The New Yorker covers: October 8, 2001

In a 1697 play entitled The Mourning Bride, William Congreve famously wrote: “Musick has Charms to soothe a savage Breast, To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.” On a more humble level, music may bring a smile to a reader’s lips, when depicted on a magazine cover.

Lorenzo Mattotti
"Rising Voices"

And now, a few words from . . . Fernando Pessoa

Why is art beautiful? Because it’s useless. Why is life ugly? Because it’s all ends and purposes and intentions.

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

"Nasturces," 1892, Gustave Caillebotte

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

Today in the history of the American comic strip: June 16

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.

6.16.1874: Clare Victor Dwiggins is born in Wilmington, Ohio. He created several strips, including the long-running School Days.

6.16.1952: A science fiction strip titled Twin Earths hits the comics pages. Created by writer Oskar Zebeck and artist Alden McWilliams, it told of another Earth on the opposite side of the sun whose advanced civilization visits us.

6.16.1969: Ted Key’s Hazel, a single-panel cartoon about a live-in maid working for a middle-class family, makes the transition from The Saturday Evening Post to newspaper syndication.

Twin Earths

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: July 6, 1992

Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July in the United States, celebrates the ratification of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The Second Continental Congress approved independence on July 2 of that year, but Congress did not adopt the actual declaration until two days later.

Warren Miller
(covers untitled until February 1993)

And now, a few words from . . . Heinrich Heine

Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people.

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

“Houses in Provence: The Riaux Valley near L’Estaque,” 1883, Paul Cézanne 

Movie Posters, 2025: Two adults, please, and a large popcorn!