"Soglow was born in Manhattan in 1900, and pretty much never left. He wanted to be an actor but settled for being a cartoonist, and was best known for his syndicated comic "The Little King," a wordless strip about a rotund, charmingly immature monarch. Soglow's first New Yorker cartoon was published nine months into the magazine's existence, and his increasingly spare aesthetic, which eschewed text and favored a clean, elegant line, was a harbinger of a style that became immensely popular."
"One of my first jobs at the magazine was to flip through these binders and pick decades-old drawings to run alongside some of our timeliest stories. It was astonishing how well these vintage vignettes continued to match the week's news. Sure, over the years hemlines fluctuate; TV replaces radio; Nixon's jowls droop. But something about the drawings' look and tone is ageless. On a micro scale, they display the cheekiness and the reverence for the hyper-specific that make up the magazine's DNA."
The New Yorker preserves typographical relics like 'teen-ager' hyphen and 'coöperation' diaeresis while retiring others. Two binders contain Otto Soglow's Talk spots, small drawings from 1926-1970. Soglow's vignettes pair well with contemporary pieces due to ageless look and tone, showcasing cheekiness and reverence for hyper-specific detail. Soglow, born Manhattan 1900, largely stayed there, wanted to be actor but became cartoonist best known for wordless 'The Little King.' His spare, text-avoidant aesthetic favored clean elegant line and influenced popular style. William Shawn noted Soglow's seriousness and meticulous hours.
Read at The New Yorker
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]