The Penguin Edward Koren, the only book the cartoonist assembled almost entirely from previous collections of his work, was published in 1982. It's a strong selection, and includes several uncollected but worthy cartoons from his early days that never made the transition from magazine appearance to formal collection, and presented (in soft cover) in the U.K. by Penguin Books.
At some point, an American couple, John and Liza Norton, asked the artist to inscribe the book with a drawing. Their names presented attractively, Koren signed it in full, but the drawing itself is curious, even strange, with a sinister Koren creature in a hooded cloak, admiring itself in a full-length mirror; a scythe would not be out of place. Close by, a plausible sales clerk, hastily drawn, guides his customer with an approving smile.
A 1980 New York Times wedding announcement from White Stone, Va., may provide a clue or two. When she married John Anthony Norton, Liza Christian Carter was a director of design for N. Erlanger Blumgart Co., a fabric converter in New York. The day Liza and her husband met Koren, was the design director showing off an outfit similar to Koren's hooded figure? Mr. Norton, on the other hand, is described in the Times article as an ad sales rep for The New Yorker, a possible source for that smile, and a job title he would have almost certainly shared with the artist.
Note: My thanks to David From Manhattan for again sharing one of the treasures of his library with us. This is his sixty-ninth contribution to the blog, not that I'm counting or anything. When we get to seventy, I'll be dressing for a rather strange ritual.
Readers are welcome to share unique gems by Edward Koren from their own collections here. I'd also be happy to entertain any ideas about what's going on in the mysterious drawing above.
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