Barbara Shermund: Redefining The Bohemian Life

A group of Barbara Shermund's original cartoons was listed on eBay and promptly sold in May. One of them shows a group of art students sitting around a dinner table drinking and smoking. And, as it happens, talking. 

"Well, Russia's been shot out from under us. Now what?"

Barbara Shermund

Original cartoon art

The eBay seller speculates that this is a World War II-era cartoon. Whatever the case, the students may soon be in the market for a new ideology.

Barbara Shermund's signature

Barbara Shermund
eBay listing ended May 10, 2026

https://www.ebay.com/itm/147303767676?_skw=signed+Barbara+Shermund&itmmeta=01KWTHRV3FFT7FYS556YKTA5MB&hash=item224bfd1e7c:g:H88AAeSwYudqAHV~&itmprp=enc%3AAQALAAAA0GfYFPkwiKCW4ZNSs2u11xDB2IBAw2PkATz90UE0A%2BgJukkuKNdOO3ta%2FRWVr%2BElLIFZtf%2FjzDGVLGDN

J8do2W49cMpR5NSQaS8nLVnK2g7tnVp2XLHZPICjfuYAL3DEnKV01tRZPd5XJiB6xlLbtlaaHz2uW24LA09FNj5zUWAtAJJJcWKJfE73EYlKcWYG0Z4I4ySxcOf1Y902Nd6%2BSY4dNFoazQPTwvzcMUTexTpXJrC3VP1GSZWYrIhIqvJKbdXSftjxNzHH6CF6rJPIVAs%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR_Kx49HmZw

Barbara Shermund
eBay item description

Note:  Do you have your own Barbara Shermund originals? Why not share them here, now that Russia's got nothing to offer?

05294

Sam Cobean: A Golf Shot

A work of original New Yorker art by Sam Cobean was sold yesterday at Heritage Auctions:

Sam Cobean
Original art
The New Yorker, June 11, 1949, p. 20

A word about golf rules might be helpful here. Tree roots are a part of the golf course so if one's golf ball lands there, one plays it as it lies. In golf terms, there is no free relief.

On February 16, the presale bidding stood at $575, or $718.75 with the buyer's premium.

This is a very strong Cobean cartoon and a good golf cartoon to boot. The market bid it up accordingly. The lot was sold to an internet bidder for twice what the price had been on the 16th.

Sam Cobean
Heritage Auctions listing of February 18, 2026

https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/illustrations/sam-cobean-the-new-yorker-single-panel-gag-cartoon-illustration-original-art-conde-nast-publ-1952-/a/322607-48051.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515#

Sam Cobean
Heritage Auctions item description

Heritage erroneously gives the date of the cartoon's publication in The New Yorker as June 7, 1952. This is off by some three years. A Leslie Starke cartoon in the same Heritage sale appeared in that issue instead. Whoops.

Cobean's golf drawing in reproduction looks very much like his original art.

Sam Cobean
The New Yorker, June 11, 1949, p. 20

Sam Cobean
Original art
The New Yorker, June 11, 1949, p. 20

With cartoons by Sam Cobean and Alan Dunn

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1949-06-11/flipbook/020/

* * *

On the page opposite, The New Yorker has placed a drawing with much shading to balance out Cobean's lines. Alan Dunn has some fun showing us an unforeseen attitude toward labor among one of the elite in Communist Russia—one who is permitted to travel abroad.

"What a deal out there, what a deal! Houseboys! Coolies! Anything
you want, just snap your fingers."
Alan Dunn
The New Yorker, June 11, 1949, p. 21

Note:  Sam Cobean's art doesn't get seen on this blog nearly enough, so readers who would like to share their hidden Cobean treasures here should, well, play it as it lies.

05204

Blog Post No. 1200: The Ukrainian Situation

"They stayed away in droves."
                                            --Samuel Goldwyn

The Attempted Bloggery header in Ukrainian

More and more my political view of the world has taken on the perspective of a blogger. A year ago, while commenting on the increasing number of visits to this blog from China, I noted the then-current all-time leaders in page views as ranked by countries. At the time only the United States, the U.K., and Russia had accumulated more than 10,000 page views of this blog. Today they remain the top three countries and the only ones now with more than 20,000 page views each. Right now more than half of this blog's page views come from the United States, which is not really a surprise. It is a bit surprising to me to have Russia placing third, but over time the strong page view rankings from this country have been consistent.

Attempted Bloggery All-Time Page Views by Countries, July 4, 2013

China itself didn't make it onto the top-ten list until September 19, 2013, when it edged out Brazil for tenth place in all-time page views of this blog. At the time, I conjectured that virtual private networks were allowing some Chinese citizens to circumvent government censorship although, admittedly, I didn't have any proof of this. To this day, though, it's really the best explanation I have.

Attempted Bloggery All-Time Page Views by Countries, September 19, 2013

Meanwhile, Poland, Ukraine, and Serbia were themselves making some headway in the monthly blog statistics, suggesting that one or all of them might be making their way eventually into the all-time page views hit parade.

Attempted Bloggery Monthly Page Views by Countries, September 19, 2013

When Attempted Bloggery attained 400,000 page views just this May, I noted that Ukraine had come seemingly out of nowhere to tie China for eighth place in all-time page views. Of course, as I've already suggested, it really wasn't out of nowhere. Nevertheless, I conjectured that the Pro-Russian conflict had led to this happy (for me) state of affairs, and I all but declared Vladimir Putin to be my new best friend.

Attempted Bloggery All-Time Page Views by Country, May 24, 2014

Today Ukraine has pulled well ahead of China in page views--in fact, China has lost some ground in the page view count since May as Google possibly may have discounted some referrer spam--but my assessment last May of what was going on in Ukraine may have been altogether incorrect. For one thing, as we have seen, page views from Ukraine were increasing last September or even earlier, suggesting that the current Pro-Russian crisis which started in February may not be the precipitate cause of my newfound Ukrainian readers. Furthermore, I have really no idea what percentage of these 3,500 or so total page views now come from the part of Ukraine under Russian control or the part under Ukrainian control. My initial belief that Russia may have loosened the reins of internet censorship in the Crimean Peninsula may be completely mistaken, as I have found no news articles reporting general censorship in Ukraine. To complicate matters further, I have written a good number of blog posts since April about Russian-born artist Constantin Alajálov and these may have been of some interest in Ukraine, particularly among those who identify themselves as Russian.

Attempted Bloggery All-Time Page Views by Country, June 29, 2014

All this leads me to conclude that I have a very incomplete understanding of what drives readers here, whether from Ukraine, Russia, China, or anywhere else. One of the more refreshingly simple ideas I've stumbled upon is that just maybe it could be my own content such as the Alajálov pieces, rather than far-off political intrigue, that is bringing people here. It's just too bad that I've already said all I have to say about Constantin Alajálov. Or have I...?

Constantin Alajálov, The New Yorker, September 26, 1942

I like the unconventional use of space in this magazine cover. It reads from left to extreme right with the triangular group of GI's pointing like an arrowhead to the true object of their attention.

Note: Go ahead, be my guest. Read Attempted Bloggery in Ukrainian. You know you want to.

Take a look once more at the classic blog posts about Constantin Alajálov. I don't think anyone's had quite so much to say about him in a long while.

Do you like nice round numbers? Well, all the previous Attempted Bloggery centennial posts are just a click away:

Blog Post No. 100
Blog Post No. 200:  A Shaggy Dog Story
Blog Post No. 300:  From the Libraries of Searle, Koren, Booth, and Saxon
Blog Post No. 400: The Attempted Bloggery Quiz
Blog Post No. 500:  The Second Attempted Bloggery Quiz
Blog Post No. 600:  What I Do When I'm Not Blogging
Blog Post No. 700:  The Many Hazards of Blogging
Blog Post No. 800:  Think Locally, Blog Globally
Blog Post No. 900:  The Blog I Was Meant to Write
Blog Post No. 1000: Happy New Year, Lurkers and All!
Blog Post No. 1100:  The Power of Google

01200

1980 Moscow Olympics Enamel Pin

The Winter Olympics open today in Sochi. The last time Olympic games were held in Russia it was a part of the Soviet Union. The 1980 Moscow Olympics came at a time when the breakup of the Soviet Union was well nigh inconceivable. The Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan in December of 1979 and the U.S. led a 65-nation boycott of the 1980 games. The Soviet Union retaliated by boycotting the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

This enamel pin was obtained by a fellow student who went on a Russian Study Group shortly after the Moscow Olympics. The pin itself is very poorly made with a flimsy clasp. I'll be wearing it today, but only if it will stay on.

Enamel pin from the 1980 Moscow Olympics

This same pin design is seen here at the lower left from a 2008 post on the epromos blog.

http://blog.epromos.com/retro-promos/olympic-history-moscow-1980/

Note:  Winter sports are occasionally featured on this blog here.

01039

Blog Post No. 800: Think Locally, Blog Globally

Welcome to my 800th blog post! I couldn't have asked for a nicer visitor.

Google provides many nifty statistical tools to its bloggers, and I admit to being fascinated by some of them. While I don't care at all which browser people are using to read this blog, I have been fascinated all year by how my humble blog attracts readers around the world. In February I noted that the blog was starting to accumulate page views in China, which was a totally new and unanticipated phenomenon. I commented on this several times, and I avidly follow China's progress here every day.

China is currently sixth among all nations in monthly readership, but it has not yet made it into the top ten list for all-time page views. If current trends continue, that should happen some time late this year and Brazil, I'm afraid, will be leaving this list.

Attempted Bloggery All-Time Pageviews by Countries, July 4, 2013

Please allow me to make a few additional observations. This list is top-heavy, with readership in the U.S. being approximately 100 times readership in Brazil. As a result, towards the bottom of the list, the results can easily be skewed by one or two dedicated readers in each country. The statistics can also be skewed by referer spam.

Of the ten countries on this list, six are Epcot nations. Five Epcot nations are not on the list: Norway, Japan, China, Morocco, and Mexico. The strong showing of Russia makes it unlikely that this list can ever be an all-Epcot list. Why I think this is important is not clear even to me.

Nations of Africa and the Middle East are not well-represented among the blog's readers. A similar fate may await South America if Brazil is pushed off the list by China. The entire Southern hemisphere would then be underrepresented, although Australia is English-speaking and may well remain strong. Overall readership in non-English-speaking countries is probably facilitated by Google Translator and other similar translation programs.

0800