The Essential Charles Barsotti (The Essential Cartoonists Library) - Softcover

Lorenz, Lee

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0761109528 ISBN 13: 9780761109525

Publisher: Workman Publishing Company, 1998

Synopsis

Cartoonists are finally getting their due. Compiled and edited by Lee Lorenz, former art editor of The New Yorker and an acclaimed cartoonist in his own right, The Essential Cartoonists library is a celebration of this unique visual art form. Each volume focuses on one truly outstanding artist and features approximately 150 of the artist's best cartoons, as well as insight into background, influences, inspirations, working habits, and more. Launching the series: The Essential George Booth and The Essential Charles Barsotti. Charles Barsotti is also a 30-year veteran of The New Yorker, and in Barsotti Lorenz presents an overview of this signature cartoonist whose rounded, elegant, sparsely detailed style evokes both the traditional world of a Thurber and the contemporary sensibility of a Roz Chast. With his simple repertory--including a nameless but lovable pooch and a monarch whose kingdom consists of a guard and a telephone--Barsotti manages to miraculously dissipate the clouds in people's minds with his unexpected humor.

About this title

Review:

Though Charles Barsotti may seem like the quintessential New Yorker cartoonist--droll punch lines underlining clean, spare drawings--his career has in fact been remarkably varied, encompassing everything from just-this-side-of-cutesy doodles for Hallmark to brash one-liners for Playboy. The Essential Charles Barsotti also takes the reader through his stint at The Saturday Evening Post and even a failed run at the United States Congress. Barsotti proves himself to be refreshingly versatile, equally adept at turning out surreal, one-panel cartoons and longer, text-based pieces. Particularly good is a quietly subversive parody of civil defense posters that deals with the proper techniques for spotting enemy dirigibles ("A: LOOK UP"). Barsotti himself proves to be as interesting as his cartoons--through interviews interspersed throughout the book, he emerges as a stand-up guy, able to maintain his principles without losing his sense of humor. --Ali Davis

From the Back Cover:

Stone-Hearted Tycoons, Wisecracking Pasta, Mischievous Puppies, Kings and Cowboys...

By happily disregarding all the ground rules, Charles Barsotti has created his own original world - sophisticated one moment and whimsical the next, sweet and then satirical. Now the artist is getting his due in The Essential Charles Barsotti, a collection of over 100 drawings plus and appreciation and interview by noted cartoonist and art editor Lee Lorenz.

About this edition

• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0761109528
• ISBN 13: 9780761109525
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160