The New Yorker covers: April 15, 1985

 

Merriam-Webster defines a garden as “a plot of ground where herbs, fruits, flowers, or vegetables are cultivated,” but the dictionary’s definitions also include this: “a container (such as a window box) planted with usually a variety of small plants.” Houseplants and cut flowers may not meet either definition, but I think they come close.

Jean-Jacques Sempé
(covers untitled until February 1993)

And now, a few words from . . . Langston Hughes

I do not need my freedom when I’m dead. / I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

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

"Christina's World," 1948, Andrew Wyeth

Movie Posters, 1987: Two adults, please, and a large popcorn!

Today in the history of the American comic strip: September 21

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.

9.21.1885: H.T. Webster is born in Parkersburg, West Virginia. His cartoon The Timid Soul introduced Caspar Milquetoast, whom Webster described as “the man who speaks softly and gets hit with a big stick.”

9.21.1893: Frank Willard, who gave us Moon Mullins (1923-1991), is born in Anna, Illinois. His strip depicted the lives of several lowbrow characters who live in a boardinghouse.

9.21.1949: Charles Boyce, the creator of Compu-toon, is born in Olive Branch, Mississippi. The comic ran in newspapers from 1994 to 1997.

9.21.1971: Zonker Harris shows up for the first time in Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury, which debuted as a daily newspaper strip in 1970. 

9.21.1974: Paul Robinson, best known for his strip Etta Kett, dies in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, at 76. The long-running cartoon (1925-1974) about a teenager began as a way to teach teens about etiquette, hence its name.

9.21.1981: The Muppets comic strip debuts, six months after The Muppets Show ended its five-year run on television.

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 New Yorker covers: October 20, 1975

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.

Saul Steinberg
(covers untitled until February 1993)

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

Knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since.

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

"Le Moulin à l'Aube" (The Mill at Dawn), no date, Philippe Charles Jacquet

Movie Posters, 1973: Two adults, please, and a large popcorn!