When Stories Are Told In Line

They invite you in

A little departure from the news for a day.

I love looking at old drawings, and wanted to share these with you. These are New Yorker Magazine spot drawings, as they are called, and were drawn by writer and cartoonist James Thurber. Spot drawings are little images without captions that are dotted around the magazine. These are from the 1950’s. I had no idea James Thurber did spot drawings! I love them because they each tell a story without words. No humor, no joke, no punchline, just a visual story that invites the viewer in. The best line art does that.

As you may know, my husband Michael Maslin is a New Yorker cartoonist and a historian of the art form. He writes a daily blog called Inkspill, all about New Yorker cartoons past and present. That’s where I got these lovely little pieces. You can subscribe to his blog, but not here. I’ve tried to get him to migrate over to Substack, but he is determined to stay where he is. Men!

Happy Friday— I hope you have plans for the weekend. My plan is to stay in and continue to get better, and to tend to my cartoonist (but real) husband, who now has Covid too!

I was generous enough to give it to him.