The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker [Hardcover]

Robert Mankoff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 2004

More than a book, this is a bona fide publishing event. The largest-ever collection of New Yorker cartoons features the best of every decade in book form, plus two easy-to-browse CDs--Windows and Macintosh compatible--with every cartoon ever published in the magazine--more than 68,000 of them!

Since its founding in the 1920s, The New Yorker has had a profound cultural impact on the country and the world, and has almost singlehandedly elevated the cartoon to an art form. For the first time ever, EVERY cartoon ever published in The New Yorker is collected in one place.

Accompanying the cartoons in the book, several thousand of them organized chronologically, are essays by eminent New Yorker writers reflecting on the life and times (and sense of humor) of each successive decade. Additionally, each decade includes profiles and mini-portfolios of the cartoonists who made their marks on the era, from Peter Arno and Charles Addams to Bruce Eric Kaplan and Roz Chast. "Theme" features cover such subjects as Drinking, The Depression, and Politics.

The two accompanying CDs feature every cartoon ever published in the magazine in a format that is accessible on any home computer and is browsable by date, cartoonist, subject, and more. This groundbreaking book, several years in the making, has been lovingly compiled by current New Yorker cartoon editor (and respected cartoonist and author) Robert Mankoff, and the foreword is by David Remnick, the magazine's esteemed editor.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

What could be better than a gigantic 656-page collection of 2,004 (get it?) of the best cartoons published in the New Yorker over the last 80 years? Perhaps a double CD set with all 68,647 cartoons ever published in the magazine—complete with a nifty search function that allows readers to search for cartoons by year of publication or by cartoonist's name. This improbably large offering is a bonanza of wry Manhattan-centric comic commentary on urban life and much else in American culture over the years. There's Peter Arno's 1948 ink-and-wash cartoon of a mildly concerned matron, book in hand, asking her newspaper-reading husband, "Is there a Mrs. Kinsey?" Or Peter Steiner's now famous cartoon drawing of two dogs chatting in front of a computer. "On the Internet," says one canine to the other, "nobody knows you're a dog." The book offers an introduction by New Yorker editor David Remnick and short essays introducing each decade—which readers may want to read after perusing the cartoons first—by such New Yorker luminaries as Roger Angell, Lillian Ross and John Updike. This is an absolutely fabulous collection of sophisticated silliness that will soon take its rightful place on coffee tables all over the country.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Issued as part of the New Yorker's eightieth anniversary celebration, this greatly oversize, undeniably heavy, but amazingly low-priced volume collects, in two formats, the cartoons that have appeared in the pages of that magazine over the course of its distinguished publishing history. Home to outstanding prose and poetry, the New Yorker has also enjoyed an outstanding reputation for its weekly showcasing of socially and politically satiric and, yes, cerebral--but also downright hilarious--cartoons from some of the most popular, cutting-edge, and stiletto-sharp cartoonists of the day. The book itself gathers 2,500 of the most representative cartoons for display, but two accompanying CDs contain all the cartoons (68,647, to be exact) ever published in the magazine. Arrangement is by chapter, with each covering a decade of the New Yorker's existence. Chapters are introduced by noted New Yorker writers, including John Updike, Roger Angell, and Lillian Ross. A testament--a tribute--to the great magazine but also an absolutely special way to spend quality time. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 656 pages
• Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers; First Edition edition (October 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579123228
• ISBN-13: 978-1579123222
• Product Dimensions: 13.3 x 11.3 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (87 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #336,568 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The New Yorker is an award-winning weekly magazine featuring reporting, criticism, commentary, fiction, poetry, and renowned single-panel cartoons. It has won more National Magazine Awards, the magazine world's equivalent of the Oscars, than any other magazine. Its contributors have won numerous awards, including the Nobel Prize and the Pulitzer Prize. Robert Mankoff is the cartoon editor of The New Yorker, and a cartoonist in his own right. He is the editor of many collections of New Yorker cartoons, including The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

130 of 140 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars it's partly the cd, February 2, 2005

By 

E Rice (western ny state) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker (Hardcover)

that brings my rating down to 2 stars.

i have a very advanced, nearly state of the art cpu and monitor. i can't read the captions on the most of the cartoons. they're pertectly legible if i print them out, but that's hardly a sensible solution.

the other part of the low rating is the size of the book. obviously, the book industry has become infatuated with huge tomes lately. i would have preferred two, or even three, volumes of a size that could be read comfortably in a chair or in bed. unless i buy an actual lectern, i have nowhere in my house to put this book where i can read it casually or easily.

as most reviewers do, i love the new yorker cartoons. i'm glad to have the collection, but i wish i could enjoy it more easily.

134 of 145 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What a MAJOR disappointment!, June 19, 2005

By 

L. O'Brien "mileslarboy" (Albany, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker (Hardcover)

I should have read more of the reviews here. I wanted this book since the day I spotted it in the bookstore, but held off because of the price. I was particularly anxious to see the 2 CDs. But the cartoons are all LOW RESOLUTION--what a disappointment. I can understand why--they don't want people to be able to print high-res versions...to still have to go to their website if they want to do that. But they should have announced that on the cover. Really--it is almost sinful. What a RIP-OFF. Read the other comments here about how unreadable some of the cartoons are because of the LOW-RESOLUTION. Really disgusting.

68 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Product should not be on the market, January 28, 2005

By 

Joeomar "joeomar" (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker (Hardcover)

The book is outstanding (hence one star) but the New Yorker is engaging in a form of fraud for claiming that the CDs contain all the cartoons ever published. In actual fact the CDs are of such low resolution that MANY of the cartoons cannot be interpreted because the caption or even the entire drawing is illegible. If a drawing is too illegible to interpret it is the same as not being included. I love the cartoons of the New Yorker and it was incredibly frustrating browsing the CDs and repeatedly finding cartoons that simply cannot be read. Enlarging them doesn't help. You WILL get a headache. The publisher should retract their claim and remove the illegible cartoons from the CDs. And shame on them for foisting this on those of us who truly love their cartoons.