Sunday, April 6, 2025

The New Yorker covers: April 9, 1979


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.

Pierre Le-Tan
(covers untitled until February 1993)

And now, a few words from . . . Groucho Marx


I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.

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

"Highway Diner," no date, Henry Gasser

Movie Posters, 2015: Two adults, please, and a large popcorn!


Today in the history of the American comic strip: April 6


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.

4.6.1926: Prolific comics artist Gil Kane is born in Riga, Latvia. He and Ron Goulart launched Star Hawks, a science fiction strip, in 1977. It ran until 1981. Kane received a Newspaper Comic Strip award from the National Cartoonists Society in 1977.

4.6.1931: A Chicago radio adaptation of Little Orphan Annie goes national on NBC’s Blue Network. It attracted about six million fans, and remained on the air until 1942.

4.6.1936:
Lank Leonard’s Mickey Finn debuts as a daily strip. The storyline centered on likable Irish-American cop Michael Aloysius "Mickey" Finn. A Sunday feature began the following month.


4.6.1944: Rose O’Neill, best known as the creator of The Kewpies, dies in Springfield, Missouri. She became the first published female cartoonist in the United States.

Mickey Finn

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 6

 

Gustave Moreau
April 6, 1826


Leonora Carrington
April 6, 1917

Francesc Miralles i Galaup
April 6, 1848

Nadar
April 6, 1820

John William Waterhouse
April 6, 1849

Arthur Wesley Dow
April 6, 1857

Saturday, April 5, 2025

The New Yorker covers: October 3, 1964

Some of the politicians who have appeared on older covers of The New Yorker are cartoonish fabrications making campaign swings or holding news conferences. In recent years, though, real-life candidates and officeholders have made the cover, often in an unflattering light.

Arthur Getz
(covers untitled until February 1993)