I Only Read It for the Cartoons: The New Yorker's Most Brilliantly Twisted Artists

Available for the first time to <i>The New Yorker</i>'s one million-plus readers: a volume dedicated to the individual careers of the magazine's cartoon superstars. <p></p><p></p>Widely considered to be the pantheon of single-panel cartooning, <i>The New Yorker</i> cartoonists' styles are richly varied, and their personal stories are surprising. For example, did you know that Arnie Levin is a seventy-three-year-old former Beatnik painter with a handlebar mustache and a back decorated by Japan's foremost tattoo artists? <p></p><p>Gehr's book features fascinating biographical profiles of such artists as Gahan Wilson, Sam Gross, Roz Chast, Lee Lorenz, and Edward Koren. Along with a dozen such profiles, Gehr provides a brief history of <i>The New Yorker</i> cartoon itself, touching on the lives and work of earlier illustrating wits, including Charles Addams, James Thurber, and William Steig.</p>