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Funny Stuff: How Great Cartoonists Make Great Cartoons Book Cover
10 copies
Print

Funny Stuff is a tribute to a unique art the single-panel gag cartoon. It looks at why so many of us enjoy cartoons, and what makes for a great cartoon. Authors Phil Witte and Rex Hesner consider how cartoonists can present a complex or odd scenario that we immediately grasp, and what enables us to “get” the humor in a flash. Based on interviews with cartoonist legends—Roz Chast, Sam Gross, Harry Bliss, Joe Dator, Mick Stevens, and many others—Funny Stuff will show how cartoons reveal much about the psyches of their creators. For Roz Chast, known for her neurotic cartoon characters, feared she might die taking a bath because the tub could crash through the floor. The text is abundant with cartoons illustrating the observations of Witte and Hesner. They point to cartoonists who rely on common situations (the desert island, Garden of Eden, hell) and stock characters (the pirate, business executive, scientist), as well as cartoonists who subvert these conventions. They analyze types of absurd, dark, ironic, satirical. They address how the wording of a caption can mean the difference between a cartoon succeeding and almost succeeding, and the extra degree of difficulty required of the caption-less cartoon. They discuss cartooning as an art form, and specifically how the artwork of the best cartoons supports the humor. This book features a foreword written by Bob Mankoff, former cartoon editor at The New Yorker and a legend in the cartoon world.
  • Humor and comedy
  • Comics
Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life Book Cover
30 copies
Print
The first biography of Robert Crumb—one of the most profound and influential artists of the 20th century—whose iconic, radically frank and meticulously rendered cartoons and comics inspired generations of readers and cartoonists, from Art Spiegelman to Alison Bechdel.

Robert Crumb is often credited with single-handedly transforming the comics medium into a place for adult expression, in the process pioneering the underground comic book industry, and transforming the vernacular language of 20th-century America into an instantly recognizable and popular aesthetic, as iconic as Walt Disney or Charles Schulz. Now, for the first time, Dan Nadel, a curator and writer specializing in comics and art, shares how this complicated artist survived childhood abuse, fame in his twenties, more fame, and came out the other side intact.

More than just a biography of an iconic cartoonist, Crumb is the story of a richly complex life at the forefront of both the underground and popular cultures of post-war America. Including forty-five stunning black-and-white images throughout and a sixteen-page color insert featuring images both iconic and obscure, Crumb spans the pressures of 1950s suburban America and Crumb’s highly dysfunctional early family life; the history of comics and graphic satire; 20th century popular music; the world of the counterculture; the birth of underground comic books in 1960s San Francisco with Crumb’s Zap Comix; the economic challenges and dissolution of the hippie dream; and the path Robert Crumb blazed through it all.

Written with Crumb’s cooperation, this fascinating, rollicking book takes in seven decades of Crumb’s iconic works, including Fritz the Cat, Weirdo, and his final book-length comic of The Book of Genesis; capturing, in the process, the essence of an extraordinary artist and his times.
  • Biography
  • Comics
So You Won the Lottery!: A Hilarious Look at the Lives of the Suddenly Super-Rich Book Cover
20 copies
Kindle
For lottery players and Big Win dreamers everywhere! Console yourself for missing out again on that big win with a fun take on the problems of the suddenly super-rich, and their new found fortune. From where to hide it to how to spend it, this how-to-handle guide gives no help at all, just a fun look at the winners" changed lives. Dozens of black and white cartoons by Ten Cats comic strip creator Graham Harrop
  • Comics
  • Humor and comedy
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