Favorite Haunts, Charles Addams (1976). A collection of Addams "greatest hits" from the leading cartoonist for the New Yorker who inspired the Addams Family TV show and unacknowledged god father of dark humor. As a kid, I spent many a rainy Saturday afternoons in our basement flipping through the different Addams cartoon collections. Inheirited from my parents book collection.
Cat, Tiny Footprints, Two Guys Fooling Around with the Moon, Whack Your Porpupine, B. Kliban (1975-1982). B.Kliban started with cat meat loaf drawings and moved on to other more surreal subjects. Bizaar and slightly distrubing, I bought most of them in the local mall where I grew up and even had them at collecge where someone was always picking them up.
Unscientific Americans, Parallel Universes, Roz Chast (1986). Delightfully skewed views of personalities and places in the world. Lucky enough to buy one her books from the author at a book fair in New York in 2007.
Work is Hell, Love is Hell, School is Hell, the Big Book of Hell, Matt Groening (1988-2003). Before there was the Simpsons, Matt Groening created cartoon books of Hell. Bought at various book stores.
Saul Steinberg, Whitney Museum of American Art (1978). Steinberg's work borders between cartoon and art. Another New Yorker featured artist and designed one of their most iconic cover's, The New Yorker's View of the World that has been copied and paradoied. A Christmas Gift from my mother 1983 with the inscription ...getting this thing was next to impossible...
Tiffany's Table Manners for Teenagers, Walter Hoving (1961). Not really a cartoon book but including because its many illustrations can border on the comic if you're feeling ironic. This was a childhood book my mother bought to assist my sister Ann and me with learning some basic table manners. Something of the opposite effect took hold and Ann would always hold up the illustrations of what not to do. Inheirited from parents book collection.
