The Ultimate Droodles Compendium: The Absurdly Complete Collection of All the Classic Zany Creations

Before the inspired nonsense of Monty Python, David Letterman and the Far Side, there were Droodles. With a few squiggles in a simple square, these clever drawings created absurd scenes like "Ship arriving too late to save a drowning witch" (used by Frank Zappa as an album cover), "Octopus signaling for a left turn" and "Clam with buck teeth." And they were all the creation of one brilliant and unpredictable man: Roger Price.


At the height of their popularity in the mid-1950s, fans enjoyed the Droodles TV show, a Droodles daily newspaper column, Droodles magazine features, Droodles cocktail napkins, even Droodles in ads for Lucky Strike cigarettes. Like hula hoops, drive-in movies and UFOs, Droodles were one of the biggest fads of the 1950s.


Now Droodles make their triumphant return to delight a new generation that can use some laughs. The Ultimate Droodles Compendium includes every one of Roger Price's 352 most famous Droodles in delightful new full-quality reproductions, with Price's inspired text and quirky footnotes. There's more: a Roger Price/Droodles reminiscence by beloved media critic Leonard Maltin, a full history of Roger Price and Droodles by Emmy-winning writer Fritz Holznagel, and comments from comedy legend Carl Reiner, Boing Boing's Mark Frauenfelder and Carla Sinclair, and others.

Droodles are back in this handsome, hilarious, ultimate collection from Tallfellow Press. Droodles now. Droodles forever!

Roger Price's Droodles books sold more than 1 million copies between its debut in 1953 and his death in 1990. His Mad Libs have sold more than 150 million copies (and counting!) since he co-created them with Leonard Stern in 1958. Price's career was packed with other landmarks: touring Europe with Bob Hope, appearing with Steve Allen on the original Tonight Show, doing standup comedy at the Village Vanguard and publishing the cultural critiques In One Head and Out the Other and The Great Roob Revolution. Always funny and often provocative, Price was one of America's most original comic voices.

Leonard Maltin is one of the world's most respected film critics and historians. He is best known for his widely-used reference work Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide and for his 30-year run on TV's Entertainment Tonight. His books include The 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen, Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, The Great Movie Comedians, and Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia. He holds court at leonardmaltin.com and does a weekly podcast: Maltin on Movies.

Fritz Holznagel is the Emmy-winning writer of the CBS special A Claymation Easter Celebration and the co-creator of the groundbreaking online encyclopedia Who2. He has written for digital media from The Dictionary of American History to Where in the U.S.A. is Carmen SanDiego? and his books include The World Wide Web Top 1000 and Secrets of the Buzzer. A past winner of the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, he represented the USA at the first-ever Jeopardy! Olympic Tournament.