The New Yorker covers: March 30, 2026

Birds of almost every size and description have popped up on covers of  The New Yorker from time to time. Some of them closely, or at least loosely, resemble actual birds. Others are too whimsical and fanciful to be mistaken for anything that exists in the real world. These are not all birds of a feather, by any means.

Roz Chast
"City Beasts"

And now, a few words from . . . Virginia Woolf

Hotels are not consoling places. Far from it. Any number of people had hung up their hats on those pegs.

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

“Story of Golden Locks,” ca. 1870, Seymour Joseph Guy

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

Today in the history of the American comic strip: June 29

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.

6.29.1940: The daily Flapper Fanny Says cartoon, launched by Ethel Hays in 1925, is discontinued five years after the Sunday page was dropped.
 

6.29.1964: George Fett debuts an all-animal strip, Sniffy. It was later renamed Little No-No and Sniffy. Still later, the name was changed once again, this time to Norbert. The comic ran until 1983.

Sniffy

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: August 16 & 23, 2010

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.

Lorenzo Mattotti
"Tuscany"

And now, a few words from . . . Charles Caleb Colton

Posthumous fame is a plant of tardy growth, for our body must be the seed of it.

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

"Landscape with Clouds," 1908, Gabriele Münter

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