Chas Addams Happily Ever After: A Collection of Cartoons to Chill the Heart of Your Loved One [Hardcover]

Charles Addams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 3, 2006

Charles Addams was renowned for his depictions of love (or lack thereof) in his cartoons. The passion of Morticia and Gomez Addams, the lonely desires of Fester, the numerous grim and ghastly fights between husband and wife -- all found their way into Addams's signature drawings.

Addams's concept of love was quite a bit different from the traditional idea of romance. Forget roses and chocolate, Addams will show you how to woo a mermaid or celebrate an anniversary on a desert island. Or how to keep your husband on a leash -- literally. Learn what to do when your prince stays a frog, even after you've kissed him.

Compiled from Addams's personal archive, many of these cartoons are previously unpublished gems, while others are Addams classics. The cartoons in Chas Addams Happily Ever After run the gamut from ecstatic love to disappointed affection to murderous obsession and demonstrate that love really does hurt.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Chas Addams was the creator of the "Addams Family" cartoons, which first appeared in The New Yorker and were the inspiration for the popular The Addams Family television show and movies. He has been honored with the Yale Humor Award (1954) and a Special Edgar Award for "Cartoonist of the Macabre" from the Mystery Writers of America. Addams died in 1988 in New York City.

From The Washington Post

What kind of man would collect medieval armor? Perhaps one who wanted to be insulated from his own creations -- men, women and children often on the verge of dispatching one another. I speak of Charles (Chas) Addams, creator of the Addams Family, longtime cartoonist for the New Yorker, and possessor of an inexhaustibly mordant sense of humor. Among the drawings -- many of them previously unpublished -- collected in Happily Ever After (Simon & Schuster, $20) are such anti-Valentines as a middle-aged man standing near the edge of Echo Gorge, into which a woman's hat and purse are disappearing after their owner. The caption reads, in ever-diminishing letters, "You wouldn't dare ... you wouldn't dare ... you wouldn't dare." Perhaps Echo Gorge goes by more than one name. In another cartoon, a man goes up to a train-station ticket booth and, while his wife stands obliviously by, asks for "a round-trip and a one-way to Ausable Chasm." Not to worry, though. The book includes droves of cartoons in which it's the wife, not the husband, who's involved in spousicide. When it came to marital mayhem, Chas Addams could swing either way. -- Dennis Drabelle
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (January 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 074326777X
• ISBN-13: 978-0743267779
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #81,785 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good Addams, bad edition, April 30, 2009

By 

Silver "Silver" (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Chas Addams Happily Ever After (Kindle Edition)

First, a little information for those disappointed by how few 'Addams Family' cartoons there are. The Charles Addams cartoons came first. The television show was based on a group of characters that he used in more than one of his cartoons. 'Gomez' and 'Morticia' for instance, did generally appear together, or with 'Pugsly' and 'Wednesday'. However, I don't believe the character who became 'Fester' was ever seen with the family. And they were never anything like a main focus of his cartoons.

This edition (for Kindle) is actually a bad idea, and I returned my copy almost immediately after purchasing it. It is impossible, in far too many of the cartoons, too see the subtle details that make Addams cartoons the gloriously horrifying moment outside of time that they truly are. The same problem exists in the paperback editions. To truly enjoy Addams, one should see the full-sized cartoons. Just remember, if an Addams cartoon leaves you scratching your head wondering what's the point, then you've missed the telling detail.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Chas Addams - without the family, June 22, 2009

By 

Paul Batters "Retro Addict" (Sydney, NSW, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chas Addams Happily Ever After: A Collection of Cartoons to Chill the Heart of Your Loved One (Hardcover)

The vast majority of us will know Chas Addams for reasons other than his cartoons published in newspapers and journals such as The New Yorker. You will be disappointed if that's what you are looking for. As previous reviews have stated, some are sketches and some perhaps lose their impact in these times.

But I still found them amusing, certainly exhibiting the dark, morbid humour he was known for. The theme was common enough - marriage, love and the trappings of relationships. Disturbing - not really.

At any rate, I was not disappointed with my purchase but would have liked complete cartoons rather than sketches and perhaps some more in terms of quantity.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome book, December 25, 2010

By 

James D. Crabtree "Doc Crabtree" (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chas Addams Happily Ever After: A Collection of Cartoons to Chill the Heart of Your Loved One (Hardcover)

Loved this collection of Addams cartoons. I have seen most of the previously-published cartoons but never tire of Addams material. Better still, the book includes several unpublished cartoons which gives you some idea into Charles Addams' thought processes. The best part is, even the ideas Addams felt were not good enough to develop are funnier than a lot of the humor you see published nowadays. Well worth getting if you're a fan!