Attempted Bloggery: Steven Heller

Showing posts with label Steven Heller. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Larry Quinn's Copy of Man Bites Man by Steven Heller

Larry Quinn is Lawrence Richter Quinn, a financial writer. His copy of Man Bites Man: Two Decades of Satiric Art (A & W, 1981), edited by Steven Heller, later became the property of cartoon historian Bill Bush. The book is personalized by Heller with an inscription from 1982, by cartoonist Bill Lee with a lewd drawing of unknown date, and by cartoonist Edward Koren in 1984. It was sold last month on eBay.

Printed cartoon by Lou Myers. Inscribed and signed by Steven Heller 8/16/1982, the year after publication. Signed by Bill Lee with a drawing of a mooning man singing "Moon over Miami." Signed by Edward Koren with a biting drawing dated November 28, 1984.

Lou Myers

Steven Heller
eBay listing ended October 22, 2024

https://www.ebay.com/itm/304846112615?_skw=signed+Edward+Koren&itmmeta=01JBX1N71T7ZDJH6D42ST0GW0X&hash=item46fa3e8767:g:52IAAOSwOl1kBr0I&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA0HoV3kP08IDx%2BKZ9MfhVJKm%2BCOkS1GbF41Fq1W4yEjj%2Fj%2FJxpluv9IthqNBbyTW6tDH1EEKrDu0UQJP2v

MhBpbPuiSUOjP2A4awrXBjvSvKdMRhCCuui4BU6FWIkzTiXwzNvzNK%2FkLbzXjAXXLbMKSVVVV9lhubhSGQy5gg4WhMubYa4XHp5rH9oaBMGMzpIvtMFFEAehPyX9NwTdtrqeqKjOLt7mOnOGTe84VE1TP%2FpvTxgYP8UC7h2T1BaD4wWk83ioqw9nvV93aTFgf3ibOQ%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR_7w1KHfZA

Steven Heller
eBay item description

"Moon Over Miami"

Ray Charles

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Monday, April 17, 2023

Remembering Edward Koren (1935-2023)

Contributor David from Manhattan writes:

Ed Koren's death has hit me hard. I've been unearthing a handful of things I haven't shared on Attempted Bloggery. One in particular is an anthology, Man Bites Man: Two Decades of Satiric Art (A & W Publishers, 226 pages) compiled with loving care by Steven Heller in 1981 when he was only 30. With twenty-two different artists, an introduction by Tom Wolfe, generously illustrated in b&w and color, with work selected by the artists themselves, and in the case of Koren, imaginatively chosen.

No New Yorker cartoons or covers, familiar or not, but here's a two-page spread from Esquire, Leisure Hours on the Pike . . .

. . . and Ranking Members from The People, Maybe by Karl A. Lamb . . .

. . . and Our Vital Literary Life which began life as a 1977 invitation to a Gotham Book Mart exhibition . . .

. . . and simply asks, Is It Funny? (1978). Ten pages in all, with an informed introduction and a great front cover (in case the title of the collection needs further explanation).

My copy, from a Colorado bookstore a few years back, includes a Koren drawing on the front free endpaper. Despite all that white space made available, Koren may have had other things on his mind at that moment.

Still, any collection "dedicated to three giants of the comic arts: Art Young, Gluyas Williams and Otto Soglow" should be carefully examined.

Note: Thanks to David from Manhattan for going into his library and putting this whole post together about the great Edward Koren. The images are all his. This is David's fifty-fifth contribution to Attempted Bloggery.

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Sunday, September 4, 2022

Carla and Simon Bowden's Copy of Man Bites Man by Steven Heller

Man Bites Man: Two Decades of Satiric Art is a 1981 survey by prolific author and editor Steven Heller. A copy inscribed by Heller to Carla and Simon Bowden in the year of publication is currently available on AbeBooks for a reasonable $30. (I believe Carla worked at the Leo Burnett advertising agency at the time and the couple either lived or came to live in Westport. I also believe they eventually divorced.) Heller has written, coauthored, or edited more than one-hundred thirty books, mostly about design. A partial listing of his published work on Wikipedia currently does not include this book or indeed any of his books published prior to 1986.

Cover drawing by Edward Koren

The world-class cartoonists whose work appears in this project

Steven Heller
AbeBooks listing accessed September 3, 2022

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30825029207&searchurl=kn%3Dgeorge%2Bbooth%26sgnd%3Don%26sortby%3D17&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-image20

Note: That back cover shows the signatures of many of the first-rate cartoonists who originally captivated me, inspiring my interest in the field. I would be honored to hear from anyone with personal reminiscences, original art, photographs, correspondence, or other rarities relating to any of them.

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Sunday, June 11, 2017

Lou Myers in Times Square

In 1973, Cullen Rapp, Inc., as agent for cartoonist Lou Myers, send art directors a mailer that folded out into a poster of Times Square. Such mailers were used to inform potential advertisers of the talents who were available for hire and to provide a showcase for them. Times Square in 1973 wasn't the sparkling, tourist-friendly haven it is today; it was teeming with seedy hotels, peep shows, sex shops, and X-rated movie houses. Myers shows us not only the bustling streets; he gives us cutaway views into the hotels and other businesses, treating each room as a freestanding cartoon panel. The result is overwhelming, a comic compendium of impossibly bizarre practices. Myers's 2005 obituary in the Times by Steven Heller makes note both of his risk-taking and of his success with corporate clients. This image of Times Square shows paradoxically that his talent was not only provocative, it was marketable.