Book Description
More than a book, this is a bona fide publishing event. The largest-ever collection of New Yorker cartoons features the best of every decade in book form, plus two easy-to-browse CDs--Windows and Macintosh compatible--with every cartoon ever published in the magazine--more than 68,000 of them!
Since its founding in the 1920s, The New Yorker has had a profound cultural impact on the country and the world, and has almost singlehandedly elevated the cartoon to an art form. For the first time ever, EVERY cartoon ever published in The New Yorker is collected in one place.
Accompanying the cartoons in the book, several thousand of them organized chronologically, are essays by eminent New Yorker writers reflecting on the life and times (and sense of humor) of each successive decade. Additionally, each decade includes profiles and mini-portfolios of the cartoonists who made their marks on the era, from Peter Arno and Charles Addams to Bruce Eric Kaplan and Roz Chast. "Theme" features cover such subjects as Drinking, The Depression, and Politics.
The two accompanying CDs feature every cartoon ever published in the magazine in a format that is accessible on any home computer and is browsable by date, cartoonist, subject, and more. This groundbreaking book, several years in the making, has been lovingly compiled by current New Yorker cartoon editor (and respected cartoonist and author) Robert Mankoff, and the foreword is by David Remnick, the magazine's esteemed editor.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful book but massive!.......2007-09-28
Have enjoyed the New Yorker since I was old enough to turn the pages. This book is a "real history of our times" in addition to being a pleasure to read. Depressions, wars, politics, and general attitudes are shown with all their "warts and wrinkles". This is a wonderful book, but read it sitting at your desk, or kitchen table, or some other sturdy base. Take several days to go through it, (at the very least), since cartoon meltdown is a real possibily if taken all at once. Aside from the "reading logistics" it's a great book.
Cartoons for the "literati" - buy it for the CDs.......2007-09-10
A book with 6 decades worth of wry New Yorker cartoons needs a strong coffee table and a big lap. Flipping through the book gives you a wonderful look at the flow of current affairs, both social and political. Along the way the editors give us a narrative that's a good course in the history of American humor in the 20th century.
The real bonus, though, is not the book, which despite its being massive is not "Complete." It has maybe 20% of the 60,000-plus cartoon promised on the cover. The complete set you want is on 2 CDs included in the book, and the CDs are searchable by topic, etc.
So if you want a cartoon on consultants (and I'm a consultant), here's one: Two detectives stand over the prone lower half of a murder victim. "By the number an violence of the stab wounds," says one, "I'd guess he was a consultant."
Buy the book so you can open it at any point and smile or laugh out loud; use the CDs to browse the whiole New Yorker cartoon universe and/or find the smiles and laughs you want.
DVD and Book are fantastic.......2007-08-15
I had been apprehensive about this purchase after reading the reviews rubbishing the quality of the resolution on the DVD. I was surprised to find however, that the resolution of the cartoons is fine. Occasionally I will have trouble reading the finer print, but with 72,000 of them, it doesn't really matter.
I have never seen the book.......2007-07-18
It was a gift I bought for somebody else, but the person who received it, took picture of it and she was so happy with the book that I have to rate it 5 stars. Maybe I will buy one for myself too...who knows.
The Cartoons are great! CDs are awesome too..........2007-07-08
I wanted to clarify some doubts about the resolution of the cartoons on the CDs. They are perfectly fine and don't know how it can be better. The CD contains cartoons in pdf documents, and there is one cartoon per page. Each cartoon is dated and has the cartoonist's name. I didn't find any problem at all. I am using Adobe Acrobat reader 7.0 and Windows Vista OS. The CD couldn't directly launch pdf which I suspect is because of Vista. Hence, I just opened mainmenu.pdf directly from adobe acrobat reader and was really happy. Please go ahead and buy this, the CDs are not low resolution.
Book Description
85 Cartoons
Customer Reviews:
Reflections of the way law's going to be.......2004-08-31
I'm surprised at how small this collection is. Attorneys are such an inviting target for comedic attacks that it amazes me that as long as the New Yorker has been around, it only found about 85 attorney cartoons worthy of collection into this 1993 edition and that it hasn't found enough worthy cartoons since then to fill out a second edition.
Originality isn't a feature point of this New Yorker collection of cartoons, but talent is.
The 85 attorney cartoons largely revolve around two themes. One is surrealistic art which makes attorneys look as uncharacteristically undignified as possible (many of which are variations on the old "shark" joke that shows attorneys in the open water with fins and teeth).
The other is animated commentary on the ubiquitousness of attorneys in everyday life, a ubiquitousness that deprives each attorney of his individuality ("Would everyone check to see if they have an attorney?" asks a meeting-organizer. "I seem to have ended up with two.")
As I say though, the talent of the cartoonists is great enough that the same joke can be replayed several times and still retain a certain amount of freshness each time.
Still, the funniest cartoons are those which break the mold and display some actual knowledge about the profession such as the courtroom setting on the moon, in which judge, jury, and counsel are dutifully wearing spacesuits. The spaceships that transported them there are displayed in the background. "Not ANOTHER change of venue, counselor," the judge protests to one forceful advocate.
But as for the garden-variety attorney jokes, to my mind as a member of the bar myself, the joke is always on the jokester.
The public that enjoys these cartoons hates attorneys so much that they place their kids on an ever-increasing basis into law school and hire attorneys with the same frequency, expecting their own attorneys to engage in the same tactics that they would object to in anyone else's attorney. The public even hates attorneys enough to recently forgive an attorney who happened to be President of the United States for criminal and unethical conduct in a litigation setting.
Sure, this collection has a funny wedding-cake cartoon, in which the plastic bride-and-groom at the top of the cake are both accompanied by their respective plastic lawyers. In a world in which the divorce rate approaches 50 percent and pre-nups are necessary legal insurance, the bride and groom have created the need for counsel.
Sure, there's a cartoon in this collection that shows attorneys sold over the grocery counter in six-packs. Since 1993, at least one organization has taken to marketing legal services on a multi-level marketing basis in the same way that Amway or Herbalife market health products. Legal services ARE becoming like food, drink and health to the public.
Who creates such demand? Who's responsible for the proliferation of attorneys? The cartoonists who lampoon us and the public who laughs at the lampoons; that is, you, me and all of us because we've created the demand for that which we outwardly disdain. And I have a feeling that the cartoonists themselves know this.
It's OK to laugh at cleverly-delivered jokes ostensibly directed at the legal profession, but you'll probably enjoy the jokes more if you don't peer too closely to see if the joke isn't really on you.
Amusing New York cartoons regarding those pesky lawyers.......2002-10-20
My father had a giant book of cartoons from "The New Yorker" that I never got tired of reading as a kid. Some of the cartoonists that I learned to love way back when, such as Chas. Addams, Sidney Hoff, and Wm. Steig, are present and accounted for in this 1994 collection of cartoons devoted to the practice of the law (by those who have yet to get it right). However, most of these 85 cartoons are by some of the newer kids on the block, such as Michael Maslin and Danny Shanahan, who just do strike my funny bone with as much regularity as the old masters. The looks on the faces of the lawyer and his two clients in the Steig cartoon is not equaled throughout this book and their is not a better caption than Chon Day's lawyer sadly informing his client, "I've just about resigned myself to your getting twenty years." These are amusing enough, but really not up to the quality I expect from "The New Yorker." On the other hand, if you were to give this book as a present to a lawyer acquaintance, they are not going to be terribly offended (which may well be the problem in a nutshell). Still, "The New York Book of Lawyer Cartoons" is worth a look through, just like an issue of the magazine. I always read all the cartoons whenever I see a copy lying around. Oh, and the listing of what movies are playing in the revival houses. The thought of going to a theater to see a Chaplin, Bogart or Hepburn movie still sounds like high culture to me.
No Holds Barred: Lawyer Humor Requires Visuals.......2000-07-03
I first discovered The New Yorker when I was a teenager. When I saw how many people subscribed to the magazine, I started asking people why they did. Inevitably, the answer was, "For the cartoons." Since then, I have come to realize that The New Yorker is like the hall of fame for cartoonists.
I recently read The New Yorker Book of Money Cartoons, which encouraged me to read this book. Unfortunately, that book made this one seem a bit inadquate (hence the four star rating). First, there is no witty essay in this one to introduce the subject, unlike Christopher Buckley's outstanding one in the money book. Second, the lawyer humor seems a bit forced to me, compared to the money humor in that book.
While I think this book will appeal to many lawyers and their families, I think that few defendants and plaintiffs will be amused because the humor is often about how lawyers prosper at the client's expense.
It's hard to convey a sense of these cartoons without showing one. Unlike the money cartoons that usually work as quips, these cartoons almost always need visuals to work. Many of them involve lawyers circling like sharks surrounding a potential client, or invoke other old chestnuts of lawyer humor.
The privileged position of the lawyer compared to the client comes through clearly. "I've just about resigned myself to your getting twenty years."
Lawyers are expensive, as is the legal system. "You have a pretty good case Mr. Pitkin. How much justice can you afford?"
The humor works best when it is fresh. My favorite was "May I ask you, Miss Howre, what made you select a homeopathic attorney?"
As you can see, this book would make a wonderful present to the attorney who lost your case and you just sued for malpractice.
Seriously, the humor is pretty savage. I'm not sure that someone who is proud of being a lawyer would appreciate it. The market is limited to those lawyers with humility and a sense of humor.
The lesson for nonlawyers is to resolve your conflicts without the legal system, whenever possible. That can be a great stallbuster!
Retain your sense of humor in the meantime!
A very funny book........1998-01-22
No one can resist picking up this very funny book of cartoons. Short enough to read in one sitting, the New Yorker Book of Lawyer Cartoons also looks great in the home or office. The humor is urbane, the art work fresh and eye-catching. Every lawyer should have this book.
Book Description
101 cartoons
Customer Reviews:
A small book with a few gems.......2007-05-06
First off, the book is tiny. I mean really tiny. It's about 3 inches square. You can't discern the mini size from the Amazon picture, so be prepared. And, correspondingly, the cartoons are very small and may be hard to read if your eyes are over 45 years of age.
The editors have culled together what are ostensibly the most humorous of the doctor-related cartoons from the New Yorker. Because humor is in the eye of the beholder, I can't say if they succeeded. All I can say is that there were a few gems for me, principally those by Gahan Wilson and Charles Addams. The average entry made me smile a little on the inside, but not much more than that. (By comparison, I found the cartoon collections by New Yorker contributor Roz Chaste consistently amusing. Search Amazon for "The Party After You Left")
The New Yorker Book of Doctor Cartoons can be useful if you are in the position of needing doctor related visual humor on a regular basis. I could see this book of value to people who give presentations about health care, doctors, or medicine. I could also see this book as a nice (but did I mention TINY) gift to give to the doctors in your life. Doctors who can laugh at themselves will appreciate the humor. I know. I laugh at myself all the time (and yes, I'm a doctor).
What Can I Do for You in the Next Three Minutes? - HMO Stall.......2000-07-03
I first discovered The New Yorker when I was a teenager. When I saw how many people subscribed to the magazine, I started asking people why they did. Inevitably, the answer was, "For the cartoons." Since then, I have come to realize that The New Yorker is like the hall of fame for cartoonists.
I became interested in this book after reading the excellent The New Yorker Book of Money Cartoons. I was a bit disappointed in this book by comparison, which explains the four star rating. While the cartoons are terrific, the book would have benefited from having a great introduction like the one that Christopher Buckley wrote for the money cartoons.
There are 86 pages of cartoons and over 90 cartoons in this book. Almost all of them are outstanding.
The humor is aimed at both physicians and psychiatrists. Somehow, the humor about the latter seemed funnier than the former. "Does the doctor hug?" was one of my favorites.
The strong conservative bent of many physicians was well captured by one cartoon that said, "Doctor, you must stop addressing your Medicare patients as Comrade."
Lawyer humor, and the physician's usual conerns about law suits are here, too. "The doctor's lawyer will see you now."
The questionable bedside manners of some physicians and the quirks of patients were equally well represented in the cartoon that said, "Well, Phil, after years of vague complaints and imaginary ailments, we finally have something to work with."
The ever-growing specialization of medicine came in for comment in this cartoon: "I'd like you to see a botanist. You exhibit many of the symptoms of Dutch elm disease."
Finally, some humor was aimed directly at the profession. In a group of ducks, one says "Let me through. I'm a quack."
A strength of this book is that it will definitely appeal to patients and nurses. I also think that many physicians will like it, as long as they have a sense of self-deprecating humor.
Physician, heal thyself!
The book is excellent in pointing out that personal habits, the training of the physician, and philosophical opinions can interfere with delivering good medicine. Humor like this can be a tonic to help bust the stalls that those sources of misconceptions and miscommunications help create. Laughter is not only the best medicine, it can bring about better medicine.
A book full of cartoons based on medical mishaps!.......2000-02-14
I like to read a whole lot of all kinds of cartoon books, I have always enjoyed the funny papers, and now here is a collection of funny situations based on the numerous kinds MD's that people deal with. I'm thinking of showing this book to my own psychologist. He would get a kick out of this sort of thing, as he has got a great sense of humor to speak of himself, which helps a great deal during our sessions. Anyway, like the rest of the "New Yorker" series, get this cool compilation soon. Each doctor's office should have one for the amusement of the patients! Hey, how about one for dentists or veternarians as well?
Amazon.com
One can never have too many cats--or cat cartoons for that matter--as expertly demonstrated in The New Yorker Book of All-New Cat Cartoons. A follow-up to the magazine's first collection of feline funnies published some seven years ago, this delightful collection captures "a cat's-eye view of the world and the important things in life: food, sleep, love and affection, adventure, food, good friends and doggy enemies, back rubs, and food." Including the work of such notable New Yorker artists as George Booth, Stephanie Skalisky, Danny Shanahan, Arnie Levin, and Edward Koren, this endearing edition will appeal to those lucky enough to count a feline among their friends.
Book Description
Cats again? You can never have too many . . .
Drawn from the hundreds of cartoons published in The New Yorker in the seven years since The New Yorker Book of Cat Cartoons--as well as from fabulous older cats--this new collection is as hilarious and irresistible as the first.
The cartoons provide a cat's-eye view of the world and the important things in life: food, sleep, love and affection, adventure, food, good friends and doggy enemies, back rubs, and food. We see the essence of the feline world captured with verve, humor, and warmth by classic New Yorker artists such as Ed Koren, George Booth, William Steig, Saul Steinberg, Lee Lorenz, Robert Mankoff, Mick Stevens, Danny Shanahan, and Bruce Eric Kaplan.
Purrfectly divine!
Customer Reviews:
CATS DO THE ZANIEST THINGS...AND GET AWAY WITH IT!.......2001-12-15
As one who has owned over thirty cats in my life time (as many as five at one time) it is quite obvious that I am, indeed, a cat lover to the utmost degree! While it is difficult to compete with some of the world's greatest and best loved cats, such as Garfield and Norton, most cat lovers will agree this book provides a good supply of absolutely purr-fect humour! It is written in the same witty manner of the previous New Yorker cat cartoons, but I actually preferred this one. There was something about the cat antics in this one that were more true to life. The whole book comes together quite nicely and is equally as amusing and entertaining, if not moreso, than the first New Yorker Book of Cat Cartoons! The antics are great...and so true to life, as any serious cat lover will recognize. The personalities of cats are not much different than humans; our feline friends are just a little better at showing us who is in charge!
The Cat’s Pajamas!.......2001-12-06
Cat lovers will treasure this book! The New Yorker’s staff has created a second volume of cat cartoons by adding more recent cat cartoons since the first book came out as well as some older cartoons.
As before, the 86 pages bristle with humor about our relationships to cats, a cat’s eye on our world, and the usual switching of cats and people into each other’s roles.
To my taste, over half of the cartoons were outstanding, and all were good.
Here are some of my favorites.
Man visiting bare-chested yogi on a ledge outside a cave entrance is surrounded by cats. "The meaning of life is cats." Sam Gross;
Wall of books with signs about them "Travel, Science, History, Fiction, Cute Cats." A well-dressed man is standing in front of Cute Cats holding a book with an illustration of a cat. Sidney Harris;
"Dog Days" is the caption for a subway car filled with dogs looking hot, with their tongues hanging out, wearing disheveled suits. A lone cat in the middle is neatly dressed and is definitely the cool cat of the illustration. William Hamilton;
Cat executive sits behind a large desk that covers an aquarium filled with very large fish. Bernard Sshoenbaum;
Cat speaks to a bird in a tree. "Hey, let's do lunch.
" Robert Mankoff;
Man and woman in a restaurant find themselves staring at a cat in the middle of their small table for two. The waiter explains "We're out of flowers." Danny Shanahan;
Four panels of a man and woman. In the third panel, a cat walks through and both stop to beam happily at the cat. Joseph Farris;
Cat with a television playing in the background is outside of a mousehole. "Jeopardy is on." Sam Gross;
Lawyer has cat on shoulder and holds out an envelope to a dog. "We're slapping you with a stress suit . . . . "Danny Shanahan;
Cat is driving a taxi cab and speaks to human passenger, "Yeah, I was into the pet thing for a while, but that scene wasn't for me." Eldon Didini;
Cat holding a smoking gun as a dead bird lies outside the window. "What was I supposed to do? I've been declawed." Frank Cotham;
General arrives home and sees cat in the foyer, "As you were." Mick Stevens;
Cat to owner near cat door, "I'm going out. Do you need any voles." Sam Gross;
Fortune teller holding woman's hand, "A wonderful cat is coming into your life." Edward Koren;
Cat in bed waking up, while the alarm goes "Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet." Arnie Levin;
Two dogs are looking at a cat walking by, "Are we talking about life style or orientation?" Peter Steiner.
The book’s weaknesses are two. First, it lacks an essay to tie together the humor and deepen your appreciation of it. So it’s more like a scrapbook of cartoons than a book of cartoons. Second, the dog-cat humor was not nearly as good as in the first book of New Yorker cat cartoons. You would think that there would be an endless supply of outstanding work available . . . but I guess not.
The positive aspect of the book is to realize how much better most of us relate to cats than to other people. Keeping that same wonderful cat relationship, how can you improve your human connections? How about bringing along a cat to enjoy with others?
Love a cat today!
Another Great Collection of Cat Cartoons.......1999-02-25
Speaking as a writer of humorous cat books (most recently, "Scratching the 'Net: Web Sites for Cats"), it seems to me quite fitting that a classy creature like the cat should be hilariously immortalized by a classy magazine like the New Yorker. This is another wonderful collection of cartoons by an exceptionally talented group of cartoonists. I defy any cat lover not to find at least several cartoons in this book that remind them of their own personal furry friend.
Book Description
Here are the funniest and most feline cats ever assembled in 101 cartoons, the cream of the cream, from sixty-five years of the New Yorker.
Customer Reviews:
Size matters.......2007-08-11
I thought I was getting a paperback version of the original hardback book of cartoons. It is the same book but the paperback version is much smaller than the hardback.
Easy holiday gift........2006-03-22
If you live with a cat, you'll want to read it before you give it to another feline lover; it makes a wonderful present.
Style, elegance and grace.......2002-02-26
The New Yorker has all these things, and the combination of cats and The New Yorker is a felicitious one. These witty, wonderful cartoons are just the thing to bring a sparkle to even the most glazed of eyes.
Two ladies sipping tea, a cat strolling past tail in the air. "Whe she was little," one says "we had a very close relationship, but now we're just friends."
And a hundred others. A book is not as good as a cat, but this one is halfway there.
The Cover Tells It All.......2001-01-29
Cats you say? Take a look at the cover. Take a good look. Nobody does it like THE NEW YORKER. 101 cartons and 65 years later, the cats still have the last laugh. High level stuff and highly recommended!
Cats Eyeing 'Catsup': "Makes You Wonder, Doesn't It?".......2000-07-16
I rated this book based on the hardcover version, but I do want to put in a word against the miniature paperback version in the beginning. Avoid the miniature paperback: It is very tiny, reproduced poorly, the paper quality is not good, and some of the material cannot be seen without a magnifying glass.
The only drawback I saw to the hardcover version was the lack of a witty introduction. I graded it down one star for that lack. The New Yorker cartoon books on business and money have wonderful introductions, unlike this one.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that I do not have a cat. Yet I have many friends who do, and I tried to view these cartoons through their eyes.
The main cartoonists of these 102 cartoons are Charles Addams, Tom Cheney, Helen Hokinson, Frank Modell, Mischa Richter, Danny Shanahan, William Steig, and Saul Steinberg.
The cartoons generally follow one of the following styles: juxtaposing cats for dogs; anthropomorphizing cats; and treating humans like cats. These formats were predictable enough that the humor worked best when one of the categories was not followed, such as in a cartoon with no words where a cat is seen scratching against an arm chair while a man sits in it reading the newspaper -- chair, man, and newspaper all bear the same scratch marks everywhere.
Here are a few of my favorites:
A woman letting a large number of cats out of the back door: "Everyone be home by two o'clock."
No words: A man sits in a chair reading with his feet on a bear skin run. Behind him, a cat lies in a bed with a mouseskin rug on the floor in front.
A man receiving a call at work: "Your wife feels that your cat needs to hear an authoritative male voice."
One mouse to another: "Miss Egan, bring me everything we have on cats."
Dog to cat: "Hey, pal, let's hear 'Doggie in the Window' again, and this time play it like you mean it!"
Cat to cat in bow tie: "I'm sorry, but I think it's uncatlike."
Cat in casts to another cat in casts in vet's office: "I tried to make it from the windowsill to the top of the refrigerator. How about you?"
Cat behind loan officer desk in bank to dog: "Beg."
Man to cat: "The fact that you cats were considered sacred in ancient Egypt cuts no ice with me."
Person shouting through the window to a woman in a roomful of cats: "Glendora Hogan got another load of cats, Elinor honey. Can you take a couple?"
Let this good-natured look at one of our favorite animal friends liven up your day, and remind you of the humor behind everything. It's only our stalled thinking that denies us a good laugh at everything!
Book Description
It's no secret that most New Yorker readers flip through the magazine to look at the cartoons before they ever lay eyes on a word of the text. But what isn't generally known is that over the decades a growing cadre of women artists have contributed to the witty, memorable cartoons that readers look forward to each week. Now Liza Donnelly, herself a renowned cartoonist with the New Yorker for more than twenty years, has written this wonderful, in-depth celebration of women cartoonists who have graced the pages of the famous magazine from the Roaring Twenties to the present day. An anthology of funny, poignant, and entertaining cartoons, biographical sketches, and social history all in one, Funny Ladies offers a unique slant on 20th-century and early 21st-century America through the humorous perspectives of the talented women who have captured in pictures and captions many of the key social issues of their time. As someone who understands firsthand the cartoonist's art, Donnelly is in a position to offer distinctive insights on the creative process, the relationships between artists and editors, what it means to be a female cartoonist, and the personalities of the other New Yorker women cartoonists, whom she has known over the years.
Funny Ladies reveals never-before-published material from The New Yorker archives, including correspondence from Harold Ross, Katharine White, and many others. In addition, Donnelly has interviewed all of the living female cartoonists, many of their male counterparts, and editors and writers: Roger Angel, Lee Lorenz, Lillian Ross, Harriet Walden (legendary editor William Shawn's secretary), Bob Mankoff, William Hamilton, Eldon Dedini, Dana Fradon, Frank Model, Bob Web, Sam Gross, Gahan Wilson, Joe Farris, among others.
Combining a wealth of information with an engaging and charming narrative, plus more than seventy cartoons, along with photographs and self-portraits of the cartoonists, Funny Ladies beautifully portrays the art and contributions of the brilliant female cartoonists in America's greatest magazine.
Customer Reviews:
A history of how women performed in the narrow career path of cartoonist.......2007-03-19
"The New Yorker" is universally considered to be the best magazine and it regularly runs cartoons. Unlike many other cartoons noted for their in-your-face approach, the message of the cartoons in "The New Yorker" is generally very subtle. Many great cartoonists have had their work featured in the magazine, and some of them were women. This is their story.
It is one that in general is concurrent with what happened in the rest of society. In the early years, there were few career opportunities open to women and their work was evaluated in different ways. The twenties were a time of advancement, but the hard reality of the depression in the thirties had an overall negative effect on the status of women. Once the Second World War began, women were needed in every capacity, so their stock once again rose, only to fall back down after the war and into the reactionary fifties. Finally, the overall advancements in the role of women in the sixties and seventies destroyed all barriers to women cartoonists.
Through it all, the pioneers struggled with their drawings and captions, using them to make important statements about the world that existed around them. It was a world that they struggled against, yet eventually emerged triumphant through the success of those of their gender that succeeded them. As much as anything, this book is a chronicle of the emergence of women from the "pedestal of assumed inferiority" to one where their work is appreciated, respected and expected.
A wonderful, vivid overview........2006-09-24
FUNNY LADIES: THE NEW YORKER'S GREATEST WOMEN CARTOONISTS AND THEIR CARTOONS could easily have been featured in our 'Cartoons and Graphic Novels' section, but is reviewed here for its ability to appeal beyond the usual confines of the cartoonist fan's world. Over the decades a growing core of female artists has been creating New Yorker cartoons weekly: Liza Donnelly, herself a New Yorker cartoonist for over twenty years, provides a history of women's humor and its evolution, pairing an anthology of cartoons with a survey of the genre in a wonderful, vivid overview.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Book Description
The big, charming, funny, serious book in which 400 great New Yorker cartoons, covers, spots, caricatures, and photos illustrate the anecdote-laden, behind-the-scenes story, from the Harold Ross days to the present, of the art of The New Yorker.
Book Description
With more than one hundred cartoons, this collection is a masterpiece bound to amuse fans and friends of art and artists.
Book Description
For many aficionados of the New Yorker magazine, the drawings of Peter Arno, William Steig, Charles Addams, and Saul Steinberg epitomize its sophisticated wit and disarming humor. In The Comic Worlds of Peter Arno, William Steig, Charles Addams, and Saul Steinberg, the first full-scale scholarly study of the subject, Iain Topliss considers the work of each artist, traces the development of his art, and recalls the cultural and social context in which it was created.
Topliss delves into the nature of humor and the elements that make successful cartoons funny, paying special attention to matters of style and technique. He draws particular attention to the ways in which these four artists mocked the status quo without alienating the magazine's readers. Indeed, argues Topliss, the New Yorker's cartoons helped define American consciousness in the mid-twentieth century.
Illustrated with more than fifty drawings from the artists published in the magazine between 1925 and 1975, The Comic Worlds of Peter Arno, William Steig, Charles Addams, and Saul Steinberg recognizes the achievements of these talented artists and their distinctive contribution to American culture.
Customer Reviews:
Ups and Downs.......2007-03-08
Somehow I always wind up first whenever I get a book that I'm sure dozens of other reviewers would be all over, like white on rice! This book, a serious and academic study of four New Yorker cartoonists, I would have thought would be a natural. Maybe people got turned off by the cover, a particularly grisly Charles Addams sketch in a drab, battleship gray color. And yet, the sketch itself, a crowded movie theater packed with weeping, intensely uncomfortable viewers, in the middle of which you see one of Addams' trademark characters watching whatever is happening on the screen (a death?) and chuckling happily--yes, the sketch itself encapsulates some of Topliss' thoughts about the position of spectatorship vis-a-vis the New Yorker artists he covers.
We see ourselves in Uncle Fester's grin, for we feel we too are different than the rest of the crowd, and that we have a privileged and superior position to what is being displayed on the screen. How these four artists managed to animate their own, very different sense of the "unique," is Topliss' subject.
He won't make you want to read much more about Peter Arno, the aristocratic playboy for whom comics were decidedly slumming. Of William Steig, Topliss shows us how first Karen Horney and then Wilhelm Reich animated his thinking about creativity and the act of drawing. His was a fascinating life, but again, I'm not so sure he was so utterly a genius at his art. Addams and Steinberg come off the best, although Topliss' "fame" angle on Steinberg made him sound a little like those celebrities who complain about the paparazzi even when they're courting press attention.
Topliss sees US culture, New Yorker division, through the distant, cold eyes of an Australian. Sometimes the onlooker sees more of the game, and there's a sense in which one of our better academics might be the best candidate to write about the classic Australian cartoonists of the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. Turnabout is fair play, and in the writing game, objectivity is nearly everything. He has a rousing salute to Melbourne at the end of his introduction, in which he also explains why he seems to ignore the contributions of two other excellent cartoonists from the same period and venue, namely, Thurber and Hokinson. His salute to his hometown is worth the price of the book, though it's a little odd. Perhaps he could write another book about the "tall poppy syndrome" and why people in Melbourne are both proud of, and dismissive of, their celebrated comic muse, the one and only Kylie Minogue.
Book Description
Meeting. Wooing. Dating. Mating. Wanting sex. Having sex. Regretting sex. Recovering from sex. Talking. Not talking. Proposing. Refusing. Marrying. Unmarrying. Remarrying . . . Here is the dance of true love captured at all its most outrageously funny moments--the graceful and the awkward, the blissful and the tormented.
Here is meeting made easy at the "Mate Mart," Rilke as an aphrodisiac, and marriage as a daunting threshold ("And do you, Rebecca, promise to make love only to Richard, month after month, year after year, and decade after decade, until one of you is dead?").
Here is love between all sorts: children too young to know and adults old enough to know better. Between a vampire and a lady ("I think I can change him"), Narcissus and himself, women and their past paramours, men and their current possibilities ("Kathy, I'm updating my files. Do you still love me?").
Here are pragmatic approaches ("Let's date to see if we should go out"), rose-colored approaches, no-frills approaches ("Let's do it, let's fall in love"), and polite approaches ("Can I trouble you for a sexual favor?"). Here are the inimitably illuminating approaches to love from all the master New Yorker cartoonists from James Thurber to Robert Mankoff, from Peter Arno to Roz Chast, from Charles Addams to Victoria Roberts.
The agony and the ecstasy of love (well, maybe a little more of the agony) are here hilariously revealed!
Customer Reviews:
Marital Gift.......2005-08-05
The book makes a perfect little gift for those just married who WILL evolve into the couples depicted in the New Yorker cartoons. Hopefully the book offers them a sense of humor for the inevitible and thus helps them.
In brief...a great marital aid for the nieve.
Many sides to the love polygon, good and bad.......2005-03-24
There are many sides to the love polygon and many of them are examined in this collection of cartoons. By far, my favorite is on page 86, where an aged man has a young woman on his lap and looking at an aged woman who is giving him a stern look. All are angels and the man is saying, "Buzz off Louise! That was only till death us did part." On page 45, an unhappy couple are in the office of a marriage counselor and the man says, "No heroic measures." This is very funny stuff. I loved them all, love songs fill the airways, but the real world is much more like the messages in these cartoons.
A mildly twisted look at love.......2001-12-15
"The New Yorker Book of True Love Cartoons" brings together 102 pages of cartoons from 46 different artists. Each cartoonist is represented by 1 to 6 examples of his/her work. The artists include Charles Addams, Lee Lorenz, Victoria Roberts, William Steig, and others; because of this diversity of artists, the book has a good variety of drawing styles.
Under the general topic of love, these cartoons cover such areas as sex, marriage, infidelity, jealousy, conflict, sexual politics, and miscommunication.
A few of my favorites: A woman at a bar tells a man, "If you quote Rilke again, I'm just going to have to take my bra off" (p. 26). Wife to husband, at home: "You may be from Mars, but the children and I are still from Westchester" (27). Categories in a Valentine's Day cards rack: "SWM TO SF," "GBF TO SWF," "DWM TO SGF" (61). And finally, a man, fully dressed with a coat and tie, and a woman, stark naked, sit in chairs at home facing away from each other. He says, "Any plans for this evening, hon?" (100).
The book gave me a few smiles and chuckles, but not much more than that. If you like some relatively tame humor about love, I recommend this book.
Cynical, Scathing Lines from Burnt-Out Relationships.......2001-04-07
I was disappointed in this book. The title led me to expect heart-warming humor about love. Instead, what I got was mostly a series of cynical perspectives on infatuation gone wrong. As in some other New Yorker cartoon collections, this one also lacks an integrating essay. The drawings are often good, but the lines make these cartoons. I have included some to give you a flavor of the volume. If you are getting over a soured relationship, this book may help you to brighten up a bit.
Older man, asleep in front of television set. Wife calls. "Yoo-hoo. Time to climb the stairway to paradise."
Woman holding hands with Count Dracula look-alike, addressing an older couple (presumably her parents). "I know. But I think I can change him."
Young man to girl friend's parents in their living room. "Mr. and Mrs. Ackerman, I'll come to the point. I'm deeply in love . . . and I'd like to move in . . . ."
Couple reading sedately in bed. "Why, you're right. Tonigh isn't reading night, tonight is sex night."
Man on telephone. ". . . I'm . . . madly in love with you . . . can't eat . . . can't sleep . . . can't live without you. But that's not why I called."
Unhappy older couple in marriage counsellor's office. Man says. "No heroic measures."
Woman to female friend about man in next room. "I've got him right where I want him, not that I don't want him."
Is there someone else, Narcissus?"
Couple in living room. "Well, who made the magic go out of our marriage -- you or me?"
You get the idea.
The best advice I ever got about love was to plan to give far more than I planned to receive after marrying. That would mean that each of us would receive a sense of being appreciated that would allow our love to build. And it worked.
When you are falling in love, I suggest that you both go through Relationship Rescue and The Relationship Rescue Workbook together. If you do that, you probably won't ever need them later on because your relationship won't need rescuing.
Give and look for the best!
Swooning and sighing over these, this book is a must!.......2000-02-14
Relationships. Who wouldn't want to try to understand a whole lot more about the opposite sex, either through through dating, marriage, divorce and yes, just plain sexual parody pictures that this funny collection is full of. I think this should be a mandatory gift to any couple tying the knot, they would maybe then try to see and learn what the other one is thinking a whole lot better. Get this book!
Books:
- The Complete New Yorker: Eighty Years of the Nation's Greatest Magazine (Book & 8 DVD-ROMs)
- The Doubtful Guest
- The Draw 50 Way: How to Draw Cats, Puppies, Horses, Buildings, Birds, Aliens, Boats, Trains and Everything Else Under the Sun (Draw 50)
- The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day
- The End of Print
- The Glass Castle: A Memoir
- The Human Figure in Motion
- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
Books Index
Books Home
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- Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
- From the Cradle to the Grave: Selected Drawings
- Cleo And Cindy: What Two Dogs Taught Me About Unconditional Friendship
- Medieval Costume and How to Recreate It
- Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green
- National Audubon Society Pocket Guide to Familiar Mushrooms
Cartooning
| Comics & Graphic Novels
| Subjects
| Books
The Complete New Yorker: Eighty Years of the Nation's Greatest Magazine (Book & 8 DVD-ROMs)
The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, and Never Will See, in The New Yorker
The Complete Far Side 1980-1994 (2 vol set)
The New Yorker Book of Teacher Cartoons
The New Yorker Book of Technology Cartoons
