Charles Barsotti (1933-2014)

The last from Charles? (From the June 9/16 New Yorker)
[Click to enlarge]


by Ken

The cartoon for which Charles Barsotti is most famous, New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff reminds us, "has nothing to do with any of [the] 'big questions.' I'm not sure what it has to do with, but I dare you to look at it and not laugh."

Okay, Bob, let's take that dare. (Note: All of the cartoons in this post should be click-enlargeable. But sometimes you just don't know.)



No, quite correct, Bob, it can't be done. Not even in this highly rarefied genre of the pasta-based cartoon. You can't look at it and not laugh. And as you went on to say in your post yesterday, "Thank You, Charles Barsotti": "That, in the end, is the job of the cartoonist. Here’s to Charlie, and to a job well done."

If I read Bob correctly (we'll come to that in a moment), the cartoon atop this post from last week's issue is Charles's last. It is, to put it in technical terms, a beaut. If this is indeed the way he goes out, what a way to go! But then, in this regard Charles cheated. Just about every cartoon of his that was published ("close to 1400" for The New Yorker, Bob M tells us -- yikes!) gave off the feeling that it doesn't get any better than this.

In his remembrance post Bob wrote:

Charlie Barsotti, one of the great cartoonists, died today. Charlie drew close to fourteen hundred cartoons for The New Yorker over the years, beginning in the nineteen-sixties and continuing right through last week’s issue.

With the minimum number of lines, Charlie could extract the maximum number of ideas.

And he broke those ideas down into categories of "big ideas," of which he provided stellar samples.

"About inequality"


"Truth"


"Love"


"Politics"


"And Religion"


Then there's this unclassified cartoon, perhaps intended to showcase Charles's vast, ever-loving dog cartoon genre


I've sort of established as a set title format for remembrance posts: just the full name and dates. In this case, though, I would happily have followed Bob with his "Thank You, Charles Barsotti."


Books by Charles Barsotti
From his website (links onsite)

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