Book of Interest: Monster Mash

Who doesn’t like monsters? I’d bet almost every cartoonist has had a monster phase, or even more than a phase. Charles Addams, for one.  Monster Mash looks like a great deal of fun — the inclusion of Mr. Addams’ “Addams Family” in this heavily illustrated volume makes it an Ink Spill Book of Interest.   [Monster Mash: The Creepy ,

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Did Arno Write Thurber?

  A lot of material accumulates when you’ve been researching a subject for fifteen years. In my case, much of it was placed in a ramshackle assortment of black binders pictured here.  There was also a binder [not pictured] labeled “Next” that contained a very very  long checklist of things that needed looking into. The more I uncovered about Arno,

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Auction of Interest: Swann Offers Numerous New Yorker Cartoons; Covers Calendar Noted; Video: Mankoff on Science of Humor

Swann’s upcoming auction on January 22nd is chock full of New Yorker cartoons, with work by a number of the magazine’s giants. Cartoons on the block by Steinberg, Mischa Richter, Barbara Shermund, William Steig, Richard Taylor, Edward Sorel, Victoria Roberts, Charles Addams, Helen Hokinson, Rea Irvin, and Peter Arno. Below: a beautiful early Steig included in the auction. Link here

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Addams Family’s Pugsley Dies at 59

Ken Weatherwax, the actor who played Pugsley in the televised version of The Addams Family has died at age 59. Link here to the BBC’s obit. For a refresher course in the Pugsley cartoon character, I turned to the Linda Davis biography of Addams, A Cartoonists Life, which documents the development of the Addams Family characters as well as the

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