The New Yorker covers: October 21, 1950

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.

Garrett Price
(covers untitled until February 1993)

And now, a few words from . . . John Conway

People think that mathematics is complicated. Mathematics is the simple bit, it's the stuff we can understand. It's cats that are complicated.

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

Self-portrait, 1889, Paul Gauguin

Movie Posters, 1940: Two adults, please, and a large popcorn!

Today in the history of the American comic strip: July 14

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.

7.14.1900: Illustrator and cartoonist Harry Haenigsen is born. He is best known for Penny, a strip about a teenage girl that launched in 1943 and survived for almost three decades.

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.

Review: "Vermilion Drift," William Kent Krueger

Find exclusive book reviews, including this one, at The Walrus Said blog.

The New Yorker covers: November 29, 1941

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.

Roger Duvoisin
(covers untitled until February 1993)

And now, a few words from . . . James Beard

Too few people understand a really good sandwich.

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

"The Scout: Friends or Foes?," 1902-05, Frederic Remington