The Friends of Poughkeepsie Library is offering another copy of The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker, this one signed by Michael Crawford, Danny Shanahan, and Peter Steiner. The recipient, May Smith must have said she fancied cats, as Shanahan and Steiner both drew felines on the half title. Crawford, though, was having none of it.
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| The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker AbeBooks listing accessed April 21, 2024 |
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| The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker AbeBooks bibliographic details |
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A copy of The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker (2004) is signed by cartoonistsDanny Shanahan, Liza Donnelly, Peter Steiner, and Michael Maslin. The signing was held at Merritt Books, formerly of Red Hook, New York. The book is not made out to any one recipient and was signed for the book store's inventory. It is now available from Friends of Poughkeepsie Library for $200.
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| The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker AbeBooks listing accessed October 15, 2023 |
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Bookseller Charles Agvent offers an original Gahan Wilson golf drawing set on a driving range. It bears a New Yorker sticker on the verso. Nevertheless, I haven't been able to determine when drawing A7892 was published. There's no caption to look up and the cartoon doesn't appear in the revised edition of The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker, which goes up to 2006. I haven't been able to find it on the websites of the Condé Nast Store, the Cartoon Bank, or CartoonStock either. None of those sites are comprehensive, so it still could have appeared in the magazine or, just possibly, it may have been killed.
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| Gahan Wilson Original carton art |
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| Gahan Wilson AbeBooks listing accessed May 7, 2022 |
The drawing can be had at a $375 discount by purchasing it directly from the seller's website.
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| https://www.charlesagvent.com/pages/books/020888/gahan-wilson/original-cartoon-art |
Note: Readers who know when this drawing was published in The New Yorker—if indeed it was—are urged to come forward.
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| The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker AbeBooks listing accessed July 9, 2022 |
Note: Last month I introduced Docnad's Conjecture, the suggestion that if a book such as this one signed by three New Yorker cartoonists exists, there must be other similar books signed at the same time by this group of cartoonists. It's a hard proposition to disprove, so please don't try, at least not without a doctorate in mathematics. Instead, if you have such a book, please send scans or photos to the email address associated with this blog. David Sirness and Arnie Wilson will thank you.
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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:
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| 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:
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| Embellished for David by, alphabetically and somewhat clockwise from the top, Leo Cullum, Alex Gregory, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Bob Mankoff, and Jack Ziegler |
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| The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker eBay listing accessed March 21, 2021 |
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| 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.
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| https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/2004-12-20/flipbook/084/ |
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We probably signed at the Merritt Bookstore in Red Hook (it's no longer there -- it's now a noodle shop). I have a very clear memory of us all sitting there signing a ton of those books. The lettering "For June!" could either be Liza or me -- I just showed it to her and she leaned to it being her. So, a toss-up, but likely her.
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| Danny Shanahan and Michael Maslin |
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| Liza Donnelly |
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| Peter Steiner |
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Industrial Crises The day a cake of soap sank at Procter and Gamble's Gluyas Williams |
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"Well, back to the old drawing board." Peter Arno
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| Claude Smith |
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| Lee Lorenz |
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"Oh dear! I've got all the husbands and wives separated, but I forgot about the live-togethers." William Hamilton |
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"Do you have any idea who I am?" Edward Koren |
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| "No comment." Jack Ziegler |
The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker
The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker
Zikorn Arts
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| J. B. Handelsman |
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| Henry Martin |
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| Leo Cullum |
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| Edward Koren |
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| Jack Ziegler |
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| J. B. Handelsman eBay Listing Ended May 16, 2015 |
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| Henry Martin |
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| Henry Martin |
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| Henry Martin |
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| Henry Martin |
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| Jack Ziegler |
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| Jack Ziegler |
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| Leo Cullum |
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| Leo Cullum |
