Caricature Books

i purchased this for my 10 year old nephew who loves art - it is not too hard and yet it is interesting

A 'lighten-up' look at heavy services. A must-have manual for over-varnished pew-racks everywhere.

cheers!

This book, the first of several from Tennant, was published in 1992, so it deals with a lot of computing issues before the widespread onset of Windows the WWW. I hadn't yet tapped into my inner geek at that time, but for admins and others who fondly remember the days of LANs, early network maintenance, "killer apps" and a host of other topics, this is for you. You can do a lot with one panel of comic space. Great for one-off photocopies to post up on the outside of your server, etc.

The only thing that I wasn't expecting is that there are 2 of each image. I was thinking that they would be 30 different cards...

Before Posy Simmonds took to drawing cartoons for the Guardian, she produed the saucy adventures of Bear for the Sun newspaper, back in the early 1970s.

The rotound and lecherous Bear inhabited a sort of Toyland for adults, where he was always in hot pursuit of numerous dollies (all the dollies had big eyes, very short skirts and lots of cleavage). His companions in his adventures were the equally lascivious Penguin and Rabbit (Rabbit always carried a large carrot, but what that signified I'm sure I couldn't say).

Every cartoon was a ripe piece of innuendo as Bear or one of his friends invariably ended up in a compromising situation with a dishevelled dolly. If you enjoy the kind of broad British humour you get in programmes like the Benny Hill show and the Carry On films, you will probably enjoys these cartoon. Wildly un-politically correct and still raising a smile after all these years.

Mikhail Gorbachev is the poster boy for the cover of "Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year, 1986" because he was the third leader of the Soviet Union in a two-and-a-half year period and the first to be a member of a younger generation. However, while the world was only beginning to know Gorby, who was only beginning to start his revolutionary change in his country that would see the collapse of the Iron Curtain, the star of this collection of editorial cartoons is still Ronald Reagan, who in 1985 had a comeback from colon cancer surgery, unveiled a tax reform plan, pushed for the Strategic Defense Initiative (a.k.a. "Star Wars"), and had his first summit with Gorbachev.

That was the year that a TWA 747 was hijacked on a flight from Athens to Rome, David Stockman resigned as Director of the OMB, the famine in Ethiopia continued, and Lebanon was the hot spot in the Middle East. Apartheid was starting to crumble in South Africa, Reagan placed a wreath at the military cemetery in the German town of Bitburg, and the world was treated to New Coke. Throw into the mix the commonplaces of contemporary political life, from the economy, health care, and crime to Congress, sports and religion. You will be surprised how much of these people and events come back to mind and you enjoy these cartoons.

There are five cartoons by my favorite all-time editorial cartoonist, Jeff MacNelly of the "Chicago Tribune," who won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize. You will also find choice efforts from Bill Day, Jim Borgman, Kirk Walters, Mike Luckovich, and Ed Gamble. Besides taking these walks down memory lane flipping through these books always introduces you to some pretty good editorial cartoonists who are published in newspapers other than the one you read.

The 350 editorial cartoons by more than 130 of the nation's leading editorial cartoons were collected by editorial Charles Brooks. The book also has a foreword by Congressman Jack Kemp, the former Buffalo Bills quarterback and then Congressman from New York, who noted "No one had ever seen a cartoon poling fun at Mikhail Gorbachev in "Pravda" or "Krokodil," and that fact speaks volumes..."

"Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year, 1977" captures the events of 1976, which was a banner year for editorial cartoonists. The reason why is aptly captured by the cartoon on the cover of this collection, which shows the iconically toothy smile of Jimmy Carter, who came out of nowhere (a.k.a. Plains, Georgia) to be elected President of the United States. 1976 had it all: the nation's bicentennial, political scandals, a heated Presidential campaign, an election that went down to the wire and divided the nation along geographical lines, all wrapped up the distinctive facial features of Jimmy Carter (and an infamous interview "Playboy" magazine).

The editorial cartoonist of the year was clearly Tony Auth of the Philadelphia "Inquirer," who won both the Pulitzer Prize, for a carton of Leonid Breshnev singing "American the Beautiful" in an American wheat field, and the Sigma Delta Chi Award, for a cartoon of Muslims and Christians killing each other in the name of their religions in Beirut. There are also several cartoons by my all-time favorite, Jeff MacNelly, along with choice cartoons by Robert Graysmith, Ed Gamble, Mike Peters, and Dick Locher. You will certainly get a sense of the new school and old school approaches to editorial cartooning.

Cartoons about the 1976 Election provide the single largest chapter in the collection, with the vast majority of those being about the challenger Carter. The challenge to President Gerald Ford by Ronald Reagan in the Republican Party receives treatment as well, along with the Wayne Hays Scandal (does the name Elizabeth Ray ring a bell?). In terms of international affairs there was turmoil in Southern Africa, OPEC raising the price of oil, tension in the Middle East in general and Lebanon in particular, and the death of Mao Tse-Tung (that was the spelling used back then). There were, of course, cartoons on perennial topics like Crime, Defense, Education, and the Economy, as well as one time subjects such as the Swine Flu, Earl Butz, and the mystery of Howard Hughes' will.

This is the fifth collection of the annual series that brings together hundreds of examples of the high art of editorial cartoonists by more than 130 of its practitioners compiled by Charles Brooks, award-winning editorial cartoonist for the Birmingham "News" and former president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. The introduction is written by Draper Hill, an editorial cartoonists for the Detroit "News" who comments on the change in this satirical art form, arguing: "Dignity is out of fashion. For the younger cartoonists, sentiment is so suspect as to be virtually taboo." Given that we are now talking about an American living in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era, this is not surprising.

The two central events pictured in the editorial cartoons of 2000 were the presidential campaign and the Florida ballot count. Both were so ... cartoon-like affairs that they didn't really need any mare drawings. So (because of the competition) the inspiration was not so great, but still in this book one finds the best that could be drawn ...

From the cartoonists point of view a golden age ended with Bill Clinton's second term. What a ... cartoon!

I taught at a school were the final senior project in the Honors Physics class was the invention of a "Rube Goldberg" machine that had to accomplish a task such as making chocolate milk or putting toothpaste on a toothbrush. Goldberg's genius was to "invent" wonderful complicated mechanical solutions (totally tongue in cheek) for the real problems of American life such as a "Simple Way to Carve a Turkey" or "Putting the Cat Out at Night."

For example, here are the instructions for a "Simple Alarm Clock": The early bird (A) arrives and catches worm (B), pulling string (C) and shooting off pistol (D). Bullet (E) bursts balloon (F), dropping brick (G) on bulb (H) of atomizer (I) and shooting perfume (J) on sponge (K). As sponge gains in weight, it lowers itself and pulls string (L), raising end of board (M). Cannon ball (N) drops on nose of sleeping gentleman--String tied to cannon ball releases cork (O) of vacuum bottle (P) and ice water falls on sleeper's face to assist the cannon ball in its good work.

Now, the description alone is pretty good, but add to this Goldberg's illustration in which everything is labeled from A to O (in this case). In "The Best of Rube Golberg," Charles Keller has collected the best of his prolific output to introduce those fascinating contraptions, which made the name Rube Goldberg a household word. Granted, today's children might not recognize his name, but if they have every played "Mousetrap" then they will totally understand the guiding principle at work here. The book is tailored for young children as an introduction to Goldberg's genius. There are dozens of examples from his "Automatic Weight-Reducing Machine" from 1914 to a similar goal in "Every Woman to Have a Perfect Figure" from 1944.

This is a very helpful book for learning to draw. If you need more help try other Blitz books. He has a good method of drawing. He tells you what supplies you need to begin. He starts with simple pictures and works his way to the more complicated pictures. This is a good book.