On one of their “Thurber Thursdays,” Ink Spill: New Yorker Cartoonists News, History, and Events was inspired by the recent publication of the Selected Letters of John Updike to do a little sleuthing and post the results.

A footnote on page 333 of Letters mentions Updike’s piece “On Meeting Writers” as being retitled “Writers I Have Met” and published in The New York Times Book Review on August 11, 1968. It “included drawings of Updike and the various writers he discusses: Joyce Cary, James Thurber, and E.B. White.”

“Thinking that Updike had drawn a self portrait along with sketches of Cary, Thurber, and White (drawings I did not recall ever seeing!) I scurried over to the Updike books here and pulled Picked-up Pieces off the shelf. ‘On Meeting Writers’ is the very first picked up piece in the book — it appears on page 3. But alas…no drawings.

“I then went to The New York Times archive and found the piece as it appeared in the paper (what an incredibly wonderful resource that is). I can’t reproduce the page here, but I can tell you I was thrilled, initially, to see drawings (I thought by Updike) accompanying it.

“They didn’t really look at all like Updike drawings, but I’ve become used to seeing how he had explored a variety of styles throughout his life — I supposed this was another exploration. But when I zoomed in on the credit for the drawings, I found the drawings were not by Updike, but by (and I mean no disrespect here by expressing disappointment) Jim Spanfeller . . . . So no Updike Thurber and E.B. White drawing, but –bonus — I learned about Mr. Spanfeller.