Here’s what they’re saying about I Only Read It for the Cartoons: The New Yorker’s Most Brilliantly Twisted Artists.
Buy your copy here. (And read an excerpt here.)
“[Gehr’s] knowledge of the history and culture of the magazine, and his incisive, revealing interviews, make for great reading…When Roz Chast, George Booth, Ed Koren, and all the rest read this book, I think they will be delighted–as will you.” – Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, from the foreword
“Clearly, Gehr has made it easy for us to be a bit more frank than we normally are–and I think it is because he loves the form and is so well schooled in it and its history–and takes us seriously.” – Edward Koren, New Yorker cartoonist
“Incisive interviews with a dozen cartoonists whose work highlights the esteemed magazine.” – Kirkus Review
“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
“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
“Gehr is sure to delight any New Yorker fan with this look at the pantheon of cartoonists who regularly grace the magazine’s pages with their special brand of wisdom and humor.” – Publisher’s Weekly
“The absence of the great earlier masters of the New Yorker cartoon – except in allusion and a historic ectoplasmic presence all the way through – doesn’t change the ineluctable fact that this slender book is very much one the world needed and looked for.” – Jeff Simon, Buffalo News
“VERDICT: Fans of the magazine and cartoon aficionados will enjoy Gehr’s entertaining writing.” — Teri Shiel, Library Journal
“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
“There’s no purer distillation of a sense of humor than the single-panel gag cartoon, and most of the good ones appear in The New Yorker. This book profiles twelve of the magazine’s cartoonists prove to be as funny, odd, and sometimes enigmatic as their artifacts.” – Christopher Miller, author of American Cornball