Attempted Bloggery: Frank Modell

Showing posts with label Frank Modell. Show all posts

Sunday, August 31, 2025

Lucretia J. Weed's Copy of Stop Trying to Cheer Me Up! by Frank Modell

Publisher Lucretia J. Weed's copy of Stop Trying to Cheer Me Up! was inscribed to her by cartoonist Frank Modell in 1978, the year of publication. For a collection of Modell cartoons, the title is perfect.

The back cover features a unicorn on a unicycle. What else? The play on words might not be immediately apparent.

Modell inscribed the front free endpaper, but it takes two efforts for him to spell Lucretia correctly.

Half title

Title page

All but four of the one-hundred sixty drawings were first published in The New Yorker. The work spans thirty years in the magazine, 1948-1978.

The book is dedicated to three people. The former Daisy Simon and Irving Modell were the cartoonist's parents. James Geraghty, of course, was the magazine's art editor from 1939 to 1973.

"And when did it first occur to you that perhaps life is not a cabaret?"

Frank Modell
eBay listing ended July 12, 2025

https://www.ebay.com/itm/405533414673?_skw=Stop+Trying+to+Cheer+Me+Up%21+Signed+Frank+Modell%2F1st+Ed%2FHCDJ+1978+Humor+Cartoons&epid=4598692&itmmeta=01K3YVYB47HC3XDE2BQEYY1J9M&hash=item5e6bacd511:g:Y4UAAOSwILJnqQEi&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAABEFkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1dAsTDW17yImIO0vsR7QhtTIVkQ0w1Tvf2WfV3kuRMgsjxAEn7CiQrbWtUldBpke2SZ5kVNFp7k9liJZdYj83Pyr4Txi2%2FPtudzw28F2

H%2BH7yCWtpRmcSHjxQ7dvwgIt4P779K0xxTAqh8M8%2BwRyB8VACcWh32t6NdSmRNdLV%2FfY037sea0fomLzsN2C%2B2ttUWm0LbAhI1%2FOzq2RTvexVyjtxmRzUz0A3tcWXPbotwY338mHsLuJ1P0pCbN7Sk3Mb%2BcGhVmDIVbvL3%2BxoIZZyp4otVXD5F%2BOGFizNcBbq01WXAzBwJpDuDSqpt6Byb4K9LAmyTuw18QAR%2FukV5%2FE2S%2B%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR5iy-dufZg&pfm=1

Frank Modell
eBay item description

Sold for a Best Offer of $40.

And for anyone who doesn't get the one cartoon this eBay seller chose to photograph, this might very well help:

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Thursday, August 21, 2025

Lucretia J. Weed's Copy of Let's Boogie! by James Stevenson

James Stevenson inscribed a copy of Let's Boogie!, his 1978 cartoon collection from Dodd, Mead, to Lucretia J. Weed, publisher at Congdon & Weed. He included an inscription and a drawing of a bear, presumably the tee-shirted one from the cover. The book is no longer available.

Dedication to New Yorker cartoonist Frank Modell

"It's me again."

It's just going to continue and continue

James Stevenson
eBay listing accessed July 10, 2025

https://www.ebay.com/itm/405533342966?_skw=cartoon&itmmeta=01JZVRRE9XZXCWPPSQSDEAJPVK&hash=item5e6babbcf6:g:0zgAAOSwJgpnqPWb

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Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Frank Modell: Don't Meet the Press

From an eBay sale back in 2018, we have images of an original drawing by Frank Modell. It is a humorous illustration which certainly could have been published.

Frank Modell
eBay listing ended October 14, 2018

https://www.ebay.com/itm/frank-modell-original-art-cartoon-drawing-reporter-agent-and-stars-New-Yorker-/253922027188?hash=item3b1eeea6b4%3Ag%3

AitMAAOSwx2lblP6s&nma=true&si=YQGb25QThn5Fxe78BW8tTy6VzZY%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Frank Modell
eBay item description

Frank Modell
eBay bid history
One bidder. Two bids. Otherwise, not much excitement.

Note: I would like to hear from anyone who has seen this drawing in print.

04679

Sunday, May 5, 2024

Turkeys on the Shore: Original Frank Modell New Yorker Cover Art

Many people admire New Yorker covers—inspired full-page illustrations presented to the world free of promotional text—but opportunities to get to see the original art from which they are created are few and far between. It's so gratifying when such cover art does surface and come to the market, sometimes many decades later. Frank Modell's original art for the issue of November 25, 1961 was just sold at Heritage Auctions in April. It is a thoughtful, atmospheric image that anticipates the first Thanksgiving in a way that is both humorous and affecting.