Fluid Style

Michael Witte was one of the new wave of illustrator/cartoonists for the New Yorker back in the 90s (as seen in the previous post showing Santa deluged with Christmas list faxes). Witte had a fluid style that worked with all the slick magazines from Time to Rolling Stone. He's heavily into sports, as this piece shows from a self-promo, nicely reminiscent of the factoid comics of yesteryear.

And, uh, sports has a number of facets suitable for rendering:

December 14

William Steig was a wonder for the New Yorker. Starting off primarily as a cartoonist, he developed into a cartoon expressionist, making subtle, funny, and accurate observations of the human character. The top cover below demonstrates that, with the subtlety of facial expressions between a large generational gap. And the one below it demonstrates the childlike and colorful style that he brought to so many wonderful covers throughout the year, over many years.

As many wonderful covers and cover artists there have been for the New Yorker for 85 years now, Steig's work adds up to be probably my favorite overall.