My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #902

The shrink shirks in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #902 from the issue of June 24, 2024. My caption is shown below. The drawing is by Niall Maher.

"And why do you think you push people away?"

This caption was unprofessional:

"Just keep talking."

04673

Before the Kisses: J. C. Duffy 2001 Exhibition Art

An original drawing by J. C. Duffy was created in 2001 for a gallery exhibition. Enjoy the show.

J. C. Duffy
eBay listing ended February 20, 2017

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ORIGINAL-CARTOON-ART-BY-J-C-DUFFY-/282362209539?hash=item41be196503%3Ag%3A56sAAOSw~AVYnhUv&nma=true&si=YQGb25QThn5Fxe78BW8tTy6VzZY%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

J. C. Duffy
eBay item description

J. C. Duffy
eBay bid history
A single bid is placed late in the game.

Note:  As you can see, I've waited seven years to post this eBay sale. I hope it was worth the wait.

But if you've got original art by J. C. Duffy and you would like to have it posted here, I promise to get to it in less than seven years.

04672

Claude Smith: An Immersive Competition

A six-panel color cartoon by Claude Smith appeared in the February 1958 issue of Playboy. The original art was sold at auction in Brooklyn over the weekend by Antique Arena, Inc. The panels are numbered top to bottom, left to right, and the wordless cartoon must have been printed across two facing magazine pages:

This multi-panel cartoon shows a wealthy, middle-aged man sitting at his swimming pool while hosting a couple of attractive female companions. Over the wall, he observes his neighbor's well-attended pool party and feels compelled to outdo him. It's an example of keeping up with the Joneses while following the supposed Playboy lifestyle. The young women in bathing suits, then, are commodities the men use to compete against each other. 
There's an assumption in a great many cartoons of this type that money buys sexual success. It's a belief of which many a young and impoverished man is easily convinced. It might even be true.

Claude Smith
Antique Arena, Inc., listing of June 15, 2024

https://antiquearena.com/lot/70281

Note:  Sure I'd love to see your original cartoon art by Claude Smith, who signs his art Claude. Thanks for asking. And thanks for the invitation to your pool.

04671

My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #901

Technological innovation is really big news in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #901 from the issue of June 17, 2024. My caption is shown below. The drawing is by Christopher Weyant.

"At this rate, we'll never feed the world."

04670

Charles Addams: A Sort of Self-Portrait

Addams had long claimed that he looked like the Addams Family's toothless grinning ghoul, Uncle Fester, "only with more hair."

—Linda H. Davis

Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life (2006, 2021), p. 11

Charles Addams's biographer got it right. He alludes to the resemblance again in a 1957 presentation drawing dedicated to a Mr. Wiggins. The drawing was sold a decade ago at RR Auction.

Charles Addams
RR Auction listing of June 26, 2014

https://www.rrauction.com/auctions/lot-detail/33244280431250-the-addams-family-charles-addams/?cat=0

Charles Addams
RR Auction item description

Note:  Got an original Charles Addams drawing like this one? Send me a picture and I just might post it.

04669

Charles Addams: Congratulations!

A classic original New Yorker cartoon by Charles Addams was sold last fall at Heritage Auctions. Father's Day weekend seems a good time to dust it off and present it here.

Published as "Congratulations! It's a baby."
Charles Addams
Original art
The New Yorker, November 9, 1940, p. 21

In the published caption, the punctuation has been cleaned up a bit. The cartoon is reproduced in Brendan Gill's indispensable Here at The New Yorker (1975) in chapter 20. Gill tells an anecdote about a macabre caption which may have been falsely attributed to this very drawing or one like it. I won't repeat it here.

Published as "Congratulations! It's a baby."
Charles Addams
Original art
The New Yorker, November 9, 1940, p. 21

We learn from the listing that this drawing was in the collection of legendary New Yorker editor Katharine White (1892-1977). It must have been passed down to her son Roger Angell (1920-2022) and been sold off after he passed away.

Charles Addams
Heritage Auctions listing of October 6, 2023

https://fineart.ha.com/itm/pulp-pulp-like-digests-and-paperback-art/charles-addams-american-1912-1988-congratulations-it-s-a-baby-the-new-yorker-magazine-interior-illustration-november-9-/a/8137-71008.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515#

"Congratulations! It's a baby."
Charles Addams
The New Yorker, November 9, 1940, p. 21

Published as "Congratulations! It's a baby."
Charles Addams
Original art
The New Yorker, November 9, 1940, p. 21

With an illustration by Ludwig Bemelmans and a cartoon by Charles Addams

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1940-11-09/flipbook/020/

Heritage is too fond of classifying cartoons as interior illustrations. For the record, here is what should be called an interior illustration:

Illustration for "The Homesick Busboy of the Splendide."
Ludwig Bemelmans
The New Yorker, November 9, 1940, p. 20

04668

Leonard Lyons's Copy of Monster Rally by Charles Addams

They say that two heads are better than one. But nobody says it better than Charles Addams (1912-1988).

The matte cuts off the writing right where the dedicatee's name should be.

The souvenir drawing shows Pugsley more than a decade before he received his Addams Family name chasing a cat with more than the usual feline attributes.

A letter of authenticity from late 2023 is interesting because it predates the drawing's removal from a book, Monster Rally (1950), and its subsequent framing and possibly cropping. Thus we learn that this drawing was originally dedicated to theater columnist Leonard Lyons (1906-1976) who wrote "The Lyons Den" in the New York Post. In the year 1950 both Addams and Lyons had hit their mid-career strides and the artist's inscription "with affection" seems heartfelt.

The framed drawing was listed by Meier and Sons Rare Books of New Canaan for $4495 and archived by me in April. It has subsequently been sold.

Charles Addams
AbeBooks listing accessed April 20, 2024

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31807373893&searchurl=sortby%3D0%26kn%3DNew%2BYorker%26sgnd%3Don&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp2-_-title21

Charles Addams
AbeBooks item description

Note:  Personalized Charles Addams books can be quite wonderful, but one wonders how many of the ones bearing original drawings will eventually be sacrificed so the images can appear framed on someone's wall. If you've got original Addams art in books or removed from them, framed or unframed, I'd like to post your images right here. Send a scan or two and tell me what you know about them please.

Film critic Jeffrey Lyons is one of four sons of Broadway writer Leonard Lyons.

04667

My Copies of Liana Finck's How To Baby and You Broke It!

A lot gets by me on Instagram. Fortunately, amid the thousands of images in my daily feed, I caught this unassuming one posted on May 20 by cartoonist Liana Finck:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C7MZpZ0rPk5/

Regular readers of this blog know how fond I am of books that are signed and personalized by cartoonists, particularly New Yorker cartoonists. I obtained my first signed book from Ms. Finck back at MoCCA Fest 2014. Now here was an opportunity to obtain two new books at once without even having to step out the door. I picked up the phone and placed my order. 

The next day, the Community Bookstore called me back. Liana was in the shop signing. How did I want the books personalized? I suppose they thought I'd want it signed to one of the women in my life, but I insisted the author use my own name. After all, who's the baby maven?

How To Baby was just published on April 30. It is billed as "a no-advice-given guide to motherhood, with drawings." Okay, I'm in.

This copy was evidently signed first, then personalized. Hence the need for the arrow.

You Broke It! was published way earlier, on January 23. Both books are from Penguin Random House.

And there you have it, signed by "acclaimed cartoonist Liana Finck."

04666

My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #900

Those cavewomen seem to have come up with a novel idea in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #900 from the issue of June 10, 2024. My caption is shown below. The drawing is by Liza Donnelly.

"Lately I've been getting bored with the wheel."

June 23, 2023 Update:  The Finalists

04665

Mischa Richter: Cause for Celebration

It's ridiculous for the original of a published New Yorker cartoon to sell for as little as Mischa Richter's drawing from the issue of September 24, 1990. The drawing still holds up well more than three decades after its printing, although the rogues' gallery called to mind today is decidedly more partisan and political. The drawing is fairly detailed and should be worth considerably more than the $33 it fetched on eBay. A lot of the responsibility for this goes to the seller, whose misleading title suggests the offering is a signed magazine rather than an original magazine cartoon.

Just Acquitted
Mischa Richter
Original cartoon art
The New Yorker, September 24, 1990, p. 39

Detail

Detail

Mischa Richter
eBay listing ended April 17, 2024

https://www.ebay.com/itm/386855618812?itmmeta=01HZTNBXJ3TSAQ2F18AJZKA84G&hash=item5a126448fc:g:eAcAAOSwTXdl8c0O&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA4JQoBdIzjteBnIdblv6Zkxo7s0%2Bh3kpfIFFLDrOKy1LbOIQvZoRjNgGFBr3lBmeQG5GKpC01gRgxFDpwaqJe8vCkG%2BeIEETzmW9hf2VRT4

ugR31SwT394P0HJlaBcWQoD9ievATyVGyLhHeKJoI5cxdrJ4Rkm9iKDmmepUF03QPdafwnrY5hBYrZ8EQMIxNBCbJmT1IDhHF88SaTO4a4iURvkp1I16wwAV9OzECg53ICLfwshe52tzj9o0UwXIs%2BDxtgleTogAYzFK4THG5vnoGMXRPOsxH9mgbQ1Quqr--2%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR4rZr9X-Yw

Mischa Richter
eBay item description

Mischa Richter
eBay bid history
If you ever feel the need to place an early bid, don't.

Just Acquitted
Mischa Richter
The New Yorker, September 24, 1990, p. 39

Just Acquitted
Mischa Richter
Original cartoon art
The New Yorker, September 24, 1990, p. 39

With a spot drawing by S. Wilson and a cartoon by Mischa Richter

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1990-09-24/flipbook/038/

Spot of a basket
S. Wilson
The New Yorker, September 24, 1990, p. 38

Note:  And just who exactly is spot illustrator S. Wilson? I know this person is not a New Yorker cover artist or cartoonist, and not author/illustrator Sandra Wilson. But that's all I know.

04664