Salmagundi Library Newsletter | Winter | 2024 | The cartoon
The Cartoon
1) A drawing, as in a newspaper magazine, depicting a humorous situation, often accompanied by a caption; a pictorial joke.
2) A pictorial satire or comment on a subject of current public
interest, usually accompanied by words; a caricature.
“The cartoon of the daily press is used to satirize public events, persons, or conditions of life, and made to appeal to the sense of humor, honor, justice, or mercy… The cartoonist handles comedy and tragedy with equal east, his range of selection embracing all of life.”
Ten books in our Library illustrate these precepts
The first, by a member of the Club, Cartoons of our war with Spain, is by Charles Nelan. The subject is war, but he curiously states “I do not believe in the bitter, stinging cartoon. It’s always best to produce a laugh with your argument; people seem to digest it better.” Judge for yourself – these first four books are online at the Hathi trust.
From 1919 is Humorists of the Pencil. These works of three Victorian illustrators from Punch, Charles Keene, L. Raven-Hill and Phil May, are dated, decorous if you prefer, by today’s standards. But each was extremely popular. A bonus in our copy is the bookplate of the donors – George William and Mary Knowlton Harting.
One Hundred Cartoons by Oscar Edward Cesare ably handles tragedy : World War One. Using a grease pencil, his work is ferocious.
Another pacifist of the same era, and the only cartoonist of a major daily paper, the Chicago Daily News, to oppose American military involvement in WW I, was Luther D. Bradley. Cartoons by Bradley contains a posthumous appreciation and a biographical sketch.
We skip forward to works not in the public domain with the 1939 autobiography of Art Young, 1866 – 1943, American cartoonist and writer. He is best known for his socialist cartoons, especially those drawn for the left-wing political magazine The Masses between 1911 and 1917.
Charles Addams, hallowed by all lovers of the macabre, is represented by Drawn and Quartered of 1942. Boris Karloff wrote a most amusing introduction (“I hope I will not be accused of undue vanity if I publicly thank Mr. Addams for immortalizing me in the person of the witch’s butler…”) to which Bennett Cerf replied, mentioning that he “found the fearsome Mr. Karloff engaged in singing nursey rhymes to his little three-year-old daughter.”
Readers of The New Yorker will instantly recognize the work in Peter Arno’s Cartoon Revue. He worked at the magazine from 1925 to 1968, often depicting the cross-sections of New York society. He was, according to Roger Angell, “the magazine’s first genius”. In 1939 he retired upstate to enjoy music, guns, and sports cars.
Also working for The New Yorker (and Playboy) was the Canadian Richard Taylor. Again, his familiar style is in The Better Taylors (1944).
The prolific and multi-faceted Saul Steinberg said of himself “I don’t quite belong to the art, cartoon or magazine world, so the art world doesn’t quite know where to place me.” However, we can investigate his line drawings in All in Line, which by chance includes a ripped-out clipping from Life Magazine about his first wife, and artist herself, Hedda Sterne. She describes elsewhere their marriage license as “the first of Saul’s phony documents, maybe”.
Last is the incomparable Edward Gorey – Amphigory Too, who gives Charles Addams a run for his money. The Gilded Bat, to name just one, is surely among the great works of graphic storytelling.
For your enjoyment, these books will be on the coffee table in front of the couch in the Library until February 14th . We hope you enjoy them.