My All-Time Favorite New Yorker Cover (If I Had to Pick Only One)

I'm someone who looks at a lot of New Yorker magazine covers, so many that it's nearly impossible to pick a favorite. Yet I actually do, I believe, have a steady favorite, and it just turned sixty years old! The cover has absolutely no relevance to anything I've seen or done in my own life and it's a gag so straightforward and simple that I can't believe it's kept its hold on me for decades. I'm not going to try to explain it, out of fear of ruining the effect. The artist, of course, is Peter Arno:

Peter Arno, The New Yorker, November 17, 1951

I believe the original artwork is in the collection of Harry's Bar, London.

Note: This may be my all-time favorite New Yorker cover, but my favorite magazine cover of all time is actually Graphis No. 185, which is illustrated not with a drawing but with a photograph by Phil Marco. You can see it here.

My most recent post on Peter Arno, entitled Pilgrim's Progress, can be found right here.

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