Annals of Captioning: Further Hunting for The New Yorker in Print

Last Sunday I here related my search for additional print copies of the December 8 New Yorker, the one which announced the finalists to Cartoon Caption Contest #969 among whom I was for the first time included. The Barnes & Noble on the Upper East Side was well stocked with the December 1 issue, the previous week's, which by then should have been returned to the distributer. To my frustration, I could find no other store nearby with copies. My quest was noted on Ink Spill and even illustrated by Michael Maslin, who very generously offered me his own copy.

This week the world and The New Yorker have moved on to the December 15 issue. But it crossed my mind to ask, could Barnes & Noble still be a full week behind everybody else? It was worth a brisk walk to find out. 

Here's what I found there yesterday on the newsstand:

Do you see it there? The bookseller was once again brimming with copies of The New Yorker and this time—yes!—it was the December 8 issue I was seeking. Somehow Barnes & Noble was, thank goodness, still a full week behind!

The New Yorker copies were buried behind The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and Vanity Fair:

In sum, there were eleven copies of The New Yorker issue holding my name's first appearance in the hundred-year-old magazine. I'm not sure I will ever have a need for so many but, just to be sure, as an affirmation of my achievement sure to convince any doubters who may come my way and as a legacy to pass on to future generations whether they want it or not, I bought them all.

Now no one can doubt I write for The New Yorker. An eight-word caption, that is.

05155

Sight Unseen Forever: The Haunted Tea-Cosy by Edward Gorey

I was all ready to buy this book sight unseen: a crisp, clean, signed first edition of Edward Gorey's The Haunted Tea-Cosy: A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas (1998). The listing on AbeBooks was from Recycle Bookstore of San Jose, which priced the volume at $49.95, a price that can only be called unseasonably reasonable.

The book was represented by only a stock image—and not by what would have been a useful photo or scan of the signature. Hence it goes under the Sight Unseen category on this blog. Typically, in these posts, I purchase the book and soon find out whether it lives up to the listing's claims. I don't wish to boast, but usually I do all right.

Stock Image

There was just one thing to do before I placed my order. I needed to copy the listing for the blog.

Edward Gorey
AbeBooks listing accessed November 2, 2025

https://www.abebooks.com/signed-first-edition/Haunted-Tea-Cosy-Dispirited-Distasteful-Diversion-Christmas/32334307394/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=viewbook

Edward Gorey
AbeBooks item description

Edward Gorey
AbeBooks item description

Success! The listing was archived for the blog. The story had its beginning. But when I went back to AbeBooks to seal the deal, the book had just been sold.

So the item, sight unseen, is now reclassified as sight unseen forever. Of course, if the buyer would like to come forward with a pic or two, we might still get a real look at that signature.

The lesson of this whole thing is an improbable one. I seem to be putting my needs as a blogger ahead of my needs as a collector. So be it. What good is a book if one doesn't have a story to tell?

05554

Announcing The Haunted Tea-Cosy by Edward Gorey

A 1998 postcard published by the Gotham Book Mart in New York announces Edward Gorey's holiday book The Haunted Tea-Cosy: A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas. Who could possibly have resisted?

Edward Gorey
AbeBooks listing accessed November 2, 2025

https://www.abebooks.com/paper-collectibles/Edward-Gorey-Haunted-Tea-Cosy-1998-Publication/32165530501/bd

Edward Gorey
AbeBooks item description

Note:  The item is still available from A&D Books at post time.

05153

Gahan Wilson: Apparently Every Christmas . . .

In the November 4 sale of illustration art, Heritage Auctions offered an original Gahan Wilson Playboy cartoon that is hardly the usual Christmas fare.

"Apparently, every Christmas he'd take the tree out of storage and add a few more ornaments!"
Gahan Wilson
Playboy, December 2001

Wilson inscribed the original "For Doc Schiff from" followed by his signature. Playboy's stamps are in place in the upper margin of the art.

"Apparently, every Christmas he'd take the tree out of storage and add a few more ornaments!"
Gahan Wilson
Original art
Playboy, December 2001

Sixteen-and-a-half hours prior to the sale, when I checked in, online bidding was going strong.

Gahan Wilson
Heritage Auctions listing of November 4, 2025 accessed sixteen hours before the live bidding 

https://fineart.ha.com/itm/mainstream-illustration/gahan-wilson-american-1930-2019-apparently-every-christmas-playboy-cartoonmixed-media-on-paper/a/8224-71273.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Auction-Open-MyTrackedLots-101116

Gahan Wilson
Heritage Auctions item description

And an even better price was achieved when the bidding went live.

Note:  Many thanks to David from Manhattan for identifying the month and year of publication.

05152

Old-Fashioned Christmas Greetings from John Held, Jr.

Many readers back in the 1920s or early '30s were familiar with the Jazz Age illustrations of John Held, Jr. Often they depicted flappers and the men who loved them tearing up the dance floor. Those readers also would have been similarly familiar with Held's woodblock print style, which gently poked fun at the staid ways of their 19th century forebears, that is to say, the previous generations. 

A 1931 page from Liberty magazine, via Rob Stolzer on Comic Art Fans, shows how deftly Held utilized these two very different and very wonderful styles to great effect:

Music Hath Charms
John Held, Jr.
Liberty, October 17, 1931

Scan by Rob Stolzer

https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1667682

All of which is meant to serve as a preamble to a vintage Christmas card that turned up on eBay in Held's retro, woodcut style. It is time to gather round the punch bowl, ladies and gentlemen, and to celebrate the season. Let us offer Christmas greetings by raising a glass to all those present, and to that antiquated yet somehow forever-young style of Held's that today recalls our grandparents's grandparents. He frequently signed such art as if it were "engraved," or in this case just "Eng." Cheers!

John Held, Jr.
eBay listing accessed October 25, 2025

https://www.ebay.com/itm/317423754615?_skw=john+held+jr&itmmeta=01K8DZNANNFRWH7QFFXNE3YPGX&hash=item49e7ee1d77:g:LLoAAeSwmENo7-Ry&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8IUNi59bckQcV2ImusJGAkGsA7vEDri1BBGgDcublvwsgqcDIcr3o1%2FlUFSjn0zl5PoF%2FJZMJmQogW2Fo8EuhoQ8l4K%2FNZ%2BtmPkNEhvrBfxsptOO950RB

UcKS%2BDwvKIHbgmChoNYGKZ8jC1n6%2BNu79MDzReMHDzO0rfjJvwOdNQW%2Bf3Si2m2IcbOOCOv19t78QGTD0pQr91E1XmrNZsfZ7Aywbf3jQTp64auKeLRHkhDo%2Bm0OWMyXSESujZMJaTcepkPFdHowqYEo%2BEnax%2FKYecguvccShOfgor3fkuafhbVfuz9Tz3FWEHseBXxEFjcMcA%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR4Kr1b_DZg

John Held, Jr.
eBay item description

The card is as yet unsold, but its price is very slowly coming down.

Note:  My several posts depicting Christmas card art by John Held, Jr., in this "engraved" woodcut style may be seen here.

05152

The CartoonStock Cartoon Caption Contest No. 200

In the CartoonStock Caption Contest number 200, a family relaxes at home. Each family member is armed, as are the pets and even the houseplant. The father speaks.

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 $225 into the first forty-five pay-to-play contests and this forty-sixth challenge brings my total cash outlay up to $230. Having achieved runner-up status with three previous entries, I've collected $300 from CartoonStock, so I'm 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. The cartoonist is family man Liam Francis Walsh.

"I'd say we're ready for our Christmas card photo."
"What do you say we leave the doors unlocked?"
"Now how are we doing on butter?"
* * *
"The boy reads too many comics."
"I love our nuclear family."
"I always say, you can't have too much of a good thing."
"Here we are, the Johnson Family, locked and loaded."
"I love the Second Amendment—and our family."
"I told you I'd give you security."
"Feel safe?"
"What do you say we stand our ground today?"
"The bad guys wouldn't dare."

05150

My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #971

In The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #971 from the issue of December 8, 2025, a lumberjack with a chainsaw has just cut off the top of a tree. The angry tree speaks. My entry appears below. The drawing is by Richard Sparks.

"I happen to know you're not from the Sierra Club."

These captions didn't stand tall:

"You do realize I once worked for Disney."
"You're way out of your depth."
"That's how you see yourself—just a hobbyist?"

05149

Annals of Captioning: Hunting for The New Yorker in Print

My ascension to New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest finalist in Contest #969 this week has left me in the unaccustomed position of not having enough print copies of the current issue on hand. I have my subscription copy, of course, but the December 8 New Yorker is the very first time my name has appeared in the magazine and it couldn't hurt to buy a few extra copies, even at $9.99 apiece.

On Saturday, I headed for the Barnes & Noble on 3rd Avenue, figuring that store would be well stocked with magazines. And it was, though nothing like a few years ago when the place was housed in larger quarters on 86th Street. Still, the bookstore was stocked with about a dozen copies of The New Yorker right in front of the magazine section, appropriately, and at eye level. The problem was, only last week's issue was available, that of December 1, which should have been replaced Monday with the current one. 

Alas, there were no other options readily available. Street newsstands these days have only a few newspapers to sell, and old awnings advertise magazines for stores which now carry vaping supplies instead. You can still buy magazines in the greatest city in the world, but it isn't necessarily easy.

Note:  My quest has been chronicled and illustrated on Michael Maslin's Ink Spill here. 

05148

David Levine: Marcel Proust

Yesterday, I came to the end of Marcel Proust's seven-volume masterwork Remembrance of Things Past, as I still tend to call it. Nevertheless, by the last book it seems clear that In Search of Lost Time is truly a better and more meaningful translation of the title. So today I celebrate the author of this longest of novels about whom so much has been written. At least two essays on his work appeared in The New York Review of Books of January 9, 1964, and April 6, 2006. Four decades apart, both were illustrated with the same caricature by David Levine, dated 1963. It shows a weakened if not bedridden Proust raising a cup of steaming hot tea, smelling its essence, and, behind glassy eyes, no doubt recalling and reinterpreting some aspect of the life he has lived. 

I think it is an extraordinary drawing, capturing Proust in a setting we have all read about but haven't been able to actually see. The original art was sold Thursday in Swann Galleries's Illustration Art sale. Its estimate before the sale was $500 to $700, but understandably there was quite a lot of bidder interest in the piece.

David Levine
Swann Galleries Illustration Art sale of December 4, 2025

https://www.swanngalleries.com/auction-lot/_F6618C2C9A

David Levine
Swann Galleries Illustration Art item description

Note:  My reading is now moving on to Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon, whom I'm quite certain David Levine never drew.

05147

Eldon Dedini: Season in the Sun

Out of the Playboy Archives comes an original color cartoon by Eldon Dedini. It was published in the issue of December 1970. Set, one assumes, in Los Angeles at a swimming pool overlooking the Valley, it offers a stunning view.

"I still can't get used to a Christmas without snow."
Eldon Dedini
Original art
Playboy, December 1970

Caption and Eldon Dedini's signature
Playboy, December 1970

The piece was sold by Julien's Auctions of Gardena on August 26. The presale estimate was $800 to $1,200.

Eldon Dedini
Julien's Auctions listing for August 26, 2025

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/Playboy-Eldon-Dedini-Cartoon-Illustration-97-c-DD3461A947?utm_term=cartoon&utm_source=alerts&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=keywordalerts&utm_content=group-noapp&utm_term=354156

Eldon Dedini
Julien's Auctions item description

The published cartoon looks similar to the artwork:

"I still can't get used to a Christmas without snow."
Eldon Dedini
Playboy, December 1970

https://pipeandpjscomics.wordpress.com/tag/howard-shoemaker/

"I still can't get used to a Christmas without snow."
Eldon Dedini
Original art
Playboy, December 1970

05146

Ronald Searle: Holidays Artist and Model

A 1989 ink drawing (with just a little bit of colored pencil) by Ronald Searle celebrates Santa's eye for the arts. The original work from the collection of Irvin Greif was sold last month in the Illustration Art sale at Heritage Auctions.

Searle's ink technique is dazzling, as always. Santa's brushwork may be in the same league:

More than sixteen hours before the sale, the bidding was at $725. The auction house's estimate was $1,500 and up. Whatever became of having a high estimate too?

Ronald Searle
Heritage Auctions listing accessed sixteen hours before the sale

https://fineart.ha.com/itm/mainstream-illustration/ronald-william-fordham-searle-british-1920-2011-reindeer-1989-ink-on-paper-12-1-2-x-11-3-4-inches-318-x-298/a/8224-71267.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515

Ronald Searle
Heritage Auctions item description

In the live bidding, the low estimate was met and exceeded.

05145