The New Yorker Book of Christmas Cartoons

It looks for all the world like a mass market Cartoon Bank collection but The New Yorker Book of Christmas Cartoons was published in 2004 specifically for Restoration Hardware. It was priced at $19.95 and must have been sold in the company's stores. The contemporary bookseller's stock image of an embossed blue cover does not resemble the edition I was to receive. That almost makes a little sense, as the synopsis of this online listing instead described The New Yorker Desk Diary 2010 Desk Calendar, but then there are many online copies of The New Yorker Book of Christmas Cartoons which use the same stock photograph.

The New Yorker Book of Christmas Cartoons
AbeBooks listing ended October 17, 2022

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31019785097&searchurl=kn%3DThe%2BNew%2BYorker%2BBook%2Bof%2BCartoons%26sortby%3D17&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title14

The cover is illustrated by Michael Witte, who did the covers for the Cartoon Bank's mass market editions. Many of the standard customized editions in the series simply have a cartoon on the front cover.

The New Yorker Book of Christmas Cartoons

Cover by Michael Witte

The front dust jacket flap leads with a
bedtime  cartoon by Alex Gregory. Then
there is some lighthearted text explaining
the book's reason for being.

The back dust jacket flap has a cartoon by
Charles Saxon.

The back cover cartoon is by Bruce Eric
Kaplan.

Index of Artists

04171

David's Copy of The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker

An eBay seller named David reports working at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco when the New Yorker's then-cartoon editor Bob Mankoff and four other New Yorker cartoonists came to give a presentation. Their program promoted The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker (2004) and there was a signing session as well. David picked up a copy.

The book retailed at $60 (but Barnes & Noble advertised it in The New Yorker for $48). Publishers Weekly reported on the book's early success and its promotion, including the road show at the Commonwealth Club:

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/print/20041220/31109-a-heavy-hitter.html

Black Dog & Leventhal, we read, printed 210,000 copies over three printings and budgeted more than $200,000 for book promotion. While I don't pretend to be a math whiz, I can calculate that the publisher was prepared to spend about $1 per copy to promote the book, and this sum included the cartoon editor's tour. The stop in San Francisco was unique in that it included four cartoonists—Leo Cullum, Alex Gregory, Bruce Eric Kaplan, and Jack Ziegler—whose signatures and sketches were difficult to obtain on the East coast. Cullum and Ziegler are no longer with us. Here then is what David had to offer:

Embellished for David by, alphabetically and somewhat clockwise from the top, Leo Cullum, Alex Gregory, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Bob Mankoff, and Jack Ziegler

The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker
eBay listing accessed March 21, 2021

https://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Complete-Cartoons-of-the-New-Yorker-SIGNED-by-the-author-and-4-Cartoonists/303922363754?hash=item46c32f3d6a:g:EZoAAOSw1lBfxVWV

The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker
eBay item description

Negotiation for this book on eBay proceeded over several weeks. A Best Offer of $56 was declined by the seller on March 21, 2021. The book's price increased from $101 to $107 on the subsequent listing, but soon the asking price was gradually lowered, eventually to $83. A new Best Offer of $60 received a seller counteroffer of $70. Finally, a Best Offer of $65 was accepted shortly before the auction closed.

When adjusted for inflation, the original publisher's price for the book of $60 would be $84.13 today. The $48 B&N price translates to $67.31 in 2021 dollars, pretty close to the $65 final eBay sale price.

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/2004-12-20/flipbook/084/

03618