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.
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| Charles Addams AbeBooks listing accessed May 10, 2026 |
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| Charles Addams AbeBooks item description |
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| Constantin Alajálov Full original art The New Yorker, June 22, 1935 |
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| Constantin Alajálov Original art The New Yorker, June 22, 1935 |
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| Constantin Alajálov Swann Auction Galleries Illustration Art sale of December 4, 2025 |
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| 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.
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| Constantin Alajálov Original art The New Yorker, June 22, 1935 |
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| 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.
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| Constantin Alajálov The New Yorker, February 12, 1938 |
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| Constantin Alajálov Preliminary art [?] The New Yorker, February 12, 1938 |
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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."
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| "H'ya / Donald /ol' kid/ This is a /little late / but your letter / got mislaid / Sincerely / Milt Gross" |
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| Milt Gross AbeBooks accessed May 7, 2026 |
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| Milt Gross AbeBooks item description |
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An original cartoon by Chon Day was sold on eBay in early April. It has a military theme, but recalls some details from stateside.
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| "Please limit your call to three minutes—" Chon Day Original cartoon art |
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| Chon Day eBay listing ended April 1, 2026 |
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| 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.
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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.
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| Herb got in touch with his inner monkey Bruce Eric Kaplan Original art The New Yorker, February 3, 1992, p. 70 |
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| Herb got in touch with his inner monkey Bruce Eric Kaplan Framed, original art The New Yorker, February 3, 1992, p. 70 |
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| Paper backing |
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Bruce Eric Kaplan Heritage Auctions listing of February 6, 2026, accessed on January 17, 2026 |
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| Bruce Eric Kaplan Heritage Auctions listing of February 6, 2026 |
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| Herb got in touch with his inner monkey. Bruce Eric Kaplan The New Yorker, February 3, 1992, p. 70 |
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| Herb got in touch with his inner monkey Bruce Eric Kaplan Original art The New Yorker, February 3, 1992, p. 70 |
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| With a cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan |
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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.
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| "Stop procrastinating and make us a wheel." |
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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.
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| Arthur Rackham Peter Harrington listing accessed April 29, 2026 |
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| 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.
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