Review: "The Favorites," Layne Fargo

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The New Yorker covers: January 1 & 8, 2024

New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are two sides of the same coin, and when it comes to magazine covers, both days have figured prominently. The New Yorker’s covers often gave a tip of the hat to the outgoing/incoming year. Or they focused on drunken revelry and its “morning after” consequences.

Bianca Bagnarelli
"Deadline"

And now, a few words from . . . Frank Sinatra

You gotta love livin', baby, 'cause dyin' is a pain in the ass.

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

"A Gypsy," 1872, Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta

Movie Posters, 1962: Two adults, please, and a large popcorn!

Today in the history of the American comic strip: January 28

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. 

1.28.1986: Allen Saunders, who wrote Steve Roper and Mike Nomad, Mary Worth, and Kerry Drake, dies in Maumee, Ohio, at 86.

1.28.1996: Jerry Siegel, the co-creator (with Joe Shuster) of Superman, dies in Los Angeles, California. He was 81. Superman appeared in comic books before making the leap to newspapers.

1.28.1996: Burne Hogarth dies in Paris, France. Hogarth drew the Tarzan Sunday page from 1937 to 1945, and again from 1947 to 1950. 

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: May 24, 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.

Daniel Clowes
"Boomerang Generation"