Art Spiegelman: Raw 3 Call for Submissions—Enticing Jules Feiffer

Back in 1991, Art Spiegelman and his wife Françoise Mouly were actively trying to recruit cartoonist Jules Feiffer to create comic pages that would appear in their magazine, Raw 3.

This, apparently, was not their first attempt. Raw was now in its second series and this third issue would prove to be its last. Feiffer never would appear in the magazine. Was he tempted by Spiegelman's drawing of himself and his wife humorously discussing Feiffer? Surely, he must have been tickled. The cartoon is at the bottom of the call for submissions. It shows Spiegelman and Mouly just as they were depicted in Maus, the renowned graphic novel first serialized in Raw. When Feiffer decided to sell this original work at Swann Auction Galleries in 2024, he commented only about his regard for Spiegelman and Mouly, not about his failure to appear in their publication. But perhaps Spiegelman has given us the answer. The dialogue conveys how busy Feiffer was with the variety of creative projects he was taking on.

Art Spiegelman
Swann Auction Galleries listing of June 20, 2024

https://www.swanngalleries.com/auction-lot/_42945E9B36

Art Spiegelman
Swann Auction Galleries item description

The piece, which sold for $3,250 (buyer's premium included), has now resurfaced on AbeBooks. It is offered by Raptis Rare Books of Palm Beach for $7,500. A second chance, if you will.

Art Spiegelman
AbeBooks listing accessed May 10, 2026

https://www.abebooks.com/signed-first-edition/Raw-Magazine-Call-Submissions-Print-Personalized/32203670085/bd

Art Spiegelman
AbeBooks item description

05263

Glenn Shea's Copy of Nightcrawlers by Charles Addams

No doubt there is a story behind a copy of the cartoon collection Nightcrawlers (1957) which was signed by Charles Addams in 1973, some sixteen years after publication. It is inscribed by the artist to Glenn Shea with a "large" drawing of Morticia, who is tall and thin enough to dominate a page.

Charles Addams
AbeBooks listing accessed May 10, 2026

https://www.abebooks.com/signed/Nightcrawlers-Addams-Chas-Charles-Simon-Schuster/32442827389/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=img

Charles Addams
AbeBooks item description 

05262

Constantin Alajálov: The Graduate Looks to His Future

The idea that new college graduates might face limited employment prospects has been around for quite a while. We know that such concerns become especially prominent in times of economic uncertainty such as the current moment. Constantin Alajálov's New Yorker cover art for the issue of June 22, 1935, was published in the midst of the Great Depression.

Constantin Alajálov
Full original art
The New Yorker, June 22, 1935

The graduate, we see, faces a variety of job possibilities, the ones on the left being fantasies of prosperity while the ones on the right suggest a workaday hustle to which the college degree might not contribute very much.

Constantin Alajálov
Original art
The New Yorker, June 22, 1935

Alajálov's original was sold in the Illustration Art sale at Swann Auction Galleries in December.

Constantin Alajálov
Swann Auction Galleries Illustration Art sale of December 4, 2025

https://www.swanngalleries.com/auction-lot/new-yorker-constantin-alajalov-1900-1987-the-grad_067c029639

Constantin Alajálov
Swann Auction Galleries Illustration Art sale item description

A comparison of the art with the published cover leads to one very obvious observation: the original has no color.

Constantin Alajálov
Original art
The New Yorker, June 22, 1935

Constantin Alajálov
The New Yorker, June 22, 1935

This raises one of two possibilities: either all the color has faded over the past ninety years or Alajálov added the color during the magazine's color separation process.

Have we seen this before? Twelve years ago I posted another Alajálov cover, this one showing a dog's family tree from 1938, with what Bonhams described as its study. I followed the auction house's lead here, but the cover and its supposed preliminary art are close to identical except for the matter of color.

Constantin Alajálov
The New Yorker, February 12, 1938

Constantin Alajálov
Preliminary art [?]
The New Yorker, February 12, 1938

05261

Milt Gross: In Response to a Mislaid Letter

Here's a little souvenir for a fan, Donald, from cartoonist Milt Gross. The AbeBooks seller Peruse the Stacks identifies the two figures as Dave Tchitchik and J.R. the Wonder Dog, characters from Dave's Delicatessen, Gross's newspaper comic strip. (In a Gross animated short, J.R. the Wonder Dog appears with Count Screwloose, from another of the cartoonist's strips.) Dave's Delicatessen ran between 1931 and 1935, allowing us to approximately date this card. Gross apologizes for some delay, as Donald's "letter got mislaid."

"H'ya / Donald /ol' kid/ This is a /little late / but your letter / got mislaid / Sincerely / Milt Gross"

Milt Gross
AbeBooks accessed May 7, 2026

https://www.abebooks.com/art-prints/Original-Cartoon-Dave-Tchitchik-J.R-Wonder/32440806438/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=img

Milt Gross
AbeBooks item description

05260

Chon Day: Wartime Communication

An original cartoon by Chon Day was sold on eBay in early April. It has a military theme, but recalls some details from stateside.

"Please limit your call to three minutes—"
Chon Day
Original cartoon art

The eBay seller writes, "this is an old original Chon Day New Yorker editorial cartoon. Maybe it's from World War II or something? it very well could be, his work was being published in the 30s 40s 50s, all them decades." I'll buy that it's "from World War II or something." I'll go further and suggest that it's set in the Pacific Theater.

The back of the art isn't as helpful as it might be. There is certainly nothing here to suggest publication in The New Yorker, which the seller so wishes to believe. The date is written as a Monday, May 1—I can't make out the rest—but where and what year? The first of May did fall on a a Monday in 1944—that year would have to be my first guess.

Chon Day
eBay listing ended April 1, 2026

https://www.ebay.com/itm/236723752267?_skw=signed+New+Yorker&itmmeta=01KQXEWY4Q6SQR2MGBAP04TC77&hash=item371dd5cd4b:g:pYsAAeSwX1Zprxlu&itmprp=enc%3AAQALAAAA0GfYFPkwiKCW4ZNSs2u11xDJVNuOpi7dNbPINFSp3a%2Brt%2FzsgnpbtOeWJIdCEWVPPKdbbcKdERS3a4eDYy%2BBrB8%2F69a7xdaSARNDAElNWfDX1EWX%2BohnjA06Lr7vIKMGXAlQ2yOqhgHM%2F2%2Bg%2B1Qaqb6pwsuRxtncdfUurzs225XA3Gq9GlPp0Qbl2G2pnmnocNpeB5%2BD0%2FO2HXHp1bJivzAcmg7vxs12Zp4uM7a6mZZOsF50wIZzwh7VCzM%2BN1GeZFgPjO6g9CiwG4qq%2BKnd2dI%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR8ji866_Zw

Chon Day
eBay item description

Note:  Please be a good soldier and get in touch if you know just where and when this Chon Day cartoon was published. Just have the operator ring me. And don't talk all day.

05259

Bruce Eric Kaplan: Herb's Story

An original New Yorker cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan was sold at Heritage Auctions on February 6. It comes from the estate of Irvin Grief, Jr., and is the first work of BEK's to be offered by the auction house.

Herb got in touch with his inner monkey
Bruce Eric Kaplan
Original art
The New Yorker, February 3, 1992, p. 70

The cartoon purports to relate the story of Herb's enlightenment. Of course, it is just plain silly. Or, if you prefer, bananas.

Herb got in touch with his inner monkey
Bruce Eric Kaplan
Framed, original art
The New Yorker, February 3, 1992, p. 70

Paper backing

Twenty days prior to the auction, bidding had scarecely begun.

Bruce Eric Kaplan

Heritage Auctions listing of February 6, 2026, accessed on January 17, 2026

https://fineart.ha.com/itm/mainstream-illustration/bruce-eric-kaplan-american-b-1964-herb-got-in-touch-with-his-inner-monkey-new-yorker-cartoon-february-3-1992-ink-on/a/15263-17135.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515

Heritage identified the correct issue of The New Yorker in which this drawing appeared but it was on page 70, not page 41. Was Herb's inner monkey helping with the research?

Bruce Eric Kaplan

Heritage Auctions item description 

Sold!

Bruce Eric Kaplan
Heritage Auctions listing of February 6, 2026

https://fineart.ha.com/itm/mainstream-illustration/bruce-eric-kaplan-american-b-1964-herb-got-in-touch-with-his-inner-monkey-new-yorker-cartoon-february-3-1992-ink-on/a/15263-17135.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515

The artist's signature, BEK, has been largely obliterated in the original. There may have been a patch over it when it was photographed for the magazine. The banner was rewritten and had a period in the published version. It is a sentence, after all.

Herb got in touch with his inner monkey.
Bruce Eric Kaplan
The New Yorker, February 3, 1992, p. 70

Herb got in touch with his inner monkey
Bruce Eric Kaplan
Original art
The New Yorker, February 3, 1992, p. 70

With a cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1992-02-03/flipbook/070/

05258

My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #989

In The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #989 from the issue of May 4, 2026, a caveman stands and speaks testily to a second caveman who is sitting and carving Lego bricks. The standing caveman speaks. My submission is below. The drawing is by Robert Leighton.

"Stop procrastinating and make us a wheel."

05257

Arthur Rackham: Out the Little Old Woman Jumped

Out the little old woman jumped, and whether she broke her neck in the fall or ran into the wood and was lost there, or found her way out of the wood and was taken up by the constable and sent to the House of Correction for a vagrant as she was, I cannot tell. But the three Bears never saw anything more of her.

—Robert Southey

Perhaps I should have begun with a spoiler alert. This version of the story, by Robert Southey, is less familiar today than the version with Goldilocks. Southey became England's Poet Laureate in 1813 and was able to dedicate his life to writing. In 1819, it will be recalled, Lord Byron famously savaged him in the Dedication to Don Juan. Southey kept writing, and in 1837 he published The Story of the Three Bears.

In this first version of the tale, the three bears were bachelors and there was as yet no blonde little girl, just a mean little old woman. Southey's story is included in The Arthur Rackham Fairy Book published in 1933 by George G. Harrap & Co, Ltd. Rackham included original watercolor drawings in the first ten numbered copies of the signed edition of four-hundred sixty. Copy no. 5 is currently offered by Peter Harrington of London, and it is in this copy that Rackham chose to illustrate the little old woman jumping from a window.

Arthur Rackham
Peter Harrington listing accessed April 29, 2026

https://www.peterharrington.co.uk/the-arthur-rackham-fairy-book-186445.html

Arthur Rackham
Peter Harrington item description

Note:  I would like to hear from collectors with other "specials" like this one bearing original watercolor drawings by Arthur Rackham. 

05256