Wednesday Look Day
I found this in my files. It's a photo that accompanied a "Keeping Posted" article from the Saturday Evening Post, showing an (obviously posed) bunch of big-name gag cartoonists waiting to see Cartoon Editor Marione Nickles on a typical Wednesday "Look Day". The tearsheet isn't dated, but I place it somewhere in the mid-to-late 1950's.
The caption reads: "Jovial, chattering cartoonists": from the left — Harry Mace, Bill Yates, Gus Lundberg, Martha Blanchard, Herb Green, Jeff Monahan, Jerry Marcus, Post humor editor Marione Nickles, Jack Tyrell, John Norment, Dave Hirsch, Mrs. Fritz Wilkinson (wife of cartoonist Wilkinson), Peter Porges, Bob Schroeter, Mort Temes.
As crowded as it seems to be there at the Post, it still looks roomier than the storage closet/waiting room that The New Yorker provides right now for cartoonists on Tuesday's "Look Day". Most of the New Yorker cartoonists opt to stand and lounge around in the outside hallway rather than fight the stacks of corrugated boxes and other flotsam and jetsam piled up in the tiny waiting room.
One thing has certainly improved, though (in my opinion) — the dress code. These days a cartoonist would stand out like a sore thumb if he showed up in a suit or jacket and tie. The preferred outfit (for men, anyway) is more like levis and a golf shirt, or similar casual attire.
