There are two distinct editions of The New Yorker Book of Money Cartoons. The first was published on November 1, 1999 at $21.95. It has an introduction by humorist Christopher Buckley. The revised and updated edition was published in 2012 at $22.95—that's not even inflationary because there are twenty-one more cartoons—with an introduction by cartoonist David Sipress. Both editions are edited by Robert Mankoff, who doesn't always go by the name Bob.
Kiribi's copy is from the original edition, the one with the cover by Michael Witte. Whatever signing event there was presumably occurred back in 1999 or possibly 2000 as part of the book launch publicity. The four cartoonists present were Liza Donnelly, Arnie Levin, Victoria Roberts, and Danny Shanahan. All four added original drawings at the signing; two of these are inspired by the book's subject matter.
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| Cover by Michael Witte |
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Signed by Arnie Levin, Victoria Roberts, Liza Donnelly, and Danny Shanahan
Dust jacket flap cartoon by Dean Vietor |
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| Cover art by Michael Witte and Chad Covert Darbyshire |
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| Back cover cartoons by Roz Chast and Barbara Smaller |
Cartoonist David Sipress, whose work did not appear at all in the first edition—he was quite new to the magazine then—had two cartoons included in the revised and updated one, to which he wrote the introduction. He signed a copy of the book, not Kiribi's, at an unknown promotion likely circa 2012. |
| David Sipress's signature |
The indices of artists in these two editions differ somewhat with good reason. The first edition has 110 cartoons and the revised and updated edition has 131. The first twenty-five pages of cartoons in the revised and updated edition are new here. Then the drawing by Lee Lorenz from page 1 of the 1999 edition appears on page 26 of the new edition, and from there the cartoons follow the sequence of the first edition. Four drawings that were in the first edition have been dropped: Michael Crawford's on page 65 (perhaps the Microsoft millionaires reference was thought to be less timely), two by Richard Cline on pages 16 and 78 (for whatever reason), and one by Lee Lorenz from the very last page (see the Monopoly money gag, below) who also had a different cartoon added to the very first page of the new edition. It's the circle of life.
Similar revised and updated editions were published for The New Yorker Book of Baseball Cartoons, The New Yorker Book of Teacher Cartoons, and The New Yorker Book of Golf Cartoons. Collect them all.
Note: Docnad's conjecture is that if something, however rare, happened to a book once, it probably happened more than once. Thus any rare volume very likely exists in several variations. For example, a copy of The New Yorker Book of Money Cartoons obligingly signed and decorated by four New Yorker cartoonists is probably not the only one out there signed by these four. (The conjecture, of course, may be expanded to include countless other groupings of New Yorker cartoonists signing myriad other Cartoon Bank collections.) The beauty of the conjecture is that it cannot easily be disproven; the nonexistence of a similar book is generally unknowable. All it takes to prove the conjecture, though, is for an enterprising individual to read this post, take a similarly signed and decorated book down off the shelf, scan or photograph the relevant page or two of original art, and forward it to this philosophizing blogger. It should really all be so simple.
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