Arnold Roth: Free Lance - Softcover

Roth, Arnold

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1560974389 ISBN 13: 9781560974383

Publisher: Fantagraphics, 2001

Synopsis

The legendary jazz illustrator finally gets the coffee-table treatment.

All cartoonists are geniuses, wrote John Updike, "but Arnold Roth especially so. He's an American original; irreverent, tireless, manicky, and secretly efficient... his work jumps with joy." You won't find better proof of this argument than this book, a generous, career-spanning collection of Roth's best cartoons and painted illustrations, originally created to serve as a catalog for a long-overdue gallery exhibition of this master cartoonist's work. From his early cartoons through his eye-popping and imaginative color illustrations for such magazines as Playboy, Esquire, TV Guide and Sports Illustrated, this book will delight any fan of superior cartooning. Color and black-and-white illustrations throughout

About this title

About the Authors

Arnold Roth’s cartoons and illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, Playboy, and Esquire. He lives in New York City.


Lucy Shelton Caswell is the founding curator of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum and a Professor Emerita at Ohio State University. Prior to her retirement, her scholarly work and teaching focused on the history of newspaper comic strips and the history of American editorial cartoons. She has curated more than seventy-five cartoon-related exhibits and is the author of several articles and books. She also serves as the vice president of Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, the annual citywide celebration of cartoon art.

Reviews

This catalog of a traveling exhibition celebrates the career of one of America's foremost humorous illustrators. Roth's work has appeared in a half century of major magazines, from the 1952 pilot issue of TV Guide to recent numbers of the New Yorker, and Roth was one of the few Americans ever invited to join the staff of Britain's premier humor magazine, Punch. The 66 works in the book include black-and-white line drawings, such as examples of the newspaper strip "Poor Arnold's Almanac," and plenty of vivid watercolors. Roth's loopy, exuberant style recalls that of his British contemporary Ronald Searle and seems a likely influence on such younger artists as Ralph Steadman. Most of the drawings were commissioned for magazine articles, but clearly Roth is a cartoonist first; while the pictures serve the writings they accompany, nearly every one provokes a smile or a laugh on its own merits. "When Roth does it for the fun of it," comics historian R. C. Harvey observes, "he creates works of art as well as works of comedy." Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Fantagraphics
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1560974389
• ISBN 13: 9781560974383
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 120
• Editor: Caswell Lucy Shelton