Bruce Eric Kaplan: Herb's Story

An original New Yorker cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan was sold at Heritage Auctions on February 6. It comes from the estate of Irvin Grief, Jr., and is the first work of BEK's to be offered by the auction house.

Herb got in touch with his inner monkey
Bruce Eric Kaplan
Original art
The New Yorker, February 3, 1992, p. 70

The cartoon purports to relate the story of Herb's enlightenment. Of course, it is just plain silly. Or, if you prefer, bananas.

Herb got in touch with his inner monkey
Bruce Eric Kaplan
Framed, original art
The New Yorker, February 3, 1992, p. 70

Paper backing

Twenty days prior to the auction, bidding had scarecely begun.

Bruce Eric Kaplan

Heritage Auctions listing of February 6, 2026, accessed on January 17, 2026

https://fineart.ha.com/itm/mainstream-illustration/bruce-eric-kaplan-american-b-1964-herb-got-in-touch-with-his-inner-monkey-new-yorker-cartoon-february-3-1992-ink-on/a/15263-17135.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515

Heritage identified the correct issue of The New Yorker in which this drawing appeared but it was on page 70, not page 41. Was Herb's inner monkey helping with the research?

Bruce Eric Kaplan

Heritage Auctions item description 

Sold!

Bruce Eric Kaplan
Heritage Auctions listing of February 6, 2026

https://fineart.ha.com/itm/mainstream-illustration/bruce-eric-kaplan-american-b-1964-herb-got-in-touch-with-his-inner-monkey-new-yorker-cartoon-february-3-1992-ink-on/a/15263-17135.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515

The artist's signature, BEK, has been largely obliterated in the original. There may have been a patch over it when it was photographed for the magazine. The banner was rewritten and had a period in the published version. It is a sentence, after all.

Herb got in touch with his inner monkey.
Bruce Eric Kaplan
The New Yorker, February 3, 1992, p. 70

Herb got in touch with his inner monkey
Bruce Eric Kaplan
Original art
The New Yorker, February 3, 1992, p. 70

With a cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1992-02-03/flipbook/070/

05258

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

The Deluxe Edition of The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons

The deluxe edition of The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons (2018) is distinguished from the regular edition by three portfolios of signed, limited edition cartoon prints by Roz Chast, Bruce Eric Kaplan, and Bob Mankoff. The prints are each published in an edition of 1,000 with printed limitation numbers and original ink signatures. The deluxe edition was first published at $800 but the price has come down to just over $500. Initially there was no way for buyers to know which cartoon prints were included without making the purchase, but now photographs on eBay tell the story.

The deluxe edition has a wider slipcase to accommodate the three cartoon prints:

Many of us in the old school believe limitation numbers should be handwritten and not printed.

The Encyclopedia's compiler, former cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, has included a print of his most famous cartoon.

Roz Chast is one of the magazine's most popular cartoonists:

The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons
eBay Listing Accessed April 25, 2020

https://www.ebay.com/p/242751296?iid=254448498024

eBay Item Description

Well, no, the book isn't really Anne of Green Gables. Sellers who submit multiple listings can be forgiven such slips. As, I've mentioned once before, the publisher's promotional copy incorrectly cites the earliest New Yorker cartoons as dating from 1924 rather than 1925. This error goes back to 2018 and was never corrected.

There is one and only one product rating and it's 5 stars. This suspiciously positive feedback is from palindromic eBay user zoeyyeoz. Make of that what you will.

Guess what? The only individual to leave feedback, zoeyyeoz, is no longer a registered eBay user.

https://www.ebay.com/usr/zoeyyeoz?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

These three cartoons were originally published in the New Yorker in the 1990s. The printed signatures on all three cartoons were removed for the limited edition to avoid having a redundant printed signature alongside the handwritten one.

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1999-11-15/flipbook/086/

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1995-01-09/flipbook/004/

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1993-05-03/flipbook/050/

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Bob Mankoff

David Remnick

Roz Chast

Bruce Eric Kaplan

The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons

Attempted Bloggery's Index is Worth Every Penny

 03240

Amazon Slashes

Let me get a quick headcount: Has anyone been clamoring for a monumental New Yorker cartoon collection organized by topic? The Cartoon Bank published enough single-subject collections to exhaust the general demand for them years ago. But now a single vast collection organized into more than 250 cartoon tropes is on the near horizon.

The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons is to be published this fall as a two-volume, hardcover, slipcased edition priced at an easy-to-remember $100. With nearly 3,000 cartoons, that comes out to about 3 1/3 cents per cartoon. In contrast, the current August 20, 2018 issue of the New Yorker contains a piddling nine cartoons and costs $8.99. I don't need my calculator to tell you that's a buck a cartoon, with the articles and ads thrown in gratis. So even at full price, one can make the case that the big new book is a good deal for New Yorker cartoon fans. (Spoiler alert: I'm a New Yorker cartoon fan.) For those who insist on spending more, there will also be an $800 deluxe limited edition which includes signed and numbered prints by Bob Mankoff (the book's editor and the New Yorker's former cartoon editor), Bruce Eric Kaplan, and Roz Chast. It will have an edition size of 1000. That comes to about 3 1/3 cents per cartoon plus $233 per signed print. It also comes out to a projected $800,000 in sales for the deluxe edition alone.

"...from 1924 to the present." I'd pay good money to see those 1924 cartoons!
(The New Yorker's first issue was published on February 21, 1925.)
The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons deluxe edition
Amazon.com
Retrieved August 17, 2018

https://www.amazon.com/New-Yorker-Encyclopedia-Cartoons-Deluxe/dp/0316436666/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_img_7?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=0F096VV43668EY8AJ0SM

It's a beautiful set, to be sure, with seemingly high production values of the sort we New Yorker acolytes haven't been treated to in a while. New Yorker cartoon collections used to be joyous affairs, published as sturdy hardcovers with well-designed, often gorgeous dust jackets meant to be treasured in personal libraries for a lifetime. Of late, the New Yorker has been systematically cheapening the cartoon collections it publishes, putting out annual collections and even the milestone 90th anniversary collection as a series of "bookazines." For those who don't know, bookazines are apparently printed on the same presses which publish magazines, but they pretend to be books even as they are sold on magazine racks. They look like throwaways and lack the substantive heft of a book. Then last year no annual collection was published, period.

So, having engineered its own drought of meaningful cartoon collections, the New Yorker is now at long last trying to produce something that will look impressive on a bookshelf. At this point, The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons is the only game in town. But who exactly is it meant for?

The book's title is pretentious, of course, even for Mr. Mankoff. Maurice Horn's World Encyclopedia of Comics (1976) is an informative book worthy of calling itself an encyclopedia. The New Yorker's Encyclopedia basically is just a lengthy list of cartoon tropes supplemented with a few paragraphs of amusing verbiage and copiously illustrated with what should be many, many fine cartoons. Of course, I haven't seen the book, let alone read it, but I don't see why that should stop me from being the first to review it. I'm sure it will be extremely entertaining, at least in part, but it is never going to be the quintessential reference on desert island cartoons it pretends to be.

This book's raison d'être is simple: it will be vigorously marketed as an essential holiday gift for fans of the New Yorker cartoon, and there are millions of us. Should we pay full price? Of course not. As a matter of principle, you should wait for a discount unless you can get a couple of New Yorker cartoonists to sign your copy and add maybe a doodle or two. You can always pay full price for a gift if you need to, but probably not for yourself. The price is bound to come down eventually, and sooner rather than later.

But, wait! On August 1, Michael Maslin's Ink Spill blog announced to the world of New Yorker cartoonists and their fans that the prepublication price of The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons had been drastically reduced on Amazon to $55.23.

Ink Spill
August 1, 2018

http://michaelmaslin.com/chast-in-vermont-interview-of-interest-carolita-johnson-radio-interview-of-interest-liza-donnelly-thurbers-125th-birthday-fables-price-slashed-on-new-yorker-encyclopedia-of-cartoons/

That's great news, right? It's finally time to pounce! The one possible caveat here is that seemingly the exact same book is listed on Amazon with two separate publication dates and two very different prices. What gives? Could it be a mistake? Surely not on Amazon!

The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons
Amazon.com Screenshot Retrieved August 4, 2018

Well, I decided not to take any chances. I placed my order pronto—that very day—locking in the savings. I had a forgotten $50 Amazon gift card (forgotten by me, not by Amazon) and I signed up for an Amazon Store card to receive a $10 bonus, so my copy of the book was already paid for. By the way, the discounted price of $55.23 divided by 3,000 cartoons comes to a mere 1.8 cents per cartoon. Now that's an insanely good deal. And shipping is free.

Amazon kept me in the loop. On August 15, Amazon informed me of the estimated arrival date:



Not too shabby! But twenty-four hours later, the email bots at Amazon changed their tune:

Thus my adroit order was abruptly canceled for an obviously spurious reason and I was redirected back to the $100 full-price copy of the book. The now unavailable edition once priced at $55.23 remains a ghostly presence on the Amazon site.

The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons
Amazon.com Screenshot Retrieved August 17, 2018

September 24, 2018 Update: Even before release, the book has been discounted again, this time to $61.33.

The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons
Amazon.com screenshot retrieved September 24, 2018

November 30, 2018 Update:  The book has been discounted to well below the price at which I initially was denied a copy. The deluxe edition is also significantly reduced. Was this the plan all along? I doubt it.

The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons
Amazon.com screenshot retrieved November 30, 2018

December 1, 2018 Update:  The price of the regular edition dropped again overnight. 

The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons
Amazon.com screenshot retrieved December 1, 2018

December 2, 2018 Update:  And now the price of the deluxe edition has dropped again. Judging by this and the price of the regular edition, some algorithm is at work determining the price.

The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons
Amazon.com screenshot retrieved December 2, 2018

May 22, 2019 Update:  I bought my copy today for $43.99. It's not the lowest price ever, but it's more than a $10 discount from the offer Amazon refused to honor. This comes to 1.47 cents per cartoon.

Note:  Long before I tried to buy the Encyclopedia, I set myself a target price of $65, although I happily would pay full price for a copy signed by multiple cartoonists. As part of the promotion, I expect Bob Mankoff to be signing a great many copies of this book as he has with other books in the past. I might very well spring for a full-priced copy signed by him, but I'm wary that he might try to sign the entire press run.

I have no plans to purchase the deluxe edition, but I might if it were to come down to about $265, which I don't expect it to. Nevertheless, once it is published, I would be delighted if an owner would send me photos or scans of the three lithographs for inclusion on this blog.


Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Bob Mankoff

David Remnick

Roz Chast

Attempted Bloggery's Disappointing Index

02651