Claude Smith: The Happy Husband

Claude Smith called his seven-panel New Yorker cartoon of April 13, 1968, "one of my few supers!" On May 31, 1982, he pronounced it "Still a good one!" These notations were presumably made when the artist presented the original to a new owner. The art was sold in Brooklyn on January 4 for $400 plus a 28% buyer's premium.

Claude's drawing has an underlying assumption of female subservience rewarded only by male anger. The accommodating woman fails to make her husband happy, while his immature acting out brings him pleasure and contentment. Is it telling that Claude was so pleased with himself here?

Versos

The stamp indicates Ben Day was used for shading . . . but I don't see any shading.

Verso

Claude Smith's signature

Claude Smith
Antique Arena, Inc., sale of January 4, 2024

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/195006709_claude-smith-original-new-yorker-magazine-cartoon

Claude Smith 
Antique Arena, Inc., sale of January 4, 2025

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/195006709_claude-smith-original-new-yorker-magazine-cartoon/?from=alert&utm_source=LA_SavedAlert&utm_campaign=SearchAlert_20230912_A&utm_medium=email&utm_content=itemendingsoon

Note:  For once an auction house has really done its homework. If you'd like to do your homework too, send along images of some original Claude Smith art along with all the publication info. Be nice and I may even throw a coaster at you.

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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.

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Joseph Farris, Sam Gross, Mischa Richter, Claude Smith, and James Stevenson: From the Collection of Paul P. Goldberg

A group of twenty cartoons from the Paul P. Goldberg collection of autograph drawings, signed, is apparently arranged by date. The postal cards sent through the mail in 1967 during the Johnson Era have an assortment of cartoonists that apparently mean nothing to the eBay seller. But at least two notable political cartoonists are there, Pat Oliphant and Don Wright. Oliphant has drawn his ubiquitous penguin Punk. Wright is one of three artists in the grouping to draw LBJ.

There are also no fewer than five New Yorker cartoonists in the mix as well, although one of them, the now legendary Sam Gross, was not to have his first appearance in the magazine until two years later, in 1969. Here the young cartoonist portrays himself smoking a cigar while drawing. He's smiling; there's not yet a scowl in sight. The New Yorker's Joseph Farris, who was to draw men wearing fedoras long after it stopped being commonplace, here draws an ungroomed and bare-headed prophet carrying a sign. Also carrying a sign is Claude Smith's marching self-portrait. His signature, as always, is his first name only. Mischa Richter raises his hat; in the James Stevenson drawing, the hat stays squarely on the head.

Twenty cartoonists
eBay bid history
It's best to be the very last bidder, even more so with thirty-eight bids.

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A Treasury of TV Jibes

During the heyday of TV Guide magazine, TV Jibes was a popular feature, consisting of television-themed cartoons created by some leading practitioners of the art. A dozen pages of these cartoons were collected in A Treasury of TV Jibes, which was included as an insert with the magazine. Hence there is no price on the cover. Alas, there is also no copyright date.

Johnny Carson
Ronald Searle
TV Jibes

Scan by Tom Bloom

Even without a date of publication, we know TV Jibes couldn't have appeared before Ronald Searle's TV Guide cover of 1968 featuring Johnny Carson, and most likely it didn't appear immediately afterward either. Hence, a reasonable estimate for the publication date is 1970.

Johnny Carson
Ronald Searle
TV Guide, August 31-September 6, 1968

Here then is the rest of this issue of TV Jibes, the whole kit and kaboodle, as heroically scanned by Tom Bloom.

   TV Jibes                                   The Young Set
J. B. Handelsman                                  Claude Smith       
Henry Martin                              Charles Rodrigues
Charles Rodrigues                                   Chon Day        

TV Jibe:  Debatable Tactics                                   TV Jibes     
             Brian Savage                              Copper[?]          Hageman[?]
                                                                 Al Kaufman

         TV Jibes                                 TV Jibe:  The Younger Set
Charles E. Martin                                       Sidney Harris      
Henry Martin                                                          
Charles Rodrigues                                                        

TV Jibe:  It Must Be Football                                  My Fellow Americans...
Paul Peter Porges                                                 Brian Savage

TV Jibe:  And Now a Pause for the Program...             TV Jibe:  An Evening at Home
          Sidney Harris                                             Charles Rodrigues
                                                                     Paul Peter Porges
                                                                     Larry [Terence Parkes]

TV Jibes                                     TV Jibe:  Poor Reception
Charles Rodrigues                       Larry [Terence Parkes]
Mort Gerberg                                       Joseph Farris
Val                                           Charles Rodrigues

Note:  First off, my sincere thanks to Tom Bloom for this contribution. As I've already called his scanning heroic, I haven't left myself too much else to add. This is Tom's seventeenth contribution to Attempted Bloggery.

We are not alone. Postino writes informatively about this very TV Jibes cartoon booklet in the blog Insomnia Notebook here.

Cover artist Ronald Searle's extensive TV Guide work is surveyed in Perpetua, the Ronald Searle Tribute blog, here. There's no mention of TV Jibes, though, but that could change. 

Numerically speaking, Ronald Searle's centenary closed on March 3, which marked 101 years since the artist's birth. Nevertheless, since the pandemic interrupted any proper recognition of his achievement, I have taken the lead from the Wilhelm Busch Museum in Hanover, Germany, and will continue to celebrate his centenary. Indefinitely.

Three of the cartoonists shown above in the pages of TV Jibes are unfamiliar to me. I will tentatively identify them as Copper, Hageman, and Val, although I am not sure I'm reading the first two signatures correctly. Does anybody recognize the cartoonists or know a little something about them? Do tell.

Also--can anyone tell me with which issue this insert was distributed? I'm kind of a stickler for these things, especially when they're of no importance.

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