Cartoons Books

This is the delightful little memoir of Saul Steinberg,
translated from the italian by John Shepley. Its great value
is that it is the closest we will ever come to reading
the work of one of America's great literary talents.

Now it's become a pretty commonplace observation that
Steinberg is as appropriate a nominee for the literary
hall of fame as he is for the graphic artists'. This is
the little book that seals the deal. It turns out that
Steinberg's aphoristically-turned phrases are as clear and
concise as his drawings. This book is sadly, all he wrote.

Steinberg did not intend this to be a personal disclosure-
he is a man who had his memoir written by somebody else. And
yet, it turns out that the very tightness of phrasing gives
the man away. What did he learn of Milan when he was there?
Not much. "My chief interest then was girls. .I was looking...
.to find myself through love."

There are a few drawings here, all of them small and printed
just well enough to make you wish they were printed better.
If you are amoung the unconverted and want to catch examples
of his drawing see the wonderful exhibit at the Morgan
Library in New York or one of the great collections
(my favorite is Passport). But for true believers, Reflections
is Steinberg's literary love song, a book that puts him in the
company of Borges.

--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
the forthcoming novel bang BANG from Kunati Books.ISBN
9781601640005

Published after his death in 1999, this is a meditation based on a series of interviews of Steinberg by Buzzi. Beginning with his childhood and youth in Romania, through his wartime experience in Italy and his maturity in the United States, Steinberg muses with an acute visual sense, appropriate for an artist. The book is illustrated with his drawings.

His ideas about influences on art are insightful. as he describes early photographers "inspired by the paintings of Delacroix and Ingres", to his thought that Bacon "clearly derives from the Polaroid". I was intrigued by his suggestion that the use of industrial paints in American art occurred because of poor artists used cold-water flats as studios, "and to make them livable they had to scrape and paint the walls, doors and windows, and floors . . . and this led them to work on a large scale, to use industrial paints, such as gold or silver on radiators, new materials". His description of the New York City taxi cab of the `40's as created out of Cubist elements, of the automobile influenced by Constructivism, Cubism, and "Fernandlégerism" makes one look at cars in a whole new light.

The title, Reflections and Shadows, comes from a section in which he discusses how what one sees in reverse in a reflection (in a mirror, in water) or shadow is often better - sharper, more intense - than the original. "If you look only at the reflection, and not at the reflecting part, you see a gratuitous reality that exists for you alone. For fun I throw a stone into the upside-down landscape, and seeing that the lower part moves I almost expect the upper part to move too."

If I quoted all my favorite parts of this book, I'd be typing almost the entire thing, so you'll have to go read it for yourself!

The autobiographical musings of a New Yorker cartoonist told to his old friend, and filled with wit, humanity and philosophical gems. Stories of escaping from the fascist police in Italy, too lazy to brutally arrest people at the usual invisible ungodly hour. Or civic life in 1950s Washington, and the charming people who knew exactly how to be courteous and to dismiss those who didn't belong. Or the poor white in kentucky, like protagonists out of American fiction, whereas the bourgeoisie, respectable people, "always the same". And Magritte's discovery of multiple sources of light in a painting (sun, streetlamp, electric light inside a house, the moon, reflections of light. Or American gastronomy, in which "the taste of the nation are governed by the tastes of children".

'Reigning Cats and Dogs' is an impressive book; entertaining for people of all ages to read because it encompasses a wealth of facts about the lives of famous people, from athletes to actors to politicians to poets to musicians, and beyond--all with a very clever and always highly amusing feline or canine twist. The full-color, full-page illustrations are adorable cartoons of anthromorphosized animals--(incidentally, it's certain to please the furry as well as the average person!) Two thumbs way up for this terrific gift idea. I got it as a birthday present from someone who knew I was an animal lover, and it turned out to appeal to so many more interests of mine as well. Always a cute one to flip through and to read.

i do think that this book was well thought out and
cleverly written and i am amazed that this mans talent has
not been recognised further

"Reigning Cats and Dogs," is a clever outlook at what some of our favorite and least liked celebrities would be like if they were canine-ized. The author uses his drawing talent to bring these anthropomorphic celebrity dogs and cats to life, using an almost British styled humor. Read about The Beatles, I mean, The Beagles, and read about other well known entertainers and journalists. Now, the only problem seems to be how to a get these pictures framed and on your wall.

Actually, as the saying goes, laughter is the best medicine. The Nose Masks are the vehicle for inspiring laughter. When wearing one of my favorite nose masks, I not only inspire hysterical laughter from others, but I myself laugh the hardest. I can not imagine life without my nose masks. This book is a must for anyone who is silly at heart, or wishes that they could be silly.

A "nose mask" is a mask made of paper through which the nose is inserted and helps to keep the mask in place. Return Of The Nose Masks presents 150 original costumes for the nose, including holiday nose masks, career nose masks, modern art nose masks, mustache nose masks, big vertical nose masks, and small square nose masks. Whether for Halloween, costume parties, or just playing around with friends, Return Of The Nose Masks offers novel, enjoyable, highly recommend fun for kids of all ages.

Nose masks are the best things to come around since sliced bread, which could in itself be used as a nose mask! This book is perfect for anyone and everyone! Buy one to save and one to tear up!

I was truly blessed at an early age to have this and Gymkhana in my room when I first began to ride. This is a marvelous and loving look at children and horseback riding. Any parent with a child, particularly a daughter, beginning Enlgish riding instruction ought to make every effort to find this book. Like my tattered copy, it will become an heirloom. PCK, NJ.

Everything you ever experienced at a riding academy with a chuckle on every page. Or if you've never been to a riding academy, you'll want to after looking this over. Angie Lohman

This is one of my favorite books from childhood. A tongue-in-cheek riding instruction manual, it is filled with cartoons about the antics of girls and their sometimes-naughty ponies. Add subtle British humor to the mix, and it's a must for girls in that "horsey" stage . . . my 10-year-old adores it!

I thought I'd reviewed this years ago, but maybe it was elsewhere. I love this book. I've been a fan of the late Al Hirschfeld for years, but here's a relatively new artist from New York who captures a little of that style but yet has his own. Well, the cover says it all! If you can look at the cover and not laugh, well, you're dead. The back cover will blow away any Diana Ross fan, as well. His caricature style is such that if you follow pop culture at all, you don't need to look at the index to see whom is who. Well, for me there were a couple that were unfamiliar. I thought he missed the mark with Michael Jordan, but nobody's perfect! The book is divided into TV, Style, Music, Thinkers, Film, Scandals, Media, Sports, Theater, and Politics. Nobody seems to be off limits with Risko. His artwork is just beautifully done on a technical level, and still there's humor in a lot of it. There's one piece in particular of singer Al Jarreau that's stunning--it's part Hirschfeld and part Picasso! It's hard to explain, really. If you've never seen a Risko, you just have to experience it for yourself. Buy this book! I can't say enough about this artist, and I can't wait for Volume Two!

Found this book to be an amazing collection of illustrations by one of the most talented artists in our time. His work has matured over the years to a fine point of perfection.

Outstanding collection of extremely witty and winsome caricatures of entertainment and political figures from the 1970's through today. Most of the work previously graced the covers and feature articles of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Interview, and Rolling Stone and therefore will be familiar to the reader.

There is much excellent cultural and political commentary (in illustration form) collected in this one book by an outstanding illustrator of the 20th century.

Great for Christmas giving, the book is beautifully printed and guaranteed to bring miles of smiles to the reader.

My daughter (9) loves these books. Unfortunately, they are too easy and fast for her to read now. She started reading them when she was 7 and they were perfect. However, she still loves them and I buy each book for her as they come out.

There is no smarter or cannier look at school life than Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm's Babymouse series. The traumas that plague Babymouse and her classmates are universal. Gym uniforms ARE ugly, lockers DO attack, school meat loaf SHOULD be regarded with suspicion and riding the school bus is ONLY for the very VERY brave.

In Babymouse: Rock Star, music is a solace and joy for our heroine but even there, chair tests create yet another pecking order, this time in Band. Hoping to work her way up from last chair for the school concert, Babymouse resolves that she will practice hard for the tryout. Alas, the results of her efforts are, "Screeech!" With the help of a friend, she learns that real music is something you feel in your heart. Band parents will completely identify with this story.

Babymouse's wonderful imagination (she is a reader) carries her daily struggles into the world of the Wizard of Oz and the Pied Piper of Hamelin and her musical dreams into the realm of American Idol-ness.

These graphic novels are rich in humor for young readers but junior highschoolers will also identify. If you have not added this series to your library collection yet then do so asap!

Brava!

Babymouse is back in "Babymouse: Rock Star," the fourth volume of the Babymouse series.

This time, school and music are getting her down. Oh, and her number-one enemy Felicia Furrypaws.

How does Babymouse cope? She daydreams, of course. First, she's a rock star. Then, on a boring Wednesday, a tornado whisks her out of school. But, daydreams won't save her from her biggest problem: she wants to play the flute better. She wants to move from last chair in the school band.

Felicia Furrypaws is second-to-last chair and torments Babymouse. Fortunately, Babymouse finds help from a fellow Furrypaws victim and succeeds in the end with a little practice, instruction, and targeted daydreaming.

Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm triumph again with this latest installment in the tales of your average school-aged mouse. Babymouse's daydreams are fun and action-filled, but the beauty of the books is in the everyday. Everyone has angst about their position in the band, everyone fears a school bully, and everyone hates the bus.

The bus is the star of my favorite sequence in "Babymouse: Rock Star." The bus screeches up, the driver says, "Let's get moving! What do you think I am anyway? Your own personal chauffeur?" Then Babymouse comments that the bus "was like an obstacle course." The obstacles? "Doesn't open. Talks too much. Gets bus-sick. Soda spill. Bumpy. Rickety. Kind of scary. Gum. Picks nose. Yells." True, true, true.

"Babymouse: Rock Star" is highly recommended for school-aged children five and up. And, even though "Babymouse" is written at approximately a third-grade level, I've found young middle schoolers love Babymouse as well.

Milligan can't help himself: he'd be making goony jokes while being eaten by a lion. Here, in the second volume of his war memoirs, he's typically rumbustious and full of bad puns and silliness right in the middle of fighting the war in Northern Africa. He explains the dreadful boredom of waiting for battle and the utterly unreal experience of battle itself: being strafed and bombed and shelled, with loved friends dying a few feet away. He never dwells on the tragedy of war, but you can tell that, thirty or forty years later, he still feels the devastation and loss amidst the japes and jibes.

This is a great war memoir. You really feel what he felt-- the confusion and misery and sometimes the giddy exhilaration of living when others died. You'll laugh out loud at his antics, and you'll see the simple bravery of the British Tommies in WWII. Recommended.

A very quick and surprisingly engrossing book. ROMMEL is just as good if not better than its predecessor, Adolf hitler: My Part in His downfall. Milligan does a fantastic job of juggling the humor and the tragedy without overwhelming the reader with the events of the times. His sad nostalgia isn't as pronounced as it is in DOWNFALL, but it is there, as he does take time out from reminiscing to hammer out a paragraph about how he longs for the old days. His writing makes those who never experienced it long for it as well.

This book written by a comedy genius was both marvellously funny and desperately sad at times. I thoroughly enjoyed the bit about the gun going over the edge

I've been reading this strip since it's debut and I was so pleased to have a book come out--I immediately had to purchase it! Bell and Heir are a fabulous team and have created a delightful group of characters that are an incredible mix of age, wisdom, thick headedness and fun. They poke fun at our obsession with coffee, computers, news stories, and the government. My favorite character has to be Sadie Cohen though---the cranky old lady who says everything we all think but that we're not always gutsy enough to express for ourselves. Go Xtreme Scrabble!!!!!

I was surprised how on-point, hilarious, and gutsy the political and social commentary in this book is. I've been reading this comic strip since day one on the NY Times website, and later in my local paper. Long before the 'sixteen words' in the President's speech made such an uproar, and back when the only other voice critical of the Administration was 'The Boondocks,' 'Rudy Park' was calling it like they saw it. This strip has spoken out when so many others in our Media have wimped out. But unlike 'The Boondocks' which is rarely funny, and is too mean-spirited for my tastes, this satire really does 'poke fun' at its targets. It's in the same spirit as 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.' It's honest and unafraid, but it's also light-hearted and whimsical at times. Also unlike Boondocks, it devotes a LOT of time to the characters, including Mrs. Cohen, a cranky but wise old lady who reminds me of my grandma, and Monkey, an orangutan Rudy bought from a broke day-trader. This first book also shows how Rudy is a constant victim of unrequited love, how his boss Armstrong is a greedy 'George Jefferson' type, and introduces us to several other endearing characters who are each a little bit mysterious. One, Randy 'The Rock' Taylor, got a job in airport security after 9-11, and routinely checks to make sure people don't have guns, knives, or ugly polka-dot underwear. My favorite is Uncle Mort, the wild-eyed, Liberal conspiracy theorist with a bullhorn who can never get anyone to pay any attention to him, no matter how loud -or how right- he is. This book is a great start, and I can't wait until the next one comes out (the next one, if they're doing them in order, should have even more commentary on the War on Terror and more developments with Rudy's unrequited love of Darlene Desai.). The strip is a wild ride, and I recommend getting this book for anyone who likes cafes, cares about politics and social issues, or who likes looking at really cute Orangutans that dream about Taco Bell value meals. If you want social satire that's endearing instead of mean-spirited, buy this book!

If you're looking for something that has funny characters, great writing, and great artwork, this is for you. I never read comics until my boyfriend got me hooked on "Rudy Park" and "Get Fuzzy." But while Get Fuzzy is a good escape from the world around us, Rudy Park is great because it lampoons the world around us.

It even manages to make the horrible job situation we're facing today funny in unexpected ways. If you're afraid of the direction our country's headed in, wary of terrorism and corporate scandals, and you're worried that your job may suddenly disappear, nothing will make you laugh like this.

I just finish reading it and every one gotta read it its alot of action and its so cool iam telling you you gotta read it.I never taught that Rurouni Kenshin was so cool.

These novels have kept my attention sinse I first picked up #1 at the store. Kenshin is a true feel-good comedy that is NOWHERE near corney. I just fell in love with the wandering samurai from the very beginning, and I have yet to be disappointed with him!
This novel moves right along with the plot that the second volume left off on. It's all about the mysterious and somewhat annoying Miss. Megumi. She may get press all the wrong buttons with everyone else, but Kenshin still refuses to abandon someone who needs his help, AND THAT'S WHY WE LOVE HIM!!
At first Ruroni Kenshin may seem the same as other dime-a-dozen manga series. Only by reading it can you fully realize just how different and refreshing this series really is. It provides you with characters that you like, and storylines that dont insult your intellegence. In my opinion, Kenshin is the best new manga around. Ken-chan definatly has raised the bar of manga standards, and I'm sure glad he did!! If the story keeps going like it has, theres no telling what new levels of greatness it will reach, so don't be left behind!! READ IT!!!

With the Jinne incident over, Kenshin and his friends have become a bit closer. Defeating a mass murderer usually does that... Soon enough though, Kenshin meets Megumi, who's running from her own problems. Kenshin, being a kindred soul and sensing goodness in her, decides to protect her.

When Megumi's "employer" sends his posse to retrieve her, they encounter some difficulties. In their attack on the dojo, we see a little more into the relationships between the characters. Kenshin inspires great loyalty with his kindness and willingness to stand in harms way for the sake of others. He may act clumsy and aloof, but he actually sees much and understands and appreciates much. Because of this, Karou, despite knowing him for just a short time, has great faith in him and as with the others, will stand by him. Megumi came to Kenshin just because she saw he was wearing a sword, but through this incident, she begins to see him in a new light.

Things, however, get a little more complicated, as they always do, but I'll leave that alone. The story moves forward and remember that the whole Kenshin story is ten times better than any individual part.

This is a great, great book. Incredibly funny, and very San Francisco. I will buy any book he writes.

Don't miss the big-lipped action in this book! It is funny even if you don't live in San Francisco!

Don Asmussen is brilliant in his depiction of life in such a liberal town as San Francisco. This book is dearly appreciated by San Franciscans but appeals to all people with a sense of humor.