Rea Irvin's THE SMYTHES Book Collection

Here's a sneak peek of Rea Irvin's THE SMYTHES! This new book, published by the New York Review of Books, is scheduled to be out before the end of the year. Here are some samples of Irvin's clean-line 1930s Sunday newspaper comic strip. The book is edited by R. Kikuo Johnson and Dash Shaw. Caitlin McGurk provides an afterward. 

Rea Irvin (1881-1972) had been a newspaper illustrator, a cartoonist, a sometimes actor. Born on the West Coast, he moved to New York City and produced drawings for a variety of publications. In 1924, he was fired from his art director position at Life Magazine and then came aboard the then-new New Yorker magazine. He created its first cover, along with the left hand band on cover, and the typeface for the magazine. He figured the magazine would most likely fold in a couple of issues.

James Thurber: "... [T]he invaluable Irvin, artist, ex-actor, wit, and sophisticate about town and country, did more to develop the style and excellence of The New Yorker's drawings and covers than anyone else, and was the main and shining reason that the magazine's comic art in the first two years was far superior to its humorous prose." 

Rea Irvin also created The Smythes, first appearing in the spring of 1930 in the New York Herald Tribune. It would run for six years.

Here are some photos of the book: