After debuting theatrically barely two weeks ago, Guy Ritchie's new movie is already available to rent or purchase on PVOD. This sort of narrow theatrical window is getting rarer these days, as studios and exhibitors try to correct the mistakes of the last few years. Universal, for instance, has committed to a four-week theatrical window for its movies starting this year; this will increase to at least five weekends from next year onward. So, for a major action movie starring globally renowned stars and with an A-list director at the helm to be released on home video merely 17 days after its release seems, on the surface, like a step in the other direction. The movie's underwhelming box-office performance and mediocre reviews probably had something to do with it.

The Monday Tilley Watch takes a glancing look at the art and artists of the latest issue of The New Yorker

The Cartoonists and Cartoons

Sixteen cartoons, eighteen cartoonists (Ed Steed has “Spots”; Ben Schwartz has a “Sketchpad”). One duo (the Spill considers duos as one cartoonist). No newbies. The longest active cartoonist in the issue is Roz Chast, whose first New Yorker drawing appeared in the issue of July 3, 1978.

This week’s cartoons (in a slideshow)

This week’s Cartoon Caption Contest (Felipe Galindo provides the drawing for this week’s contest).

The Rea Irvin Talk Watch

Rea Irvin’s above design, which ran in The New Yorker for 92 years, was disappeared in May of 2017 and replaced by — no joke! — a redraw by a contemporary illustrator. The Spill continues to hope that Mr. Irvin’s work returns. Read more here.

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Rea Irvin’s A-Z Entry

Rea Irvin (pictured above. Self portrait above from Meet the Artist) Born, San Francisco, 1881; died in the Virgin Islands,1972. Irvin was the cover artist for the New Yorker’s first issue, February 21, 1925. He was the magazine’s first art and only art supervisor (some refer to him as its first art editor) holding the position from 1925 until 1939 when James Geraghty assumed the title of art editor. Irvin then became art director and remained in that position until William Shawn officially succeeded Harold Ross in early 1952. Irvin’s last original work for the magazine was the magazine’s cover of July 12, 1958. The February 21, 1925 Eustace Tilley cover had been reproduced every year on the magazine’s anniversary until 1994, when R. Crumb’s Tilley-inspired cover appeared. Tilley has since reappeared, with other artists substituting from time-to-time. Number of New Yorker covers (not including the repeat appearances of the first cover every anniversary up to 1991): 179. Number of cartoons contributed: 261.

Peter Kuper’s Spy Vs. Spy Poster For MAD Issue #600

Peter Kuper, who began contributing to The New Yorker in 2011, has posted his Spy Vs. Spy poster appearing in MAD Issue #600 (Mr. Kuper has written and illustrated that feature since 1997).

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Interview Of Interest: Ivan Ehlers.

From Printmag.com, June 12, 2026, “Ivan Ehlers’ Political Cartoons Feel More Important Than Ever.” 

A short interview with Mr. Ehlers who began contributing to The New Yorker in July of 2021. Visit his website here.

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The Tilley Watch Online, June 8-12, 2026

An end of the week listing of New Yorker artists whose work has appeared on newyorker.com features

Daily Cartoon: Jorge Penne, Ngozi Ukazu, Bob Eckstein, Keith Knight, (the duo of) Jason Chatfield & Scott Dooley.

Artist At Large: Millie von Platen’s “Superstitious Behaviors Of Knicks Superfans”

Sketchbook: Zoe Si’s “Power Play: Behind The Music of ‘Heated Rivalry'”

Barry Blitt’s Kvetchbook: “Looksmaxxing For Dummies”

Used to hearing Antony Beevor detail troop movements at Stalingrad, the siege of Berlin, the Normandy landings, the paratroopers’ effort at Arnhem or the Panzer offensive in Hitler’s last stand in the Ardennes, it is surprising to hear him talk about Rasputin’s penis. In truth, he adopts the same look of intense concentration he brings to his usual military topics. “Rasputin’s penis… is an object of interest, certainly,” he says when his interlocutor mentions that, during an afternoon of astonishment and vodka, he saw on display in a St. Petersburg museum the appendage shown as such in a glass jar. “Yes, it is said to measure 13 inches, about 33 centimeters, but I don’t know that it’s something to take seriously. My father-in-law, the historian John Julius Norwich, used to explain that his father, Duff Cooper, the first British ambassador to France after the Liberation and also a historian [and father of the notable writer Artemis Cooper, Beevor’s wife], was convinced that part of Rasputin’s sexual success and magnetism lay in his member and his muscular control, but there is no historical record that it was cut off after his murder. Today it is impossible to assert that what is on display is his; I don’t believe any DNA test has been done.” In fact, some say it is a horse’s penis, or, if not that, a dried sea cucumber, as has also been suggested. Beevor recalls, in any case, that at the time in Tsarist Russia, Rasputin was credited with extraordinary sexual potency and caricatures circulated showing his organ, in reference to the monk’s influence over the Tsarina Alexandra and, through her, Tsar Nicholas II, with the legend: “The rod that rules Russia.”

Seguir leyendo

Another in a series of quick looks at an artist’s very first New Yorker cartoon and their last. 

Here’s one of the 80 or so New Yorker artists who had but one cartoon in the magazine. I call them “One Clubbers” in the Spill‘s A-Z; this fellow appears on every One Clubber’s entry:

Fougasse’s first and his last New Yorker cartoon appeared in the issue of March 28, 1925.

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Fougasse’s A-Z Entry:

Cyril Kenneth Bird  Born, London, December 17, 1887. Died, 1965. New Yorker work: 1 cartoon, March 28, 1925. Known professionally under the name Fougasse, Bird became art editor of Punch in 1937, and assumed the title of editor in 1949. Key book: The Good-Tempered Pencil, A Survey of Modern British and American Humorous Art (Max Reinhardt, 1956).

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More Fougasse:  here and here. A goodly number of original work here at the Chris Beetles Gallery.

As Summer begins, here’s a cartoon sampler for you from the archives.

The New Yorker, July 23, 1984:

The New Yorker, June 18, 2001:

The New Yorker, September 3, 2001:

The New Yorker, August 21, 2000:

The New Yorker, August 26, 2013:

The New Yorker, June 13, 1983:

Bishakh Som In Group Exhibit

The exhibit, “Drawn Out: A Queer Comics Celebration” includes work by Bishakh Som, who began contributing to The New Yorker in 2018.

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Roxie Munro Gallery Appearance

The terrif New Yorker cover artist, Roxie Munro, was recently at The Annapolis Gallery, signing books, and talking about her work. Visit her website here. 

Ms. Munro contributed 14 covers to The New Yorker.

baytram366 posted a photo:

12 October 1959
Scanned from a slide in my personal collection. Original photographer is unknown.

The Tilley Watch Online, May 11-15, 2026

An end of the week listing of New Yorker artists whose work has appeared on newyorker.com features

Daily Cartoon: Mo Welch, Adam Douglas Thompson, Brendan Loper, Avi Steinberg, (the duo of) Pia Guerra and Ian Boothby. See them here. 

The Daily: How To Win Our Cartoon Caption Contest— a Q&A with Caroline Mimbs Nyce and the magazine’s deputy cartoon editor, Rachel Aster Perlman.

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