ABOVE: two of Richard McGuire’s new narrative-driven spot drawings for The New Yorker

This probably wasn’t keeping anyone awake at night, but did anyone else not know that The New Yorker had been reprinting those little drawings throughout the magazine on a six-month rotation? This piece from the New York Times quotes editor David Remnick: “We’ve been running some of the same windmills, toasters, umbrellas and shoes in six-month rotation for a long time.”

Anyway, no more: with its 80th anniversary issue on February 18, the magazine has turfed out the old collection of tiny doodles that appear throughout its pages, and replaced them with new ones by some new artists. And no longer are they random line-drawings of hats or flowers—now they have narratives attached, and come in series of six to ten, so you get a progression of the little story as you read.

These drawings are probably not leading to huge paydays for the artists who draw them, but it’s nice to see The New Yorker giving people some work to do. The Times story also includes a slideshow of one of the new doodle series.

The New York Times > Talk of the Town (Make That Whisper)