A new sequel to Gremlinsis in the works, after the franchise lay dormant for many years. The original film, a sleeper hit in 1984, spawned a chaotic comedy sequel and, more recently, a prequel animated series. However, there's one thing that will never happen to the franchise: a reboot. Star Zach Galligan recently discussed the situation at a panel at the Indiana Comic Convention.
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
Nineteen cartoons, twenty cartoonists in this themed (“America At 250”) double issue* (Barry Blitt has the cover). One duo, that we know of (the Spill counts duos as one cartoonist). No newbies. Liana Finck has a ‘Sketchbook” as well as a cartoon.
*Not counting the three cartoonists whose drawings appear as part of the Cartoon Caption Contest. However, the longest active contributing cartoonist in the issue is Mort Gerberg, who supplied this week’s Caption Contest drawing (he began contributing in 1965).
This week’s cartoons (in a slideshow).
The Rea Irvin Talk Watch
Back in May of 2017, the above perfect Talk design by Rea Irvin was carted away (after appearing for 92 years!) and replaced –if you can believe it — by a redraw via a contemporary illustrator. The Spill continues to hope Mr. Irvin’s work returns. Read more here.
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Rea Irvin’s A-Z
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.
The post Monday Spill, The New Yorker (Double) Issue Of May 11 & 18, 2026 first appeared on Inkspill.
Every year, there are two major migration events. Birds, insects, fish, and many mammals head north in the spring to nest and breed and return south in the winter to feed and raise their young. Using BirdCast, a tool that’s active seasonally and allows anyone to see bird migration “heat maps” around the U.S., ornithologists tracked a record-breaking one billion birds migrating on a single October night in 2023 (last year, that number reached 1.2 billion). But on the night spanning October 4 to 5, something else really big happened: nearly 1,000 birds died in Chicago after hitting a single building.
McCormick Place Lakeside Center is situated along the Lake Michigan shoreline, set apart from other buildings in a park-like space, and it has roughly enough windows to cover two football fields. As birds cruise along the shore, flitting over greenery, they sometimes mistake the reflections of nature in glass for the real thing. On the morning of October 5, hundreds of birds fell victim to architecture.
When artist and educator Holly Greenberg heard this news, she was stunned. No stranger to nature and long interested in sustainability and the environment, she was nevertheless totally unaware of the scale of bird collisions in the U.S. During a day out in a Chicagoland arboretum, on sabbatical from her role as assistant professor at Syracuse University, she worked with a group to remove invasive buckthorn and make room for native trees. A fellow volunteer rued the sad irony of planting new bird habitat when the feathered creatures try to fly into their reflections in glass instead.
“That was the first time that I’d heard that these birds were crashing into windows in Chicago,” Greenberg says. When she later read about the mass collision at McCormick Place, she thought, “Oh man, something needs to be done.” That’s when the multi-year project Bird Collisions in the Anthropocene was born.
Greenberg launched the initiative in 2024 to not only raise awareness of the problem but also to educate people about preventing incidents. Using data from the Chicago Field Museum and with the help of its lead ornithologist Dave Willard, Greenberg landed on a specific number: 10,863. That’s how many were found dead after hitting Chicago buildings in 2023 alone.
It’s estimated that around one billion birds die in window collisions annually throughout North America. One of the organizations working to collect this data and—just as importantly—to protect, rescue, and advocate for avians is the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors (CBCM) program. Every morning, volunteers walk the streets of the city to count and collect fallen individuals, taking them to wildlife sanctuaries for treatment or rehabilitation where possible. Most, however, don’t survive the impact.
Paul Groleau, president of a company called Feather Friendly that makes bird-safe window treatments, suggests that many more die from window impacts than we realize. Greenberg hears people at her workshops say things like, “I heard a bird hit my window, but it flew off, so it’s fine.” Groleau, however, posits that about 60 percent of birds that are stunned do not survive. Their skulls are paper-thin, and if they don’t hemorrhage, they may sit under some shrubbery as they try to recover, which makes them more vulnerable as prey.
When CBCM volunteers find dead specimens, they take them to the Field Museum, where the bodies become part of an archive Willard has overseen for decades. Many are preserved in the museum’s collection, each tagged and identified. At the very least, they are added to a carefully tended data set, which lists thousands upon thousands specifically killed by impacting windows at speed.
10,863 is the number Willard had recorded in 2023. Of course, the actual number of birds that collided with windows that year is exponentially higher, but the figure reflects the number that Willard and the CBCM volunteers found. And it’s the exact number that Greenberg is getting thousands of people to help recreate from fabric and glue. At the same time, she’s sharing knowledge about collisions with others through craft, science, advocacy, and social practice.
Starting with a small grant and a group of interns at Syracuse University, Bird Collisions in the Anthropocene began with the list of avians from the Field Museum, some basic crafting supplies, and photographs of individual birds so that makers could replicate the actual species. Eventually, Greenberg relocated to Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, and opened a studio where she hosts workshops and processes birds that are sent in from all over North America.
Workshops are facilitated across the U.S. and Canada, and so far, a total of more than 140 have been held. Materials can be downloaded from the website, and anyone can host a workshop. Popular locations include public libraries and schools. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which is behind the BirdCast tool, has even launched a pilot program to send hundreds of sew-a-bird kits to biology teachers in New York State in order to help students complete a core education requirement.
The hands-on, participatory, and very communal aspect of the bird workshops is fundamental to the project’s success. Greenberg opens her studio to the public on the first Saturday of every month as part of the Evanston Made program, and private gatherings can be organized, too. “People get into the flow, no one is touching their phone, and everyone is super concentrated,” Greenberg says. “They’re working with awkward materials, and it’s a mess, but it’s a good creative mindset.”
Studies have shown that hands-on or experiential learning is linked to greater knowledge retention, attentiveness, and experimentation. As people create their house sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, golden-crowned kinglets, and many more—and one’s level of technical skill is no matter—a sense of camaraderie builds around a common pursuit. Greenberg then provides resources about how to help prevent bird collisions, such as information about remediation technologies.
Businesses like Feather Friendly make products that can be applied directly to any window, most commonly in the form of small vinyl dots. It also offers Bird Divert, which uses clear dots that are actually hard for us to see, but due to the way birds’ vision works, the application helps them to differentiate between architecture and nature. Fritted glass is another method, which involves ceramic details baked right onto the surface of the glass.
Greenberg sees the artistic potential in the remedial window coverings, and she has previously invited artist Taro Takizawa to apply beautiful organic lines made of hand-cut vinyl on the top windows of her Evanston studio. For a forthcoming social project this summer, Greenberg plans to install different types of remediation dots on the large storefront windows of the space, plus an installation by artist Alice Hargrave, who creates abstract works using the sound waves of bird calls.
While the official number of finished birds is currently at 3,451, Greenberg estimates there are at least 1,000 more awaiting tagging and entry into the project’s handwritten ledger, which is reminiscent of museum catalogues before computerized records came into widespread use. With the help of a team of interns, she labels each bird individually with its species name, its artist, and where it “flew” in from. And installation opportunities abound.
Eventually, the birds will create one giant “carpet” to illustrate not only the poignant and urgent reality of bird collision deaths, but the power of collective action. In the meantime, groups of the fabric critters go on view occasionally in other exhibitions. One of these is Chicago Architecture Center’s forthcoming show, Flyway City, which “aims to catalyze positive change on making cities safer and more welcoming for birds and diverse wildlife” by focusing on how architecture can help to protect avians from the get-go.
The exhibition is organized by Studio Gang, whose lead architect, Jeanne Gang, has also encouraged the city of Chicago to enact building codes that are more bird-friendly. While Evanston has an ordinance that requires bird-friendly building design, Chicago does not yet, although it’s been on the table many times. Greenberg hopes that continued advocacy and information-sharing empowers others to speak up, too, so that these types of changes will be seen in more communities all over North America.
Flyway City runs from June 11 to January 3, 2027, in Chicago. Keep updated about workshops and other ways to get involved by following Greenberg’s Instagram.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Around North America, Community Members Are Stitching Nearly 11,000 Birds appeared first on Colossal.
According to the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the top-rated movie of Michael Bay's famously over-the-top career is The Rock, which holds a "Certified Fresh" 76% score. Starring Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery — imagine what that set must have been like — the film remains a seminal example of 1990s excess. In many ways, Bay was the architect of this style, which he carried forward into the 2000s and continues to refine to this day. In fact, his latest feature, Ambulance, is his second-highest-rated film on Rotten Tomatoes with a 68% score. Ambulance featured some of the most ambitious action ever orchestrated by Bay. But there seems to be a fine line separating pleasurable maximalism and garish excess, and Bay's movies often fall on the wrong side.
When you think of directors, you likely think of Steven Spielberg as one of the most influential in Hollywood. In addition to receiving 24 Academy Award nominations, taking home three, the filmmaker achieved EGOT status, and is the highest-grossing director of all time. Now, in honor of Spielberg's Disclosure Day arriving in theaters this week, we asked some of your favorite stars a very important question: What's your favorite Steven Spielberg movie?
In 1992, the heavens opened up and rained $231.6 million on Sister Act.
Reportedly made for only $31 million, the comedy starring Whoopi Goldberg as a Reno lounge singer who hides out in a convent...
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