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. 

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Grok 3 Analyzes @doc_nad

"I wasn't lookin' but somehow you found me"

"Nobody Does It Better" (1977)

Carole Bayer Sager

I maintained my Twitter account even when the site was rebranded as X and I continue to post there regularly. Today I have some 99,100 posts on the site, most of which relate to this blog. They do get read and even generate a few responses as I gingerly approach that big milestone of 100,000.

Not all my readers are people. I was surprised to discover that Grok 3, xAI's chatbot launched almost six months ago, has been keeping tabs on me. I usually try to avoid AI results in my searches, but it is becoming more difficult. Anyway, if I'm the subject, I figure it's worth a look. Here's what I found on my iPhone, inadvertently, on July 27:

I never considered myself a "nostalgic blogger," but I can certainly see the argument. I don't approve of "their" as a singular pronoun, let alone one of my pronouns, but I suppose I don't get a say here. I definitely don't like the construction "celebrating New Yorker cartoonists and covers"—that's just bad writing. Why not write "New Yorker cartoonists and cover artist?" Calling Ronald Searle and Edward Koren icons is not something I would do casually, although not because I disagree. Readers can decide for themselves who is and isn't an icon. Finally, my interest in wrestling is news to me.

I repeated the search the next day with similar, but far from identical, results:

There is a newer iteration of the technology called Grok 4 included with a premium subscription. I have no plans to upgrade.

05030

Stan Hunt: The View From the Porch Swing

In 2016, a rough drawing by cartoonist Stan Hunt changed hands on eBay.

"Darling, your eyes are like limpid pools! . . . What's the
matter[,] aren't you getting enough sleep?"
Stan Hunt

The drawing with Stan Hunt's signature, lower right, in pencil

Typewritten caption (missing a comma)

Verso

Hunt relocated from Manhattan to Rowayton, Connecticut. (Cartoonist Carl Rose also lived in this town.)

The eBay listing identifies Hunt as a newspaper cartoonist. But as a New Yorker cartoonist whose work appeared in the magazine from 1956 to 1990 (according to Ink Spill), Hunt should be recognized for attaining the highest level of magazine cartooning.

Stan Hunt
eBay listing ended June 5, 2016

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Pencil-Drawn-Cartoon-by-STAN-HUNT-Newspaper-Cartoonist-/262493937198?hash=item3d1ddb9e2e%3Ag%3AdAEAAOSwZ8ZW5Cqi&nma=true&si=YQGb25QThn5Fxe78BW8tTy6VzZY%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Stan Hunt
eBay item description

In 2016, the piece sold for a best offer of $15.

Note:  The current owner of the original art has posted it here.

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James Thurber: A Collection of Dogs

It is an unusually focused collection of James Thurber art and memorabilia that was sold on Sunday by Saratoga Estate Auction of, as one might guess, Saratoga, Florida. The fabulous theme is Thurber's dogs—on paper, on dishes, and in book form. 

The plates, the first edition of Thurber's Dogs (1955), and the postage stamps are well-established collectibles—cartoon commodities, if you will. But it is the two drawings, matted and framed, that are the one-of-a-kind finds. As such, they should be the prime determinants of the auction price.

James Thurber's shortened signature

James Thurber's signature

There are, of course, no dogs on the U.S. postage stamps. Now where have we seen that font?

It is, of course, misleading to offer such a collection with an auction estimate of $100 to $200, particularly with the two signed original Thurber drawings. But that's the point: the unrealistically low estimate allows potential buyers to visualize themselves winning the whole caboodle with a casual lowball bid. Who among us hasn't been the willing subject of such psychological manipulation from time to time?

James Thurber
Sarasota Estate Auction listing accessed May 25, 2025, two weeks before the sale

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/6-james-thurbers-collection-pieces-1471-c-6fc45188d5?objectID=197379768&algIndex=upcoming_lots_prod&queryID=9fb379145686519cfcf6cd35a3e627ce

James Thurber
Sarasota Estate Auction item overview

No bids had been placed as of May 25, 2025

Sold!

June 12, 2025 Update:  Today this post was discussed on Michael Maslin's Ink Spill. As a result, Sara Thurber Sauers was able to identify the two drawings as original book illustrations from  James Thurber’s The Beast in Me and Other Animals (1948).

Note:  Men, women, and dogs are the classic subjects that make up Thurber's artistic repertoire. I stand ready to display images of original Thurber art on the very blog you see before you.

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James Trembath in College Humor, January 1940

A forgotten magazine cartoon by James Trembath was posted by Michael Maslin on his Ink Spill blog ten days ago after fellow cartoonist Paul Karasik brought it to his attention. The drawing had appeared in the November 18, 1929 issue of Judge and lampooned an ongoing series of manhole drawings by Otto Soglow that were appearing in The New Yorker at the time. The impeccably illustrated discussion appears here.

Trembath was born in Michigan in 1888. He was a regular contributor of covers and cartoons to Judge and other publications, but his work never appeared in Harold Ross's New Yorker. His art isn't that familiar today, but I can share here a couple of obscure cartoons from College Humor, Volume 11, No. 1, the January 1940 issue.

Compared with the sendup of Soglow, I find these to be a little disappointing. Of course, they reflect the attitudes of their time filtered through the sophomoric lens of a magazine aimed at the college crowd:

"Why, no, ma'am—what makes you think there's a cop in the kitchen?"
James Trembath
College Humor, January 1940, p. 13

"It's no use, Inspector, she won't stop talking."
James Trembath
College Humor, January 1940, p. 19

04950

The New Yorker Artists Get Ready for a Photo

Roxie Munro

The many New Yorker cartoonists attending the opening reception of "Drawn From The New Yorker: A Centennial Celebration" on Thursday evening were anything but camera shy. At the Society of Illustrators, they lined up for a photograph to commemorate the magazine's hundredth anniversary and the exhibition curated by Liza Donnelly. Here they are in my very short video obtained just before the official picture was snapped by a professional.

Michael Maslin stitched together images from the beginning and end of my video to get something approximating the panoramic photo I perhaps should have attempted. He posted this on Friday's Ink Spill:

https://michaelmaslin.com/friday-spill-new-yorker-cartoonists-abound-for-drawn-from-the-new-yorker-a-centennial-celebration/

An earlier photo shows The New Yorker's editor David Remnick addressing the attendees. A Peter Arno cartoon print is behind him.

Museum Exhibitions Manager Steven J. Compton (front left), cartoonist and curator Liza Donnelly, and magazine editor David Remnick

04854

Peter Arno for Ry-Krisp

When Jeff Nelson embarked on his worthy project of scanning all the illustrations by Peter Arno that appeared in a series in The American Magazine between 1939 and 1941, a sequence we saw here just yesterday, other Arno art caught his eye as well. They were advertisements for Ry-Krisp, twenty-calorie wafers that were meant to be part of a weight-reducing plan. The product was marketed to overweight women with a somewhat cruel ad campaign which many of us would denounce today as fat shaming. There were three distinct ads for Ry-Krisp in those issues of The American Magazine. Naturally, Jeff scanned them too.

October 1940

December 1940

February 1941

There's more out there. Here's another ad in the series currently on offer at eBay, date and source unknown but very likely from the same period:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/196473762277?itmmeta=01J4NNCK6X6JE8PF6MW9W78RDJ&hash=item2dbebfb1e5:g:IlwAAOSwOLxjp2
Kk&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAAwOuAGgjXRBDAD19v9yvXACXvUE4EZr8Jex9g6Nt5EfRt9aOd4tL9fg1JveMIfe2aES7nVQTR
l62DTxP%2Bvp1yWOPdHu3ekt3vTfdlPizLrGuV%2B12SnWPYsPCTVGXZKqzJY5HvDQ9yiqwi%2FSmptaw%2FMx2GpJ0PC
knXmmDuWfpEn4aYP7QtcRGLxIs3Uuw24Jit3hKWXuL3nM2jNUUIm1AYSPYrYXaWyD5GND2NQ0iCuQpWb%2BI7U
TAX264CoYzys1s89Q%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR8SzsrWlZA

The full ad:

Note:  Finally, there's another Peter Arno Ry-Krisp ad from 1941 with a Western theme. It appears on Michael Maslin's Ink Spill, via Warren Bernard, here.

My thanks go once again to Jeff Nelson, who knows his way around a scanner.

There could well be other ads with Arno art and Ry-Krisp copy. If you know of any, kindly inform the management.

04712