Omschrijving
A new collection of portraits of cultural legends from the
only cartoonist to have graced the covers of both New
Yorker and Mad magazine, and seemingly everything in
between.
For years, acclaimed artist Drew Friedman has chronicled an oddball,
alternate history of American pop culture, where forgotten character
actors, old Jewish comedians, comic book artists, and liver-spotted elevator
operators are afforded the spotlight over Hollywood starlets and
heartthrobs. This latest collection showcases a wide range of recent color
and black-and-white portraits of comedians (Gilbert Gottfried, Groucho
Marx, Selma Diamond, Moms Mabley, Brother Theodore), writers (Kurt
Vonnegut, Alan Zwiebel, Bruce Jay Friedman, Arnie Kogan), musicians (B.B.
King, Bob Dylan, Al Kooper, Sammy Davis, Jr., Weird Al), directors (Buster
Keaton, Elaine May, Terry Zwigoff), comic book legends (Max Gaines, Bill
Gaines, Kelly Freas, Ron Turner), actors (Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr,
Rondo Hatton, Peter Falk) and other famous, infamous, and not-so-famous
human beings that Friedman has drawn inspiration from over his lifetime.
In addition to over 100 full-page images, this collection features a foreword
by historian of comedy Kliph Nesteroff, a glossary of brief biographical
information on each subject by the author, as well as the never-before-collected
eight-page comic strip, “R. Crumb and Me,” detailing Friedman’s intense
relationship to the work of the cartoonist he cites as his greatest inspiration of
all. Shtick Figures is a must have for fans of Friedman’s inimitable talent and
sharp curatorial eye for preserving lesser known but worthy tributaries of all
aspects of American culture, high and low.