Cartoonist
George Booth, who today turns 90, once made an original drawing for a friend or a fan in a copy of his 1975 collection
Think Good Thoughts About a Pussycat. The drawing features one of his signature English Bull Terriers chained to a living room sofa and chewing a throw rug to shreds. The dog tries hard to think "a fairly good thought."
The drawing demonstrates Mr. Booth's casual ease with two-point perspective and with the rendering of spare interiors and deranged dogs. It was created, most likely more than forty years ago, with no expectation that it would ever be seen by anyone other than the original recipient and perhaps a handful of others. Today, the world has changed and quirky obscurities such as this, when uploaded to the internet, can be seen and enjoyed by almost anyone who wishes to. That sounds a lot like progress.
As an added bonus, below are a few recent photographs of George Booth presented on the occasion of his 90th birthday. These photos appear here courtesy of
Sarah Booth.
Recent photos of George Booth:
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George Booth
Photo courtesy of Sarah Booth
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George Booth
Photo courtesy of Sarah Booth
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George Booth
Photo courtesy of Sarah Booth
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Note: Thanks to
Sarah Booth for the photographs and for her support of her father's work.
Who doesn't love birthdays? Who doesn't love
signed books with original drawings? Click on the aqua link to see many fine examples here on
Attempted Bloggery. If you want to peruse the best online resource for original drawings in books by
George Booth, just take a look at
Chris Wheeler's Cartoon(ist) Galleries, specifically the
George Booth page. By the way, if you are privy to the whereabouts of other original Booth drawings either hidden away inside cartoon books or anywhere else, please pass them along to me for possible inclusion in a future blog post. Remember, there can never be too many Booth drawings here.
Today, shrewd readers may have gathered, is
George Booth's 90th birthday. Let's all celebrate by cavorting about with a dancing chicken and reading my collected posts about the art of
George Booth. Why not just sit back and enjoy a slice of birthday cake, you ask? Because, as I've learned from George Booth, chickens are funnier.
Michael Maslin's Ink Spill blog is always your best source for news about
New Yorker cartoonists including birthday boy
George Booth.
If you'd like to read Mr. Booth in his own words—and who wouldn't?—be sure to check out
Jane Mattimoe's recent interview with him at
A Case for Pencils.
Equally amazing is
Richard Gehr's 2013 interview with George Booth for the
Comics Journal. Tell them I sent you.
