Attempted Bloggery: bookstore

Showing posts with label bookstore. Show all posts

Monday, August 30, 2021

My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #769

I couldn't quite sink my teeth into The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #769 from the issue of August 30, 2021. My bookish caption is shown below. The drawing is by Kaamran Hafeez.

"Folks had better think twice about shoplifting."

September 6, 2021 Update: The Finalists

September 17, 2021 Update: I voted for the caption from Tucson.

September 20, 2021 Update: The Winner

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Monday, September 14, 2020

My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #724

It's best to arrive early for my entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #724 dated September 14, 2020. The drawing of a prehistoric creature in line at a book signing is by Mick Stevens.

"Any advice for a writer whose hands don't reach the keyboard?"

This caption didn't survive the meteor:

"Must your writing be so highly-evolved?"

September 21, 2020 Update: The Finalists

September 29, 2020 Update: I voted with Minneapolis, but kudos to Whitefield for doing a better job than I did on the hands caption.

October 5, 2020 Update: The Winner

Note: Last week in the Caption Contest, cartoonist Tim Hamilton brought us into the recording studio where some house pets were busy cutting a track. Think of my caption as an unused take. Why not get out the old turntable and take Contest #723 for a spin?

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Saturday, November 30, 2019

New Yorker Comics or Cartoons?

On the shelves of a popular independent bookstore I recently noted a sign reading New Yorker Comics. I won't mention the store's name, but it can be found downtown at 12th Street and Broadway in the city with which the New Yorker is principally concerned.

These days comics are extremely popular and with much good reason. But they are not synonymous with cartoons. Comics are sequential narrative art. They may appear as comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, or zines. Despite the name, comics do not have to be humorous.

Those clever drawings that appear in the New Yorker each week are called cartoons. The overwhelming majority of them are single-panel gags. A scant few may be sequential; these generally work up to a punch line or site gag in the final panel. These are still called cartoons.

There is, of course, bound to be some blurring of definitions. A few newspaper or online comics may be of the single-panel variety. The New Yorker does occasionally publish work in the form of a comic strip. But for the most part the New Yorker publishes cartoons and that's what they should be called.

That big white volume at the lower right in the second photo is The New Yorker Album of Drawings 1925-1975. Back in the days when I was introduced to the art form, the magazine made a point of referring to its cartoons as drawings and to its cartoonists as artists. The magazine, today wary of its former elitist reputation, has long abandoned that practice although I, perhaps stubbornly, have not. Regardless, for purposes of clarity, that section of a bookstore concerned with New Yorker cartoons should have signage indicating New Yorker Cartoons. There is nothing remotely useful about the term New Yorker Comics.

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Friday, January 18, 2019

John Norment: Grinning and Bearing It

Contributor Jerome Wrinkle has scanned the original art by cartoonist John Norment (1911-1988) that appeared in an issue of the New York Times Book Review nearly seven decades ago. The cartoon purports to explain the unusual demographics of a bestselling book. The artist was paid $50 for his work on February 17, 1951. Jerome writes:

The Book Review was an exclusive sale—if I remember correctly, they only published one cartoon in each issue, on the second page. Lots of competition for that spot.

"In spite of the fact that very few people are buying it, it's still a best seller."
John Norment
Original art
The New York Times Book Review, c. February 1951

Scan by Jerome Wrinkle

Verso
Stamp indicates that artist John Norment was paid $50 on Saturday, February 17, 1951

Scan by Jerome Wrinkle

Note: My thanks to Jerome Wrinkle for kindly contributing the scans in today's post. More is on the way.

I am intrigued to learn that the widely-read Times Book Review published a weekly cartoon for years. Does anyone today possess an archive of these? Please get in touch. I am particularly keen to see the issue in which this cartoon appeared.

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Thursday, May 11, 2017

Claude's Stout Poet

Some prefer their poets thin and starving. Claude Smith's New Yorker cartoon from the April 24, 1954 issue raises the question of just how we size up creative people.