Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Who Drew This New Yorker Cartoon?

From Michael Maslin, comes a cartoon mystery. Can you help?

Here's the cartoon, from the very first issue of  The New Yorker, February 21, 1925:


Here's Michael:

I posted a cartoon from the NYer's first issue. The cartoonist is not known. (The cartoonist is labeled as "unidentified" in the magazine's database.) It carries a signature that is difficult to make out -- I tried using a magnifying glass, but still no dice. It would be great if you might post on your blog asking the wider cartoon world to identify the cartoonist. People love a mystery, don't they? I bet there's someone out there who's knowledgeable about very early cartoonists who'll know in a second who this is.

Well, there it is. The gauntlet is thrown. 

It looks like the registration is off on the signature on the bottom right. However, it's a distinctive enough signature that if anyone out there has seen a cartoon by this same cartoonist, then it may be pretty easy to sort this out. If anyone has a copy of the first issue of The New Yorker magazine, maybe they can thumb through it and see a better reproduction in their particular issue.

EDIT: Just got a note from Rick Marschall that the cartoonist is Wilfred Leet.

EDIT: Michael Maslin has corrected this (and Rick concurs) that it's Alfred Leete.
EDIT: My thanks to Brian Moore for this color graphic from this Dutch site of the same image, with the same signature. It appears to be the box art for Trio cigars!



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