Social satire in a misanthropic and existential vein, in the grand traditions of Kliban and Steadman. Tim Kreider's cartoons, previously seen only in the Baltimore City Paper , have attracted a cult following for their razor-sharp intelligence and unprecedented viciousness. His manic, spontaneous line, and his eye for facial expression, gesture, and detail make his cartoons more than one-shot gags. His humor is both erudite and puerile, as personally revealing as a drunken blackout and as politically trenchant as a lone gunman. Kreider's work has been likened to the foul result of inbreeding between Ralph Steadman and B. Kliban. The wide range of subject matter in this collection, from religion and politics to Nietzsche and pie, from sex and violence to the sheer pointlessness of it all, can only be suggested by a sampling of titles: "Breakfast for the Devil," "The Four Press Secretaries of the Apocalypse," "Belongings of the Deformed Child," "Learn German While Drunk," and "I'm Sorry I'm So Horrible." (The collection also includes the unspeakable "Graveyard Shift at the Pussy Juice Factory.") Kreider's vision of the human condition is of a man distracted from the vast starship hovering over his city by a glimpse of a pretty girl's ass; his version of the existential abyss is a cruddy laundromat with old magazines spilled on the plastic chairs and the word "FAGOT" scratched on a dryer; and the only hope or joy he finds in this life is in jigglin' dem monster juggs or setting a monkey's ass on fire. You may be ashamed to laugh, but laugh you will.

The co-creator of MAD and Little Annie Fanny finally gets the career retrospective he deserves. Will Elder is widely regarded as one of the most influential cartoonists of the second half of the 20th century. And one of the funniest. He is best known for his artistic partnership with Harvey Kurtzman on all their most highly visible collaborations throughout their careers: MAD magazine, Humbug, Goodman Beaver, Trump, and Little Annie Fanny. At long last, Elder is getting the book he so richly deserves: Will Elder: The Mad Playboy of Art, a gigantic coffee table book collecting his best work from more than a half a century of drawing and painting. The book will reprint a representative sampling of the work well-known to aficionados, including stories from the original MAD comic, independent efforts from Humbug, Help!, and Trump magazines, and Little Annie Fanny pages reproduced from the original, painted artwork. Above and beyond the known is the relatively unknown, obscure, or unpublished work, such as pages and spreads from a variety of magazines in the '50s and '60s that Elder contributed to (such as Pageant and Saturday Evening Post), the infamous Norman Rockwell painting parody slated for the 3rd, unreleased issue of Trump, hysterical gag sketches, celebrity caricatures, oil paintings done for his family, and more. The book includes commentary by Hugh Hefner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Davis, Al Jaffee, Terry Gilliam, William Stout, and Jerry Garcia, who describe the impact that Elder's work had on satire and comic at in the second half of 20th century America. Elder himself comments on individual pieces, and Daniel Clowes, the author of Ghost World, supplies the introduction.

Chronicles the life of the civil rights leader following the March on Washington, as King journeys from Chicago to his final days in Memphis.

Four top artists discuss the history of cartooning, illustration, and caricature as well as their respective careers, in a compendium complemented by a previously unpublished interview with Hugo Pratt and essays on graphic historical fiction. Original.