I love The New Yorker. Truth is, I am sort of obsessed with it. Many of my literary heroes wrote for it and I try to read just about everything that comes out about the mag and its' illustrious history while still trying to keep up with my subscription. (Last Summer, I got caught up for the first time in three years, a triumph known only to regular subscribers, but soon fell behind again. Currently, I'm reading the July 21st issue and Friday is Halloween.) Naturally, I was thrilled to receive an advance copy of this. Cartoons are part of what makes The New Yorker distinctive and enduring. Here Richard Gehr writes about and speaks with twelve prominent cartoonists whose work you'll recognize even if you don't know them by name. You get a wealth of background, back story, and behind-the-scenes stories. Some of these characters (and they are characters!) have been drawing for the magazine for decades, others far less, but they all have that certain something that makes their cartoons "New Yorker cartoons". Few other cartoons can be distinguished in such a way, especially these days, with newspapers having gone the way of the dodo and few other magazines bothering with the art form any more. Cartooning is practically an endangered species and that makes this examination of these artists all the richer.
A real treat comes at the end when New Yorker cartoon editor and contributor Bob Mankoff discusses the process of choosing the cartoons for each issue. As one would expect from the mag, it is a painstaking process but it obviously pays off time and again, week after week.
That said, this might be a book for dorky New Yorker obsessives like me and not for someone who wishes to read cartoons. For that, you'll need another book entirely. May I suggest The Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker, a magnificent coffee table volume that will supply you with all you need and more.
Sadly, one of the greats featured in the book, Charles Barsotti, he of kings and puppies, passed away this June, just a few months before the book pubbed.
