Cottage George Booth The New Yorker, September 18, 1978, p. 46 |
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| Laughing Gull Cottage George Booth Original art The New Yorker, September 18, 1978, p. 46 |
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| With a cartoon by George Booth |
Note: There is always a place for original George Booth art on Attempted Bloggery. The more laughs, the better.
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Friday, March 6, 2026
Peter Arno: Former Femme Fatale
The life of Mata Hari informs our views of the alluring secret agent as seductress to this day. In 1917, the exotic dancer was convicted as a German spy and killed by firing squad in France.
Come 1940 and a second World War, cartoonist Peter Arno revisited the idea of the femme fatale as spy, giving her a new code name and her story a decidedly different ending.
Michael Maslin's biography Peter Arno: The Mad, Mad World of The New Yorker's Greatest Cartoonist had just been published, and it was cited by Beetles under Further Reading.
A scanned image shows some of the details. Arno's plaza seems German or Prussian. The two paired men, military and civilian, walk in lock step. That uniform of the man in front is impressive right down to the spurs. As we read left to right, the men lead our eyes to Q37 herself, in widow's garb, looking after her six children. The big joke is not merely the number of progeny but that they represent so many different races. Such racial caricatures were deemed acceptable in the pages of The New Yorker of 1940 by the editorial staff, the readership, and the advertisers.
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| "That's Q37, in her day one of the most effective secret agents this country ever had." Peter Arno Original art The New Yorker, August 24, 1940, p. 17 |
The original art came to light at Halls in early 2016.
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| Halls, 16th March 2016 |
Given a presale estimate of 600-800 GBP, it sold for a healthy 2,100 GBP.
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| https://www.lotsearch.net/artist/peter-arno/archive?orderBy=dollarBasedPrice-startPrice&order=ASC&perPage=50&page=1 |
The buyer, in all probability, was London illustration dealer Chris Beetles. The work was included in the catalogue for Beetles's annual The Illustrators sale for 2016:
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| Chris Beetles The Illustrators 2016 Catalogue |
Michael Maslin's biography Peter Arno: The Mad, Mad World of The New Yorker's Greatest Cartoonist had just been published, and it was cited by Beetles under Further Reading.
A scanned image shows some of the details. Arno's plaza seems German or Prussian. The two paired men, military and civilian, walk in lock step. That uniform of the man in front is impressive right down to the spurs. As we read left to right, the men lead our eyes to Q37 herself, in widow's garb, looking after her six children. The big joke is not merely the number of progeny but that they represent so many different races. Such racial caricatures were deemed acceptable in the pages of The New Yorker of 1940 by the editorial staff, the readership, and the advertisers.
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| "That's Q37, in her day one of the most effective secret agents this country ever had." Peter Arno The New Yorker, August 24, 1940, p. 17 |
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| A spot drawing and a cartoon by Peter Arno |
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| Horse in a blanket Spot drawing Artist Unidentified The New Yorker, August 24, 1940, p. 1 |
Note: I would appreciate hearing from anyone who retains a price list from the Chris Beetles 2016 catalogue for The Illustrators show. The item in question is no. 119.
Also, the spot artist's initials may be recognizable to someone in the know.
Do I need to keep asking for original art by Peter Arno to display in these pages? Yes, I think I do.
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Thursday, March 5, 2026
Annals of Censorship: Richard Taylor and Hateful Activities
I generate all sorts of content for this blog, and I share much of it from virtually every new post on various social media platforms. Once I send my curated images out into the world, they may be subjected to varying interpretations of community standards on the respective sites. There could even be some censorship leading to permanent removal of some of the content.
Last year, a Pinterest pin of mine featured proposed New Yorker cover art by Richard Taylor, a favorite cartoonist. It was no doubt from the latter part of World War II. The pin was subsequently "deactivated" from the site for "hateful activities, because it contains support for hate based groups or ideologies." The Taylor art is from a 2022 post, "Richard Taylor Goes to War." The artwork had been sold that year by Swann Galleries in the June Illustration Art sale.
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| Richard Taylor Proposed New Yorker cover art |
Swann had referred to the work as "Worried Hitler." Taylor's art celebrates the Fuerher's panic as he contemplates a war that is inexorably going against him. His justified paranoia prevents him from trusting his generals, who lurk menacingly in the background. In other words, this is anything but supportive of Nazi ideology. Sure, it does have a prominent swastika on that flag hanging from the wall. Taken out of the context of my original post, could this image really be seen as a violation of Pinterest's Community Guidelines on hateful ideologies?
Well, it was. But I feel certain that in the mid-1940s, when this illustration failed to meet The New Yorker's needs for a cover, no one would have mistaken it for pro-Hitler, pro-Nazi, or containing "support for hate based groups or ideologies." Today, though, corporations may be erring on the side of caution. A PDF explains "This violation was reported to" Pinterest. That certainly sounds as if a human reported it. The complaint may then have been reviewed by algorithm; who knows whether any human input was sought or, indeed, whether the involved human would know any pertinent history.
Thus the pin was permanently removed from my Attempted Bloggery board on Pinterest. Oddly, though, there is another board of mine, this one about Taylor, where you can still see the image from the pin. It's here, but with absolutely no supporting text.
Now watch—someone's going to report me.
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Wednesday, March 4, 2026
A Signed and Serpentine Copy of Love & Vermin by Will McPhail
I'm no expert on cartoon book titles, but I believe love sells better than vermin—so why mix the two? Are snakes even considered vermin? I would tell Will McPhail probably not, but they don't exactly fall on the love side of the equation either. The context here is Love & Vermin: A Collection of Cartoons by The New Yorker's Will McPhail, from 2022. A copy on AbeBooks is signed by the artist and includes a drawing of a somnolent—or is it lovelorn?—snake protruding its forked-tongue.
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| Will McPhail AbeBooks listing accessed March 1, 2026 |
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| Will McPhail AbeBooks item description |
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| Currency exchange rate as of March 1, 2026 |
The book remains available at the time of posting.
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Tuesday, March 3, 2026
The CartoonStock Cartoon Caption Contest No. 203
In the CartoonStock Caption Contest number 203, a girl lying in bed looks down from her cellphone at a monster on the floor. The creature is the speaker. The cartoonist is Sofia Warren.
The rules of the monthly cash prize contest have not changed: Five dollars buys up to three entries. Real cash prizes are $500 for first place and $100 for each of five runners up. As of this writing, I've put $240 into the first forty-eight pay-to-play contests and this forty-ninth challenge brings my total cash outlay up to $245. Having achieved runner-up status with three previous entries, I've collected $300 from CartoonStock, so I'm still playing with the house's money, thank you very much. In fact, so few contestants enter that the odds may generally be considered favorable even for less-gifted caption writers. My three entries this round are shown below, above the break.
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| "There was no room in your closet." "I can't be as scary as whatever it is you're doing." "Well, thanks for finally noticing." |
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Monday, March 2, 2026
My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #980
In The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #980 from the issue of March 2, 2026, a king's robe doubles as a red carpet for the Oscars. The king's attendant speaks. The drawing is by Tyson Cole.
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| "They don't recognize you without your new clothes." |
These captions didn't win any awards:
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| "I'll make sure the photographers don't cut your head off." "You can't throw them in the dungeon for being photogenic." "You can't chain them up for pleasing the crowd." "Face it, Sire, benevolence just isn't box office." |
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Sunday, March 1, 2026
Jacques Louis David's Copy of Color and Light by James Gurney
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter is Dinotopia author James Gurney's 2010 art instruction book, the follow up volume to Imaginative Realism. Naturally, Gurney brought copies of it with him to the artists's gathering Baby Tattooville's Fifth Anniversary Celebration in 2011 and personalized a number of them. This is the story of one of those books.
Bladesmith (and, let me repeat, not French neoclassical painter) Jacques Louis David is the recipient of this personalized book. Gurney's wonderful drawing of a dinosaur riding a bicycle is just what any devotee of realist painting would want to see. In David's copy of the book, Gurney reassures him that "It's OK to be a dinosaur." Let this blog be a testament to that.
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| James Gurney AbeBooks listing accessed November 2, 2025 |
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| James Gurney AbeBooks item description |
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