Arnold Roth: Free Lance (A Fifty Year Retrospective)

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

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.