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Howard Baer: Helping to Understand
Is the stereotype of the would-be philandering husband who complains that his wife doesn't understand him still a valid one? A 1951 Esquire cartoon by Howard Baer relies on the reader being familiar...
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Harold Ross: Defending a Reporter
The good news is that the New Yorker's founding editor, Harold Ross, took the time in 1948 to write a letter defending reporter Lillian Ross. The bad news is that recipient Mervin Houser archived the...
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E. B. White Needs No Introduction
When you're a famous writer, everyone wants you to write a little something for them. When everyone wants you to write a little something for them, you need to be able to politely decline at least some...
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My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #633
Here is my entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #633 for October 1, 2018. The drawing is by Zachary Kanin."When Daddy does it, it's therapy."These captions didn't play well with...
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Saul Steinberg: The Art of Bow Hunting?
What could be better than a nice copy of Saul Steinberg's 1949 collection The Art of Living? How about a copy with an original Steinberg drawing? There's one now on AbeBooks, with an $1850 price tag,...
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Edward Koren: Ed Koren?
In a copy of his cartoon collection Do You Want to Talk About It? (1976), Edward Koren has added a drawing that comments directly and personally on the phenomenon of the celebrity cartoonist. Now who...
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George Booth: A Chicken for Nick
Writer Nick Delbanco's family copy of The Essential George Booth is lovingly inscribed by Mr. Booth with a bonus sketch of a chicken. This is the first use of color I have seen in a souvenir drawing of...
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George Booth: Part Newfoundland
Cartoonist George Booth knows the proper way to dedicate a copy of The New Yorker Book of Dog Cartoons. You add a dog cartoon!The New Yorker Book of Dog CartoonsNew York: Knopf, 1998Inscribed "For...
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Mary Ellen's Copy of The Art in Cartooning
Mary Ellen must have said she liked trains. Four cartoonists who made original sketches in her copy of The Art in Cartooning (1975) managed to stick to the subject, while another four did not. Either...
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Blog Post No. 2700: Charlie Chaplin and Peter Arno Shipyard Gags
Back in the 1930s, Charlie Chaplin and Peter Arno, two comic geniuses working in two very different visual media, both set gags in a shipyard. What could possibly go wrong there? Chaplin's...
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My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #634
Ascend the heights of my entry in TheNew Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #634 for October 8, 2018. The drawing is by Liza Donnelly."Did you tell him how he can get more business?"These captions weren't...
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An Edward Koren Holdup
Irwin T. "Toby" Holtzman was a Detroit real estate developer and book collector who passed away in 2010. A Baltimore bookseller currently offers his signed copy of cartoonist Edward Koren's"Well,...
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My Copy of Peter Kuper's Kafkaesque
I'm waist-deep in gratitude for Peter Kuper's absurdly comic drawing in my copy of Kafkaesque (2017). The page is an object lesson in how to exceed my expectations:Peter KuperSigned, inscribed,...
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My Copy of Nora Krug's Belonging
At the Society of Illustrators last week, Nora Krug signed a copy of her new graphic memoir Belonging and inscribed it to me as well. See how she also managed to keep the fire burning.Signed,...
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My Copy of Ken Krimstein's The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt
Last week I attended a talk and book signing at Barnes & Noble on East 86th Street. Nancy Miller, the editorial director at Bloomsbury Publishing, is the editor of both Ken Krimstein's The Three...
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John's Copy of Charles M. Schulz's Security is a Thumb and a Blanket
I don't at all like the title of Security is a Thumb and a Blanket by Charles M. Schulz. The 1963 book's title deservedly never caught on the way the title of Schulz's first book Happiness is a Warm...
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Alan Johnson's Copy of Animals Animals Animals
Choreographer Alan Johnson did not attend the 1979 book signing for Animals Animals Animals: A Collection of Great Animal Cartoons, but a friend of his did and came away with something quite special....
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My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #635—Almost
I didn't get to submit my entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #635 for October 15, 2018 before the deadline. It would have been one of these four, quite possibly the last one. The drawing...
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Paul H. Elliott-Smith's Copy of A Golden Trashery of MAD
Under what circumstances were Paul H. R. M. Elliott-Smith's copy of A Golden Trashery of MAD (1960) signed in 1981 by publisher William M. Gaines, Al Feldstein, Nick Meglin, and a clutch of "the usual...
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The New Yorker Album of Drawings 1925-1975 Signed by Four New Yorker Artists
In previous posts I have identified eleven New Yorker artists who group-signed The New Yorker Album of Drawings 1925-1975. I have grouped these eleven cartoonists into three distinct quintets based on...
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