Art Spiegelman: Raw 3 Call for Submissions—Enticing Jules Feiffer

Back in 1991, Art Spiegelman and his wife Françoise Mouly were actively trying to recruit cartoonist Jules Feiffer to create comic pages that would appear in their magazine, Raw 3.

This, apparently, was not their first attempt. Raw was now in its second series and this third issue would prove to be its last. Feiffer never would appear in the magazine. Was he tempted by Spiegelman's drawing of himself and his wife humorously discussing Feiffer? Surely, he must have been tickled. The cartoon is at the bottom of the call for submissions. It shows Spiegelman and Mouly just as they were depicted in Maus, the renowned graphic novel first serialized in Raw. When Feiffer decided to sell this original work at Swann Auction Galleries in 2024, he commented only about his regard for Spiegelman and Mouly, not about his failure to appear in their publication. But perhaps Spiegelman has given us the answer. The dialogue conveys how busy Feiffer was with the variety of creative projects he was taking on.

Art Spiegelman
Swann Auction Galleries listing of June 20, 2024

https://www.swanngalleries.com/auction-lot/_42945E9B36

Art Spiegelman
Swann Auction Galleries item description

The piece, which sold for $3,250 (buyer's premium included), has now resurfaced on AbeBooks. It is offered by Raptis Rare Books of Palm Beach for $7,500. A second chance, if you will.

Art Spiegelman
AbeBooks listing accessed May 10, 2026

https://www.abebooks.com/signed-first-edition/Raw-Magazine-Call-Submissions-Print-Personalized/32203670085/bd

Art Spiegelman
AbeBooks item description

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Saul Steinberg and Sarula Bao at "Covering The New Yorker"

There is one example of Saul Steinberg's New Yorker cover art in the exhibition "Covering The New Yorker" at L'Alliance New York. Unusually, it made the journey directly from sketchbook page to New Yorker cover.

The Man in the Mirror
Saul Steinberg
Original art
The New Yorker, January 12, 1998

The Man in the Mirror
Saul Steinberg
The New Yorker, January 12, 1998

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1998-01-12/flipbook/CV1/

Sarula Bao's 2024 cover Lunar New Year celebrates the Year of the Dragon. The cover art is reproduced in a limited edition signed print, of which this is no. 31/50.

Lunar New Year
Sarula Bao
Signed Print, no. 31/50
The New Yorker, February 5, 2024

Lunar New Year
Sarula Bao
The New Yorker, February 5, 2024

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/2024-02-05/flipbook/CV1/

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Rea Irvin: George Washington's Birthday—and a Peter Arno Cover Rough

George Washington's birthday falls on February 22, a fact that was known to most Americans before the creation of Presidents' Day. An undated and unpublished New Yorker cover by Rea Irvin was intended, no doubt, to celebrate the great general on his day. That might just be Alexander Hamilton on the left side of the image handling his correspondence. The postage stamp, of course, is a deliberate anachronism—and the joke.

Irvin's proposed cover art is on view at L'Alliance New York, part of the show called "Covering The New Yorker" curated by the current art editor Françoise Mouly. It is one of only two original works of art representing the magazine's first seventy years, neither of which was a published cover.

The other work is a preliminary drawing for what was to became the cover of December 20, 1958. The artist, Peter Arno, must have originally intended this to be a drawing inside the magazine. Reworking it into a cover necessitated some changes. He removed the awning and the background wash to accommodate the logo. He also eliminated the doorman, taking the driver out of the car and making him the central, taller figure. Placing the drawing on the cover also allowed Arno to add a striking splash of holiday color. 

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The 1945 Eustace Tilley Printing Plates: "Covering The New Yorker"

The exhibition "Covering The New Yorker" is currently on view at L'Alliance New York. The show is curated by art editor Françoise Mouly and co-curated by Rodolphe Lachat in celebration of the magazine's centennial. The display focuses on original cover art that has appeared over the past thirty years under this art editor's tenure, as the signage at the entrance makes clear. Still, there are some surprises in store, including the copper plates used to print color separations of the cover of the 1945 anniversary issue. 

Icon

Christoph Niemann

Eustace Tilley:  The Face of The New Yorker

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This Week's New Yorker Cover, Rejected

A display of rejected New Yorker cover concept art is currently on view at L'Alliance New York, a part of the exhibition "Covering The New Yorker."

The assemblage of prints of rejected sketches is pinned to a bulletin board, like the card describing them:

Oddly, one of the rejected sketches shown there is this very week's cover by Till Lauer. It depicts the glow of wildfires in California. A notation is dated 1/15/25 and bears an okay as well as the name of the magazine's editor David [Remnick], likely in the hand of the art editor Françoise Mouly:

It was not published on the cover of the January 20 issue, hence its status in this show as a rejected cover. It does appear on the January 27 issue, a one week layover—surely not the worst rejection ever:

Flames and Shadows
Till Lauer
The New Yorker, January 27, 2025

The Lauer cover initially was rejected in favor of Barry Blitt's inauguration cover Two's a Crowd. Both were timely enough to have appeared that same week. Although January 20 is the date of the presidential swearing in, the issue is released one full week ahead of the publication date and The New Yorker's editors wanted the Blitt cover out a full week ahead of the event—the cover itself was even released a few days early. There are, of course, some risks inherent in anticipating real-world events. The illustration quite naturally foresaw an outdoor ceremony, which turned out not to be the case because of extreme cold. It also shows Donald Trump's hand resting on the bible. Who knew?

Two's a Crowd
Barry Blitt
The New Yorker, January 20, 2025

Curiously, Blitt's cover recalls his own twin-scenarios cover of eight years earlier. Both images show Trump at his swearing in accompanied—or superseded—by extremely powerful and wealthy men with their own agendas.

Significant Others
Barry Blitt
The New Yorker, October 31, 2016

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Art Spiegelman: Looking for Work

Since the passing of underground cartoonist S. Clay Wilson (1941-2021), we are beginning to see some of his papers come to the market. A 1981 letter sent to him from Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly, then the coeditors of Raw, is now offered by Between the Covers Rare Books, Inc., of Gloucester City. Composed in a breezy style to "Wiltz," it is handwritten and illustrated by Spiegelman and signed by both husband and wife. Wilson previously had contributed to Arcade, which Spiegelman edited with Bill Griffith. By the summer of 1981, Spiegelman and Mouly had completed Raw #3 and were headed to Europe. With the submission deadline for Raw #4 coming up soon upon their return, they ask Wilson "If you wanna show us stuff that might be appropriate..."—perhaps a loaded word, in Wilson's case. As it happened, none of his work was to appear in Raw.

Art Spiegelman
AbeBooks listing accessed June 11, 2022
Note: "Rawz" should be "Raw 3," making the correct year for the undated letter 1981, not 1982

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=459305184&searchurl=kn%3DR%2Bcrumb%26sortby%3D1&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-image30

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Little Lit: "It Was a Dark and Silly Night" Signed by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly

Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly are the high-profile co-editors of "It Was a Dark and Silly Night" (2003), one of three Little Lit books presenting entertaining comics tales for young readers. A copy currently listed with Stuart Ng Books for $150 is signed by both editors. As a bonus, it contains a drawing by Spiegelman that could reliably be described as "silly."

Little Lit: "It Was a Dark and Silly Night"

https://stuartngbooks.com/little-lit-it-was-a-dark-and-silly-night...-signed-with-a-drawing.html

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Little Lit: The Series, Signed

Art Spiegelman, author of Maus, and Françoise Mouly, The New Yorker's art editor, are the husband-and-wife editors of Little Lit, three volumes published in the early 2000s which bring together a number of authors and illustrators to create sophisticated comics stories for children. Stephen Kroninger writes with snapshots of all three books, signed and personalized back in the day for his twin daughters by many of the writers and artists involved in the project.

Little Lit:  Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies (2000)

Inscribed to Hannah and Rachel in December 2001 by Kaz, Harry Bliss, Barbara McClintock, Daniel Clowes (signed in 2002), Art Spiegelman, and Françoise Mouly

Little Lit:  Strange Stories for Strange Kids (2001)

Inscribed to Hannah and Rachel in December 2001 by Ian Falconer, Paul Auster, Barbara McClintock, Kaz, Jules Feiffer, Art Spiegelman, and Françoise Mouly

Little Lit:  It Was a Dark and Silly Night (2003)

Inscribed to Hannah and Rachel in July 2003 by Art Spiegelman

Note:  Illustrator and collagist Stephen Kroninger has now racked up thirty-seven contribution to Attempted Bloggery. Nice job, Stephen.

These three books were collected as Big Fat Little Lit in 2006. The Little Lit website still refers to these as the first three books, leaving open the somewhat remote possibility of future volumes for a new generation. Readers should be on the lookout for other specially-inscribed copies of any of the Little Lit books to show off here.

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Charles Addams and Harry Bliss: Fanning the Flames

In the cover for this year’s Cartoon Issue, Harry Bliss pays homage to Charles Addams, whose macabre work routinely appeared in The New Yorker, and whose most famous creation, the Addams Family, has spurred countless adaptations.

—Françoise Mouly

"Cover Story: Harry Bliss’s 'In with the New'”

And how exactly does one pay homage to Charles Addams? The inspiration for cover artist Harry Bliss is actually a particular Addams cartoon published in The New Yorker on December 27, 1952, that year's Christmas issue.

"The little dears! They still believe in Santa Claus."
Charles Addams
The New Yorker, December 27, 1952, page 23

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1952-12-27/flipbook/022/

You might recognize some or all of the characters here, but in the years before the 1964 "Addams Family" TV series they were as yet unnamed. Addams's mastery is everywhere in evidence. The primary light source is the fireplace which indicates the main action while the secondary light source behind the sliding doors illuminates the speaker—let's call him Gomez—and two others (no names, please) who are observing the action from a distance. Addams's two-point perspective creates a formidable three dimensional architectural space incorporating many macabre elements. If one were to look at the drawing alone, the atmosphere would be striking but the actions of the children—let's call them Pugsley and Wednesday—might not have a clear purpose. The caption would then serve to totally confound one's expectations. If, on the other hand, one could somehow ignore the drawing and instead read the benign-sounding caption first, it then would be the drawing that would totally subvert the meaning of the words. Either way, it's a treat even sixty-eight years later to see all the workings of a cartoon come together so flawlessly. 

Harry Bliss's cover illustration for this week's issue of The New Yorker is meant to mark both Christmas as well as the New Year. It is also meant to comment on this unique moment in our political history and in the pandemic. It seeks to do all this with a design based on the Addams Family cartoon of December 27, 1952.

Harry Bliss
The New Yorker, December 28, 2020

So, the central satirical idea here, Donald Trump burning his old tax returns with the assistance of his servile, perspiring lawyer Rudy Giuliani, seems almost trivial in relation to the omnipresent political peril in Washington during this most irregular transition. The secondary theme, that of an elderly 2020 being replaced by an infant 2021 in a mask, and which gives this cover the title "In with the New," refers simultaneously to the New Year, to the transition, and to the pandemic. The political figures and the New Year figures don't seem to belong together in that room. Perhaps that garish hanging COVID-19 light fixture is supposed to be a unifying element here. (Compare it with the fine gothic lamp Addams furnished.) There's more, including QAnon conspirators and more rodents than you typically see on a New Yorker cover. In short, there are too many things going on here and while they are in some way interrelated, it's a lot to take in at once and, for me at least, there's no synergy.

And we've seen some of it before. This is the fourth cover published by The New Yorker this year to feature Donald Trump, the tenth to include at least one face mask, the second with a large image of the coronavirus, and the second in a row with a lit fireplace. For what it's worth, it is the first cover with QAnon.

"Greetings, Friends! [1952]" by Frank Sullivan, cartoon by Charles Addams

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1952-12-27/flipbook/022/

Note:  This Halloween, I posted Joel Jacobus's Charles Addams scrapbook, which included a clipping of the fireplace cartoon. I wonder whether Harry Bliss might have stolen a glimpse at this blog around then. Of course, there are many other places he could have come across the cartoon—in Homebodies (1954), for example—but still I do wonder whether I've had some ever-so-slight sway over the content of a New Yorker cover.

Scrapbook image

This Addams cartoon has been quite influential over the years, it seems. The blog Long Forgotten argues quite plausibly that the drawing influenced the design of the ballroom in Disney's Haunted Mansion attraction. Check it out here.

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