Showing posts with label Punch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Punch. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Blair's Copy of The New Yorker Cartoon Album 1975-1985

The year 1985 was the sixtieth anniversary of The New Yorker. The 1975-1985 cartoon album collected cartoons that appeared in the pages of the magazine over a decade. Rare Book Cellar of Pomona has by far the best signed copy of this book we've yet to see here on this blog. It belonged to someone named Blair and the inscriptions tell us she worked for the British humo(u)r magazine Punch when she visited The New Yorker. She wasn't there alone, either.


The cartoonists who signed are an impressive group. Mick Stevens draws a cat's head. Sidney Harris seconds the motion but doesn't draw anything. Jack Ziegler serves up a cat of his own. Sam Gross chimes in, but he  doesn't draw anything himself. Roz Chast presents an amusing still life.

Then Edward Koren's drawing knocks it out of the park. It could very well be that the artists from The New Yorker had lunch with the contingent from Punch. That would make this probably a look day crowd rather than a public signing event. 

Cartoonist and art editor Lee Lorenz also signed Blair's book. His dedication sounds as if it is written to not just Blair, but other members of "the Punch Bunch."
"For the Punch Bunch
from Tilley's Toilers
with warmest best
regards————
Lee Lorenz"




Punch came to an end in 1992. It was revived in 1996 and came to an end again in 2002. 



Today the book is discounted by 20%. That means this beautiful signed volume is available for only $1,200.
The New Yorker Cartoon Album 1975-1985
Rare Book Cellar listing accessed July 9, 2024


  
Note:  Do other members of the "Punch Bunch,"  whoever they are, have similarly signed books in their possession? Were there any public books signings for the 1985 collection? Attempted Bloggery's mission—well, one of them—is to document New Yorker books signed by one or more New Yorker artists. Not wishing to discriminate, I would also post Punch books signed by Punch artists, although they seem to be invisible on my side of the Atlantic. The bottom line is I'd love to hear from readers with New Yorker or Punch cartoon collections which, like Blair's book, have fine original drawings.





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Saturday, February 11, 2023

Ronald Searle: Teenybopper in Demi-Paradise

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
—Richard II
II.i



Ronald Searle's 1959 drawing of a pouting teenybopper with her guitar appeared in the July 28 number of Punch. This character illustrated the word Demi-paradise from John of Gaunt's "This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle" soliloquy. In 1961, the drawing was collected in Which Way Did He Go?






The presale estimate by Dreweatts 1759 Fine Sales was 1,000 to 1,500 GBP, with bidding starting at 950. 
Ronald Searle
Dreweatts 1759 Fine Sales listing accessed February 1, 2023

Ronald Searle
Dreweatts 1759 Fine Sales item description



The auction hammer price hit the high estimate.

Demi-paradise




March 9, 2023 Update:  The new owner of this piece has gone public on Instagram here.






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Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Ronald Searle: Birth of a Nation

The postwar decolonization of Africa began in the mid to late 1950s and continued until 1975 or so. Ronald Searle provided a serious political illustration for Punch in 1959 called, apparently, Birth of a Nation. Here the continent is depicted holding the adult but unborn African citizen in utero. The drawing, slipping out of its frame, was offered at auction last July in Los Angeles with a presale estimate of $200 to $300. It sold for $1,200.








Ronald Searle
Abell Auction listing ended July 7, 2022




Ronald Searle
Punch, [11 March?] 1959





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Thursday, March 3, 2022

Ronald Searle: Macbeth, or Local Thane Makes Good

Cartoonist Ronald Searle (1920-2011) was born on this day one-hundred two years ago. One of the leading illustrators of his day, he was never know for comics, a  territory into which he seldom ventured. It is exciting to be able to reintroduce an early, forgotten work of his in comic book form, courtesy of Jeff Nelson.


Macbeth, or Local Thane Makes Good, was first published in the Punch issue of November 7, 1949, on pages 32-33. It was later picked up in the American market by the Saturday Review of Literature in the December 2, 1950 issue. After that, it was not collected in any of Searle's collections or anywhere else, for that matter. For all practical purposes, it has been hidden from view for seven decades.


But now all that has changed with this rediscovered two-page satirical comic irreverently riffing on the plot of "MacBeth." Searle's version of the Scottish play doesn't strike one as especially literary, let alone Shakespearean. Rather, it is a deliberately anachronistic and breezy retelling of the plot, which shuns quoting any of the great lines we all remember. In short, this isn't your high school "Macbeth."


Macbeth, or Local Thane Makes Good
Ronald Searle
Saturday Review, December 2, 1950

Image courtesy of Jeff Nelson



More than anything else, these pages recall Capsulysses, Searle's four-page condensed version of Homer's Odyssey written by Richard Usborne. It was published in the Punch number of May 25, 1955. You can read that here.



Note:  My thanks to Jeff Nelson for rescuing this Searle work from seeming obscurity. This is Jeff's ninth contribution to Attempted Bloggery.


 

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Saturday, May 22, 2021

Rowland Emett: High Tea

Stephen Kroninger has sent a photograph of his copy of Rowland Emett's High Tea (1950) featuring the cartoonist's work from Punch. Emett specialized in fanciful trains, but he was skilled at depicting all manner of vehicle including, as the cover shows, an automobile adapted for camping in the wild.




Note:
  My thanks to collagist Stephen Kroninger for this his thirty-ninth contribution to the blog. 



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Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Kenneth Mahood and Ronald Searle: Letter Drop

Kenneth Mahood, who passed away on December 30 at the age of 90, published a great many cartoons in his lifetime and I've been looking at a small number of them in remembrance. His cover for the Punch issue of October 28, 1964 struck me as a somewhat familiar gag set in a library. Specifically, it reminded me of a cartoon by Ronald Searle, who himself passed away on December 30, 2011 at the age of 91. Searle's gag appeared in 1968 in the collection The Square Egg. But where was Searle's drawing first published? The Square Egg collects work from 1961 to 1968, so it's by no means ironclad whose gag made it into print first. Not that it really matters. One cartoonist may or may not have seen the other's work, if he had he may or may not have remembered seeing it, and the two may or may not have come up with these gags independently. Anything's possible . . . 

Kenneth Mahood
Punch, October 28, 1964




Ronald Searle
from The Square Egg (1968)


 

Note:  Nevertheless, if you do know where and when the Searle drawing was first published, it would be useful thing to convey such information to the devotees of this blog.

The Searle dropped letter gag has previously appeared on this blog here.



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Sunday, December 20, 2020

Fine Dining: 1950s Punch Staff Dinner Menus

Punch's annual staff dinners must have been singular affairs, attended as they were by literary lights as well as by leading cartoonists and illustrators. Held at the Café Royal in London, the dinners had French menus and were punctuated with toasts, entertainment, and dancing to live music. Each menu was designed by a prominent Punch cartoonist. An eBay sale from 2018 included the menus from 1952 to 1955, as well as from 1957. The cartoonists are Bill Hewison (1954 and 1957), Ronald Searle (1952), George Sprod (1953), and Norman Thelwell (1955). One of the two 1954 menus included in the sale had been autographed by many of the attendees, including Winnie-the-Pooh illustrator Ernest H. Shepard.
Punch dinner menu designers, top row: Bill Hewison (1957), Ronald Searle (1952), George Sprod (1953)
Middle row:  Norman Thelwell (1955), Hewison (1954)
Bottom row: Hewison (1954), Thelwell (1955)

Punch staff dinner menu designed by Bill Hewison (1957)

The 1954 menu includes the signature of Norman Thelwell, top right

With the unusually sloppy signature of Ronald Searle, center.

With the signature of Ernest H. Shepard, bottom

Autographed menu designed by Bill Hewison (1954) with many signatures on the back cover including that of Ernest H. Shepard (lower left) and of R. E. Williams (right, by the dog's head). On Twitter, @PunchBooks has added more:  "We think the Brockbank signature [above Williams] might be for Russell's wife Eileen. We also spied the signature of Mary Knox, wife of E V Knox, the former editor of PUNCH; Mary was the daughter of Ernest H Shepard and an illustrator in her own right, most famously for the Mary Poppins books!"

Autographs, interior

Ronald Searle (1952, interior)

Bill Hewison (1954)

Ronald Searle (1952)

Punch Annual Dinner and Dance menu designed by George Sprod (1953)

Punch menu illustrations by Norman Thelwell (1955)

Punch Annual Staff Dinner Menus
eBay Listing Ended November 7, 2018


Punch Annual Staff Dinner Menus
eBay item description

Punch Annual Staff Dinner Menus
eBay bid history
The last minute bid failed because the second-to-last bid placed was higher. The last bidder had enough time to bid again, but did not.






January 21, 2021 Update:  Thanks to @PunchBooks on Twitter for helping out with some of the signatures on the back cover of the 1954 menu.



Note:  I might have made an error in labeling that first photo, as the eBay seller notes two copies of each Hewison menu, but I count two copies of the Thelwell menu as well. If you spot a mistake, please let me know. I am always happy to make corrections.

I suppose this is the time for me to request images of menus, particularly those designed by cartoonists. Punch menus from other years than we have here would be welcome. Original art by any of these artists could also work quite well on the blog.


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Thursday, February 13, 2020

Smilby: Breakfast Reading

Dick Buchanan has gone into his vast Cartoon Clip Files and found a vintage Valentine's Day cartoon from Punch by Smilby (1927-2009). Smilby is a pen name for British cartoonist Francis Wilford-Smith. Dick writes, "In America, his cartoons appeared in the New Yorker, the Saturday Evening Post, and Esquire. In 1960 he began a successful relationship with Playboy magazine, for which he produced more than 350 full-page color cartoons."


Smilby
Punch, February 12, 1958, page 232

Scan by Dick Buchanan



Note:  This is Dick Buchanan's fifty-second contribution to Attempted Bloggery, so at last we are playing with a full deck. Now on to the jokers. Dick, of course, maintains the peerless Dick Buchanan Cartoon Clip Files which he gradually has been turning into a digital archive. He also contributes regularly to Mike Lynch Cartoons, most recently a post entitled "From the Dick Buchanan Files: Even More Cops and Robbers Cartoons 1939 - 1970." Mike calls Dick "the great magazine cartoon connoisseur of our time." I second the motion.

Attempted Bloggery seeks works published and unpublished by Smilby that are new to the internet.


Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Valentine's Day

Smilby


Punch

Dick Buchanan


Attempted Bloggery's Well-Read Index


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Friday, June 1, 2018

Ronald Searle: Giselle by Les Ballets St. Trinian's

An original folio manuscript by Ronald Searle containing eight original ink drawings illustrating the ballet Giselle as produced at St. Trinian's, Searle's naughty girls' school, is currently the most expensive Searle item on AbeBooks. Priced at 17,500 GBP, it comes close to $24,000 at today's exchange rate, or about $3,000 per drawing. The seller, Peter Harrington, is to be praised for resisting the temptation to break up the folio.

Ronald SearleGiselle:  A Romantic Ballet in Two Acts
Presented by Les Ballets St. Trinian's

Ronald Searle
Giselle Portfolio

AbeBooks Listing Retrieved December 11, 2016
The current price in U. S. dollars:

Ronald Searle
Giselle:  A Romantic Ballet in Two Acts
Presented by Les Ballets St. Trinian's
Ronald Searle
Giselle





As noted in the well-researched listing, Searle covered the ballet Giselle at Covent Garden for Punch in 1956:
Ulanova as Giselle
Covent Garden
Ronald Searle
Punch, October 10, 1956, page 446

http://ronaldsearle.blogspot.com/2014/06/punch-theatre-pt2.html


Galina Ulanova as Giselle

Entrance of Giselle
Ulanova-Fadeyechev, Bolshoi 1956
Adolphe Adam


Note:  Attempted Bloggery stands at the ready (in fifth position) to receive scans or photographs of published and unpublished original art by Ronald Searle.

For more information on the creator of St. Trinian's, see Perpetua, the Ronald Searle Tribute blog curated by Matt Jones.


Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives

Ronald Searle


Ballet


Attempted Bloggery's Romantic Index

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