This is the first episode of a semi-regular feature in which I will have an informal chat with New Yorker cartoonist Michael Maslin. Michael has been contributing to the magazine as a cartoonist since 1977, I have been contributing since 1979. We have been married for 35 years, and met because of The New Yorker. We will discuss the biz, but also politics, illustration, writing, marriage, pets. The weather, maybe (not really).
In this episode we talk about drawing, and touch on some history of this strange art form. We are both a bit fanatical about our predecessors at The New Yorker— we try not to get too weedsy. For me, I just love all the different ways New Yorker artists have expressed our world with humor. The magazine is celebrating its 100th birthday in 2025; combined, Michael and I have been there 90 years. We both already were being published at the magazine when we met: then at a party a few years later, we made a “date” to go see an orignal James Thurber (both of us began drawing cartoons when we were kids because of our love of his work). The drawing below was up for auction. We of course didn’t buy it, but we started a relationship that has lasted close to 40 years.
Here below are visual references to some of the things we touched on in our conversation.
Here is the drawing from 1979 of his that Michael refers to.
William Steig did a cover about flowers:
As did Helen Hokinson. She actually did a lot of covers about or with flowers.
Here is the book she illustrated that we talk about in this podcast:
My drawing is about divorce, but I depict a woman arranging flowers in the drawing, published in The New Yorker in 2004:
The book Michael and I did together, Cartoon Marriage, is still findable, here is the cover:
To read more about New Yorker artists past and present, you can subscribe to Michael’s blog, InkSpill.
Thanks for being here, let me know what you think!
Cartoon Marriage