I Only Read It for the Cartoons

"If you think you are funny and could do what New Yorker cartoonists do, you are wrong. To get a glimpse into the lives and working habits of these artists is a great gift. They are a rarified breed living in places like Connecticut and Westchester. They blend into the background, but they are the great philosophers of our time. Don't try this at home." —Maira Kalman, New Yorker cover artist, author of My Favorite Things and The Principles of Uncertainty

“Everyone who's ever had their mind blown by a New Yorker cartoon has wondered about the twisted, perforated, skewed, and fizzy geniuses that create them. This book is our Rosetta Stone. It explains who these wonderful weirdos are, how they acquire their odd, delicious ideas, and how those ideas migrate fantastically to paper and then press. We are in enormous debt to Richard Gehr for tracking these artists down, for charming them, disarming them, and translating their lives and work into wise and elegant prose. Books like this should cost a fortune.” —David Shenk, author of The Genius in All of Us

"A great New Yorker cartoon goes deeper than it looks, and Richard Gehr's masterful profiles of the magazine's artists reveal the rich weirdness and intense craft behind their doodly bursts of wit." —Douglas Wolk, author of Reading Comics