The New Yorker covers: March 7, 1994

Over the years, there have been many magazines whose covers have featured the work of highly talented artists and illustrators. But probably no magazine has had more varied and memorable covers, over a longer period of time, than The New Yorker, which was founded in 1925.

Bruce McCall
"Have a Nice Day"

And now, a few words from . . . Douglas Adams

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

"What is art but a way of seeing?" Saul Bellow

“Two Women at a Window,” ca. 1655-60, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Movie Posters, 1994: Two adults, please, and a large popcorn!

Today in the history of the American comic strip: April 8

American cartoonists and writers may not have invented the comic strip, but some argue that the comics, as we know them today, are an American creation. Clearly, the United States has played an outsize role in the development of this underappreciated art form.

4.8.1948: Bill Mauldin’s Willie and Joe, U.S. Army infantrymen, are discharged from the comics pages, although Mauldin occasionally drew them in the years that followed.

4.8.1984: Stuart Hample’s Inside Woody Allen, a strip about the filmmaker and comedian, is canceled less than eight years after it began.
 
4.8.1998: Lee Elias, a comic-book artist who also drew the Beyond Mars newspaper strip, dies. He was 77 years old.

4.8.2014: The Library of American Comics releases the first volume in a three-volume set reproducing the Batman strip, which ran from 1967 to 1972.

4.8.2020: Mort Drucker, best known for his work for Mad magazine over the course of more than five decades, dies in Woodbury, New  York, at 91. Drucker got his start in cartooning by assisting Bert Whitman on the newspaper comic strip Debbie Dean in 1947. Between 1984 and 1987, Drucker collaborated with Jerry Dumas (and John Reiner) on the daily comic strip Benchley, which spoofed President Ronald Reagan.

Most of the information listed here from one day to the next comes from two online sites -- Wikipedia, and Don Markstein's Toonopedia -- as well as 100 Years of American Newspaper Comics, edited by Maurice Horn. Note that my focus is on American newspaper comic strips (and the occasional foreign strip that gained popularity in the United States). Thus, comic books and exclusively online comics are not included here.

The birth of an artist: April 8

 

Allen Butler Talcott
April 8, 1867

Floyd Davis
April 8, 1896

Trina Schart Hyman
April 8, 1939

Bessie Pease Gutmann
April 8, 1876

Frederic William Burton
April 8, 1816

The New Yorker covers: September 12, 1983

Pets come in many species, but cats and dogs are the most popular. The American Veterinary Medical Association reported in 2024 that the dog population in the U.S. stood at 89.7 million, while the cat population logged in at 73.8 million. The cute and lovable critters have worked their way onto the cover of The New Yorker more than a few times.

Jean-Jacques Sempé
(covers untitled until February 1993)