Vic Streit's Copy of Edward Koren's Do You Want To Talk About It?

Longtime contributor David from Manhattan writes, musing on a distinctive copy of cartoonist Edward Koren's classic collection Do You Want To Talk About It? (1976):

Here's an unusual Edward Koren item that came my way very recently from Riverow Bookshop in Owego, N.Y., and a first for me with any cartoon collection, an "extra-illustrated" copy of Do You Want to Talk About It? The pen & India ink drawing on 13 1/2 x 10 1/4" bond paper has been carefully cut to the page size of the hardcover book, folded, and rather skillfully attached along the extreme left edge of the front free endpaper. If you never held a copy of Koren's book, you might convince yourself that the fold-out feature (minus the artwork) was normal for the book. Inscribed for a father from a very thoughtful son, it seems unlikely that Dan Streit simply went to a bookstore signing with this prepared ahead of time, or hoped that a loose, larger than usual sheet of paper would inspire Koren to go to town. After a request for a backstory, I was informed that it came out of the library of illustrator Al Williamson, who died in 2010, but nothing about Vic and Dan Streit. However it came to be created and preserved, the $125 price tag was more than fair, and the very faint musty odor of the pages not unpleasant.

 

Bookseller image by John Spencer

Bookseller image by John Spencer

Note:  Thanks once again to David from Manhattan for sharing yet another great cartoon book along with its curious story. This is his forty-fourth contribution to this blog.

Book recipient Victor H. Streit's obituary may be found here.

Al Williamson's Wikipedia entry is here.

I hope other Koren connoisseurs with generously embellished or even "extra-illustrated" volumes of works by Edward Koren will photograph or scan these and send them to Attempted Bloggery for inclusion in future posts.

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